Cameron felt the exact second the air in the room shifted. The warm, teasing woman in his arms suddenly went completely rigid, the hand trapped beneath his turning as stiff as a board. When she dropped her gaze and her voice fractured into that tiny, trembling whisper, the heavy haze of arousal vanished from his brain instantly, replaced by a sharp, physical ache right in the center of his chest.

Please don't be mad. Please don't leave.

Hearing those words—hearing the genuine, breathless panic in her voice over a simple boundary—shattered him. The idea that she thought he would ever get angry at her for saying no, that he would just get up and walk out of her apartment because he didn't get his way, made him feel sick to his stomach. He hated that he had ever given her a reason to doubt that she was safe with him.

He moved immediately to shut the fear down.

He didn't pull away—he knew the sudden loss of contact would only trigger her panic more—but he deliberately shifted his hips back, rolling fully onto his side to remove the heavy, demanding pressure of his body against hers. He released her hand from where it was pinned against his pelvis, but he didn't let it go; instead, he brought her hand up to his chest, flattening her palm right over his racing heart so she could feel him.

With his other hand, the one still gently cupping her jaw, his large thumb began a slow, soothing sweep across her cheekbone.

"Hey," he murmured, his voice incredibly soft, stripped of all the husky heat from a moment ago and filled only with a deep, grounding tenderness. "Luce. Hey, look at me."

He waited until she forced her eyes open, making sure she could clearly see his face in the silver light. He wanted her to look at him and see that there was absolutely no frustration in his dark eyes, no trace of disappointment, and no coldness. There was only absolute, unwavering devotion.

"I'm not mad," he promised fiercely, his thumb continuing its steady, rhythmic stroke against her skin. "I could never be mad at you for that. I told you earlier, I didn't expect to go all the way tonight either. You don't have to do anything you aren't ready for."

He leaned in, pressing a long, impossibly gentle kiss to her forehead, letting his lips linger against her skin so she could feel how steady and calm his breathing was.

"You don't ever have to apologize for telling me to stop, sweetheart," he whispered against her hair, his thick arm tightening around her waist to pull her flush against his side again, tucking her safely against him under the duvet. "I meant what I said. I'm not walking out that door. I'm right here."

When she nervously rambled out her suggestions—movies, terrible cards, talking—a soft, genuine smile broke across his face, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He felt the tension slowly beginning to bleed out of her smaller frame, and it was the best thing he’d felt all night.

"Talking sounds perfect," he agreed softly, his chest rumbling beneath her cheek in a comforting vibration. He shifted his grip, tangling his heavy legs comfortably with hers under the covers and pressing a soft kiss to her temple. "Six years is a lot of ground to cover. But if we run out of things to say, I will gladly let you beat me at whatever terrible card game you've got in the living room. I'm yours for the rest of the night, Lucy. However you want me."

The relief hit Lucy so hard it almost made her laugh.

Not because any of it had been funny.

Just because the tight, awful knot that had seized in her chest a second ago loosened so suddenly that her whole body didn’t seem to know what to do with the leftover adrenaline except shake it out in the smallest, breathiest exhale against him.

He wasn’t mad.

He wasn’t pulling away.
He wasn’t going cold.
He wasn’t leaving.

He was just… holding her.

Still warm. Still gentle. Still right there.

And God, that did something dangerous to her in an entirely different way.

Lucy kept her hand where he’d placed it against his chest, her palm spread over the steady thud of his heart beneath her fingers, and for a few quiet seconds she just stayed there letting herself feel it—his heartbeat, his thumb moving over her cheek, the firm safety of his arm around her waist, the fact that he had met her fear with tenderness instead of frustration.

That alone almost undid her worse than the panic had.

When he kissed her forehead and told her she never had to apologize for stopping him, Lucy shut her eyes for a second and let the words settle somewhere deep.

Then, very slowly, the tension began to leave her face.

Her shoulders softened first.
Then her mouth.
Then the worried little line between her brows eased until something much smaller and sweeter took its place.

By the time he said I’m right here, she was smiling.

Tiny at first.

Then a little more.

Then enough that when she finally tipped her face up to look at him, it was there plain as day—relief, affection, and a little bit of shy embarrassment all tangled together.

“Well,” she murmured, her voice still soft but steadier now, “that was… deeply unfair of you to handle that so well.”

A faint, crooked little smile pulled at her mouth.

“Like, actually kind of rude.”

Her thumb moved once under her palm against his chest, like she was grounding herself in him now instead of bracing against him, and she let out a tiny breath through her nose.

“Because now I have to add emotionally safe in a crisis to the list of things I’m annoyed about.”

That got a little more life back into her voice.

A little more Lucy.

Her cheek rested against him for another second before she pulled back just enough to look at him properly, her expression warmer now. Softer. A little more herself by the second.

“And for the record,” she added, quieter, more sincere now, “thank you.”

No joke over that one.
No save.

Just true.

Then, because staying too still in tenderness for too long had always made her feel like her skin was too tight, Lucy shifted and sniffed once, lightly, like she was resetting herself back into the world.

“Okay,” she said, a little more awake now. “Talking, I can do.”

A beat.

“Talking is very respectable. Very mature. Very PBS after-school special of us.”

That finally pulled a real little grin out of her.

She untangled herself carefully from his arms—not in a way that felt like retreat, just with the easy familiarity of someone moving around her own room—and slid out of the bed, bare feet touching the floor with a soft whisper against the rug.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said automatically, already crossing toward her dresser.

Then she glanced back over her shoulder and added, dryly, “Actually, you physically cannot if you want to stay under that blanket, so that feels unnecessary.”

The room had gone quiet in that cozy, after-midnight way now. Not tense. Just soft. The bedside lamp still cast everything in warm amber light, and Lucy moved through it looking more like herself than she had all night—hair a little messy, cheeks still pink, the adrenaline gone out of her enough that comfort had started taking over.

She pulled open her dresser drawer and started digging around.

“You can pick the topic,” she said as she searched. “We can do the normal post-near-emotional-collapse options.”

She found a pair of little worn sleep shorts and tugged them free with one hand.

“Town gossip.”
A second later, she found an oversized faded T-shirt and held it up triumphantly.
“Your weird years in baseball.”
She tossed the shirt onto the bed.
“My weird years in Bedford Falls.”
A pause.
“Mutual ranking of which people from high school absolutely peaked in the junior parking lot.”

That one made her smile to herself.

She peeled on the shorts first, then pulled the oversized shirt over her head, disappearing into it for a second before her face popped back through the collar. It swallowed her in that soft, old, lived-in way favorite shirts always did, hanging off one shoulder for a second before she fixed it.

By the time she pushed her hair free and turned back toward him, she looked softer now. Smaller somehow. Cozier.

Safer.

And maybe that was the whole point.

“I do feel like,” she said, walking back toward the bed, “you owe me at least one really good story from whatever deeply masculine, emotionally avoidant baseball universe you were living in for the last several years.”

She climbed back under the duvet and immediately tucked herself back against his side like she’d never left, one knee hooking lightly over his leg under the covers.

No hesitation now.

Just instinct.

Her hand found his chest again, this time more lazily, and she tipped her chin up to look at him with a smile that had fully come back into place.

“Like, I want specifics,” she said. “I want to know if there was a coach with a terrifying mustache. I want to know if anybody ever punched a locker. I want to know if you had one emotionally repressed roommate who listened to country music in complete silence.”

A tiny pause.

Then, with a softer smile:

“Or…”

Her fingers shifted lightly against his shirt.

“You can tell me something real.”

That landed quieter.

Warmer.

She held his eyes for a second, her voice gentler now, no longer joking just to fill space.

“Something nobody here knows.”

Then, because she was still Lucy and could only let something sit in sincerity for so long before instinct kicked in again, her mouth twitched.

“But if you say I actually love documentaries or something equally disappointing, I am absolutely judging you.”

Cameron looked at her for a second after she said it—emotionally safe in a crisis—and the laugh that came out of him was soft enough not to break the room.

Not because it was funny, exactly.

Because the relief in her was so plain. Because he could feel it where her hand rested over his heart. Because he’d watched the fear leave her face in pieces and something in him was still a little wrecked that she’d trusted him enough to let him see it happen.

“Yeah,” he murmured, mouth tipping at one corner. “Real inconsiderate of me.”

But when she thanked him—quiet, sincere, no joke over it—his expression changed.

The smile eased. Something steadier settled in behind it.

That one he felt low.

He covered her hand with his for a second, just pressed it a little closer against his chest like he needed her to know he’d heard the full weight of it.

“Always,” he said softly.

It slipped out that simple. Like the answer had been waiting there already.

Then she shifted, started piecing herself back together in that very Lucy way—humor first, then movement, then acting like if she just kept talking long enough she could keep tenderness from getting too big in the room—and Cameron let her.

Didn’t stop her when she slid out of bed. Didn’t pretend the sight of her padding barefoot across the room in the warm lamp light wasn’t doing anything to him.

It was doing a lot, actually.

Especially when she looked back over her shoulder and told him not to go anywhere before immediately correcting herself because he was trapped under the blanket anyway.

That got a real grin out of him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, settling back into the pillows with a look that said he had no problem being told what to do by her under these exact circumstances.

The room had gone soft in the nicest way by then. Quiet and warm and lived-in. The kind of after-midnight hush that made everything feel smaller and more private. Cameron stayed where he was, one arm stretched across the bed, and watched her move around the room with that same disbelieving fondness that had been catching him off guard all night.

The dresser. The old T-shirt. The sleep shorts. The way her hair got briefly swallowed and then shaken free again.

There was something so intimate about the ordinariness of it that it nearly got him worse than the heavy stuff had.

Not because it was sexy—though it was, in a way that had his brain working very hard not to say something that would undo all her newly returned calm.

Because it was domestic. Because it was Lucy in her own room, dressing for comfort with him still in it. Because she looked smaller somehow in the oversized shirt, softer, more unguarded, and Cameron had the sharp, ridiculous thought that he could get used to this far too easily if he let himself.

Then she came back.

Not careful. Not hesitant.

Just slid under the duvet and back into his side like it was the most natural thing in the world, knee hooking over his leg, hand finding his chest again like she’d never taken it away.

That did him in all over.

He tucked the blanket more securely around her on instinct, one hand dragging slow and warm over her back before settling there, and listened while she laid out her menu of possible conversation topics with that half-dry, half-sleepy little authority of hers.

Town gossip. His weird baseball years. Her weird Bedford years. A ranking of who peaked in the junior parking lot.

By the time she got to the emotionally repressed roommate listening to country music in silence, Cameron was laughing under his breath.

“Oh, that guy was definitely real,” he said. “Had a truck, two duffel bags, and one facial expression. Lived on sunflower seeds and pure avoidance.”

He glanced down at her, warm amusement still in his face.

“And there was a coach with a mustache, since that feels important to you. Thing looked like it called bunts on its own.”

That earned him another smile from himself before it softened.

Because then she gave him the other option.

Or you can tell me something real.

And Cameron felt the shift in the room the second it left her mouth.

Not heavier. Just truer.

He looked at her for a beat, one thumb moving slow over her side through the T-shirt, and when he spoke this time his voice had gone quieter.

“You want the real one?”

It wasn’t a stall. Wasn’t him trying to get out of it.

Just making sure. Because he’d figured out by now that Lucy could ask for the truth and still deserve to know you understood what she was offering when she did.

When he kept talking, it was with his eyes still on her face.

“Okay.”

A breath moved through him first.

Not dramatic. Just enough to make space for it.

“Nobody here knows I almost came home way sooner than I did.”

His hand stayed steady on her back. His voice did too.

“I thought about it a lot, actually. More than once.”

He looked up toward the ceiling for a second, not to avoid her, just to find the shape of the memory before he gave it to her.

“Freshman year I kept tellin’ myself everything just felt off because it was new. New place, new team, new coaches, all that.” He huffed softly. “Then sophomore year came and I was still waitin’ on it to start feelin’ right.”

His gaze dropped back to hers.

“It wasn’t that baseball was bad. It wasn’t. I loved parts of it. I was good at it. Better than good, some days.”

A small shrug.

“That almost made it worse.”

Because then he had to explain it.

Cameron’s fingers shifted lightly against her back, not restless exactly—just something to do with the feeling of saying it out loud.

“Everybody down there knew the version of me that made sense on paper. Scholarship guy. Starting pitcher. Easy to get along with. Good in interviews.” His mouth pulled faintly, humorless this time. “Real clean, real useful version.”

A beat.

“But there were a whole lotta nights I’d get back from a game and sit in my truck in the parking lot for twenty minutes before I could make myself go inside.”

He could still see it if he let himself. The steering wheel. The dark lot. The stupid hum of the dash lights.

“I’d just sit there thinkin’.” He glanced down at her. “Which, historically, has not been my best hobby.”

That got the smallest flicker of a smile back into him before it faded again.

“And mostly I was thinkin’ about home.”

Not just the town. Though that too.

The roads. The air. The shape of things he knew without looking.

And her.

He didn’t say that part right away. Then decided there wasn’t much point pretending around it.

“And about you,” he said, quiet and clean.

No flourish. No sidestep.

“Not in some dramatic movie way. Just…” He exhaled through his nose. “You were tied up in all of it. Main Street, that bell over your parents’ shop door, you shoving a milkshake at me when I was in a bad mood, the way you used to look at me like you could tell when I was full of shit before I’d even opened my mouth.”

His arm tightened around her the smallest amount, just enough to pull her a fraction closer like he was grounding himself in the fact that she was here while he said it.

“I missed home, sure. But I think what really got me was realizing I’d blown up the one place I ever felt the most like myself in it.”

That sat between them quietly.

He didn’t rush to cover it.

Outside, somewhere beyond the window, a car moved faint and far away. The room stayed warm. Her knee stayed over his leg. Her hand still rested over his heart.

Cameron swallowed once.

“I didn’t come back right away because part of me wanted to,” he said. “And part of me knew if I did, I’d just be the same idiot standing in front of you hoping being sorry would magically be enough.”

His mouth tipped a little at that. Sadder than amused.

“And it wasn’t. Wouldn’t’ve been.”

So he’d stayed away. Grown up the long way. Learned things later than he should have.

He looked at her again, softer now.

“I don’t think anybody here knows how scared I was to come back either.”

A small pause.

“Not of town.” His thumb moved once against her side. “Of you.”

That one he let land plain.

“Of seeing you and finding out you looked right through me.” He gave the faintest shake of his head. “Or worse—finding out you were still you and I’d just missed my chance to ever know that version.”

There was no self-pity in it. Just truth.

And because this was Lucy, and because she’d told him if he tried to get away with something disappointing she was going to judge him, Cameron added, quieter and a little more crooked now:

“Also, for the record, I do kind of love documentaries.”

That brought the warmth back to his face just enough to save them both from drowning in it.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her hairline, slow and absentminded, then settled back against the headboard with her still tucked into him.

“But that’s not the real secret,” he murmured.

His hand smoothed once over her back again.

“The real one is I was lonely a lot longer than I admitted. And not because I didn’t have people around.” He looked down at her. “Because none of ‘em were you.”

There.

That was the center of it.

Simple enough that it hurt a little. Simple enough that it sounded true because it was.

Cameron held her gaze after saying it, not dressing it up, not running from it, and the look in his eyes was open in that quiet, dangerous way he only seemed to get around her when he quit trying to be anything but honest.

Then his mouth tilted faintly.

“So,” he said, gentler now, “that enough of a deeply masculine, emotionally avoidant baseball story for one night?”

His fingers brushed lightly under her jaw, coaxing her face up a little more toward his if she wanted it there.

“Or you want me to start naming names from the junior parking lot list too?”

The smile in his voice came back then, soft and low and warm enough to wrap around the edges of everything heavy he’d just said.

Not to undo it. Just to hold it.

Because that was the rhythm between them tonight, apparently: the truth, then the tenderness, then the little laugh that made it survivable.

And Cameron, with Lucy curled against his side in the quiet of her room and her hand still over his heart like she trusted it there, found that he could live inside that rhythm for a very long time if she kept letting him.

Lucy didn’t say anything right away.

She just… looked at him.

Really looked at him.

Not the easy version she’d been letting herself see all night—the one that joked, that kissed her in doorways, that let her tuck herself against him like no time had passed. Not even the careful version that had handled her panic without flinching.

This one.

The one that had just handed her all of that without trying to soften it.

Without trying to make it sound better than it was.

Without trying to win anything from it.

Her eyes stayed on his face, searching a little like she was trying to line up this version of him with the one she used to know, the one she had spent years being angry at, the one she had convinced herself she understood completely.

And for a second—just a second—she looked a little stunned.

Not in a fragile way.

Just… caught off guard.

Because Cameron didn’t do halfway honesty.

Not like that.

Not back then.

Her fingers pressed a little more firmly into his chest without her realizing she was doing it, like she was grounding herself again—but this time not because she was afraid.

Because she was processing.

Because what he’d just given her mattered.

When he said he almost came home sooner, her brows knit faintly. Not in anger—just in quiet surprise. And when he kept going, when he talked about sitting in his truck, about it not feeling right, about missing home—

about missing her—

Lucy’s expression shifted again.

Softer.

But not easier.

Because that part didn’t just land.

It echoed.

She held his gaze when he finally looked back at her, didn’t look away when he said he’d been scared to come back. Didn’t flinch when he admitted he was scared of her.

That one almost got her.

Not because it hurt.

Because it fit.

Because she could see it.

Because if she was honest, she had spent years being exactly the kind of person he’d been afraid to come back to.

And she didn’t regret that.

But hearing him say it out loud—

that he knew—

that he understood what he’d been walking back into—

that mattered more than she expected it to.

Lucy inhaled slowly, her chest rising where it rested against his side, and for once she didn’t rush to fill the space with something lighter.

Didn’t deflect.

Didn’t joke it off.

She let it sit.

Let him sit.

Her eyes flicked briefly over his face again, like she was taking inventory of him in a different way now, and when she finally spoke, her voice came quieter. Steadier. Still Lucy—but less guarded than usual.

“…wow.”

It wasn’t dismissive.

It wasn’t flippant.

It was honest.

Her mouth pulled slightly to one side, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with the weight of what he’d just said but wasn’t going to pretend it hadn’t landed.

“You really just—” she exhaled softly, a faint shake of her head, “—went ahead and did the whole thing, huh.”

There was the smallest trace of a smile in it, but it didn’t undercut the moment.

If anything, it made it more her.

Her hand shifted against his chest, fingers spreading a little flatter this time, more intentional now. Less instinct. More choice.

“I asked for something real,” she said, eyes still on his, “and you just… dropped the entire emotional archive on me.”

A beat.

“Which, for the record, I appreciate.”

That part came more plainly.

More directly.

She wasn’t backing away from it.

She wasn’t shrinking from what he’d said or pretending it hadn’t mattered.

Lucy shifted slightly against him, pushing herself up just enough so she could see him better, her chin tilting, her gaze still steady and searching in that quiet, perceptive way that had always been hers.

“I didn’t know that,” she admitted.

Not accusing.

Not hurt.

Just… honest.

“About you almost coming back. About it not feeling right there.”

Her thumb moved once against his shirt, small and thoughtful.

“I mean, I knew you loved it. Or at least I thought you did.” A faint breath of a laugh left her. “You always looked like you belonged anywhere people were watching you.”

There was no bite in it.

Just memory.

Then her expression shifted again—something more serious settling in.

“And I definitely didn’t know you were sitting in your truck thinking about… all of that.”

About her.

She didn’t say it again out loud.

Didn’t need to.

It was already sitting there between them.

Lucy held his gaze for another second, then let out a quiet breath and shook her head just slightly, more to herself than to him.

“That’s…” she paused, searching for the right word and not settling for something easy, “that’s a lot.”

Not too much.

Not overwhelming.

Just… real.

Her eyes softened a little after that.

Not pity.

Not even forgiveness, exactly.

Something closer to understanding.

“You were right, though,” she said, voice still low but more grounded now. “If you had come back then… it wouldn’t have worked.”

She didn’t say it harshly.

Didn’t soften it either.

“You would’ve still been you. And I would’ve still been…” her mouth tipped faintly, “a little terrifying, probably.”

That got the smallest flicker of humor back into her eyes.

Then it faded again into something quieter.

“I wouldn’t have known what to do with you being sorry,” she added. “Not back then.”

A beat.

“I didn’t even really know what to do with myself.”

That one came softer.

Less practiced.

More honest than she probably meant it to.

Lucy shifted a little closer into him again after that, not retreating from the moment—just settling back into it, like she’d decided she could sit here with him and not feel like she had to brace for what came next.

Her hand stayed over his heart.

Her gaze stayed on his.

And when she spoke again, there was something warmer threading through it now.

“You being scared of me, though…” she huffed a tiny breath, almost a laugh, “that feels fair.”

Her brows lifted just slightly.

“I was absolutely gonna ruin your life if you showed up acting like nothing happened.”

Not a joke.

Not entirely.

But not cruel either.

Just… true in the way Lucy always was when she wasn’t hiding.

Then her expression softened again.

More than before.

“You didn’t, though,” she said.

That part mattered.

“You didn’t come back like that.”

Her eyes moved over his face again, slower this time.

Taking him in.

The version of him that had come back.

The version that had stayed.

The version that had just told her all of that without trying to make himself look better than he was.

“I think I needed you to not,” she admitted quietly.

A small pause.

“Because I wouldn’t be able to sit here like this with you if you had.”

And there it was.

Not dramatic.

Not overwhelming.

Just… clear.

Lucy let that sit between them for a second, then her mouth twitched faintly again as the edge of her usual self came back just enough to keep things from tipping too far into heavy.

“And also,” she added, a little softer, a little lighter, “you admitting you love documentaries after all of that is honestly the most offensive part.”

That earned him a small, genuine smile from her.

But her eyes didn’t leave his.

Didn’t lose that steady, grounded warmth.

She shifted her hand slightly, her fingers curling just a little into his shirt this time instead of laying flat.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said.

Simple.

Direct.

Real.

Then, after a beat, quieter—

“I’m really glad you came back when you did.”

Lucy didn’t move away after that.

She stayed tucked into him, her hand still resting over his heart, her fingers lightly curled into his shirt like she’d decided—quietly, without saying it out loud—that this was where she wanted to be while she answered him.

Her eyes drifted for a second, not away from him exactly, just… inward.

Like she was sorting through where to start.

Then she let out a soft breath through her nose.

“Okay,” she murmured. “Your turn to get the extended version, I guess.”

There was the faintest hint of a smile in it, but it wasn’t a deflection this time. Just Lucy easing herself into something that mattered.

“I didn’t do anything… dramatic,” she started, voice steady but quieter now. “No big reinvention. No running off to New York or suddenly becoming some tortured art student with a cigarette and a terrible haircut.”

Her mouth twitched slightly.

“Which feels like a missed opportunity, honestly.”

Then she glanced back at him, just briefly, like checking he was still right there with her.

He was.

So she kept going.

“I tried the normal things first,” she said. “Like I was supposed to.”

Her thumb shifted absently against his chest.

“I signed up for classes at the community college in Nashville for a semester. Thought maybe I just needed to get out of town a little, sit in a classroom, figure out something that sounded like a real plan when people asked.”

A small pause.

Her nose wrinkled faintly.

“I hated it.”

Not dramatic. Just honest.

“Not the people. Not even the work. Just… sitting there. Being told what I was supposed to care about. It felt like I was watching someone else’s life happen and waiting for it to feel like mine.”

She shrugged one shoulder slightly against him.

“So I stopped.”

No apology in that.

No regret either.

“Which was a whole thing with my parents for about six months,” she added, a little dry now. “My dad kept saying the word structure like it was going to magically fix me.”

That got a faint, softer breath of a laugh out of her.

Then it faded again.

“I tried dating.”

That one came more casually, but there was a weight under it.

“Not… a lot. Just enough to prove to myself I could.”

Her eyes dropped briefly to where her hand rested against him, fingers tracing a small, absent pattern into his shirt.

“Apps first,” she said. “Which was… deeply humbling.”

A beat.

“Turns out there are a lot of men who think holding a fish is a personality.”

That pulled a real, small smile from her, the corner of her mouth lifting.

“And then a couple actual dates. Real ones. Dinner, drinks, polite conversation, all of that.”

She exhaled softly.

“They were fine.”

Which, somehow, sounded worse than if they hadn’t been.

“No one was terrible,” she clarified. “No disasters. No horror stories.”

A pause.

“Just… nothing.”

Her fingers stilled for a second.

“I kept waiting for it to feel like something. Like I was supposed to be there. And it just…” she shook her head faintly, “…didn’t.”

Lucy didn’t look away from him when she said that part.

Didn’t hide it.

“I think I stopped trying after a while,” she admitted. “Not because I decided I didn’t want anything. I just—”

She hesitated.

Then said it anyway.

“—didn’t trust myself to pick something that wouldn’t end the same way.”

There it was.

Not accusing him.

Not blaming him.

Just… part of the truth.

She let that sit for a second, then eased the weight of it with a small, quieter shift of tone.

“I did have one almost-boyfriend,” she added. “Which sounds worse than it was.”

Her mouth curved faintly.

“He was nice. Really nice. Worked at the hardware store for a while, actually. Knew how to fix everything. My dad loved him immediately, which should’ve been a red flag.”

A beat.

“I broke up with him because he started talking about moving in together after, like… three months.”

Her brows lifted just slightly.

“And I had this very clear moment where I realized I didn’t want to share a kitchen with him. Or a couch. Or a life.”

No cruelty in it.

Just clarity.

“So I ended it.”

She huffed a small breath.

“He took it… pretty hard.”

That one lingered a second longer.

“I felt awful about that.”

Lucy shifted a little closer against Cameron after that, her knee pressing more firmly into his, like she was grounding herself again without even thinking about it.

“Lost a friend too,” she added, quieter now. “Not in a big dramatic way. Just… slow.”

Her eyes softened slightly, but she didn’t look away.

“She got engaged, moved to Knoxville, everything got very Pinterest very fast.” A faint, almost fond exhale. “And I didn’t fit into that version of her life anymore.”

A small shrug.

“We stopped calling as much. Then texting. Then…” she tilted her head faintly, “…nothing.”

She didn’t dramatize it.

But it sat there anyway.

“It felt big at the time,” she said softly. “Like I’d done something wrong. Like I was the kind of person people outgrew.”

A beat.

Then she shook her head just slightly, grounding herself back in the present.

“But it wasn’t like that,” she added. “Just… life moving.”

Lucy’s hand shifted again, her fingers curling a little more firmly into his shirt now, like she was anchoring herself back to him after letting all of that out.

“I think most of it was just… figuring out how to be okay on my own,” she said.

Her eyes came back to his fully then.

Warmer again.

“I got the shop. Started taking photos more seriously. Built this place.” She gestured faintly around them with her chin. “Figured out how to make my life feel like mine without waiting for someone else to fit into it.”

That part held something steadier.

Stronger.

Then, softer—

“And I did get my heart broken a few times.”

A faint, almost amused breath.

“Nothing as catastrophic as you,” she added, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly, not unkind, just… honest, “but enough to remind me I wasn’t completely immune to bad decisions.”

Her eyes stayed on his.

Open.

Not guarded.

Not accusing.

Just real.

“But…” she paused, then let out a small breath, “…I also got a lot better at walking away when something didn’t feel right.”

That mattered too.

She let that sit between them for a second.

Then her thumb moved once over his chest again, slower now, more thoughtful.

“And I got really, really good at being by myself.”

That one came softer.

Not lonely.

Just true.

Lucy held his gaze for a second longer, then her mouth curved faintly again, warmth returning more fully now.

“So,” she murmured, “that’s the thrilling highlight reel.”

A small beat.

“Community college dropout. mediocre dating history. one emotionally confusing almost-relationship. light social fallout. and a minor personality shift toward independence.”

Her brows lifted just slightly.

“Pretty impressive, honestly.”

But the smile she gave him after that was gentle.

Grounded.

And just a little bit proud of herself, whether she meant to be or not.

Cameron didn’t say anything at first.

He just looked at her.

Really looked at her the same way she’d just looked at him—like the room had gone quiet around the truth of what she’d handed over and there was no decent way to rush in on top of it with the wrong kind of words.

Because she’d given him all of it.

Not the shortened version. Not the polished one. Not the cute, self-deprecating little summary she’d tacked on at the end so it wouldn’t sit too heavily between them.

The real stretch of years.

The classes. The dates. The almost-boyfriend. The friend who drifted away. The long, hard work of becoming someone who could hold her own life steady without waiting for another person to come in and validate it.

And God, that landed.

Not just because it mattered. Because it sounded like her.

The way she told it. Dry in places, brutally honest in others, funny exactly where it hurt enough to need softening, but never dishonest. Never once pretending those years had been easier or sadder or prettier than they were.

His hand moved slowly over her back beneath the oversized shirt, warm and unhurried, and Cameron let himself feel the full shape of what she’d said before he tried to answer any of it.

The community college part got him first.

Not because it was dramatic. Because he could see it.

Lucy Corbett in a classroom in Nashville, trying to make herself care because it sounded like something people would approve of. Trying to sit still inside a version of life that looked right from the outside and felt wrong everywhere else.

He could picture the exact way her face would’ve gone flat with patience by week three.

Then the dating.

The apps. The dinners. The polite, fine men who didn’t do anything wrong and still somehow never reached her.

That part tugged somewhere lower.

Not jealousy, exactly. Not the kind a younger version of him would’ve grabbed onto and made selfish. He didn’t have any right to that.

But it still did something to hear it.

To know there had been other men sitting across from her in restaurants, other people trying to make her laugh, other names and faces filling spaces he used to occupy so easily he’d never been smart enough to realize they were sacred.

The hardware store almost-boyfriend got a quiet, involuntary twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Not because he liked the idea.

Because of course the guy had known how to fix things. Of course her dad had loved him. Of course he’d made sense on paper.

And the part that should’ve bothered Cameron—the part about somebody almost moving into her kitchen, almost onto her couch, almost into her life—didn’t land the way he expected.

What landed was Lucy realizing she didn’t want that and ending it anyway.

That was her all over now, wasn’t it?

Not staying just because something was good enough. Not forcing herself deeper into a life she didn’t actually want because it would be more convenient for other people. Not mistaking safety for fit.

He respected the hell out of that.

Even hearing it in bed beside her with her knee over his leg and her hand over his heart.

Especially then.

The friend hurt too, in a quieter way.

Not because he knew the girl well enough to hold a grudge against her or mourn it properly. Just because Lucy had said it so plainly—that awful feeling of being the person people outgrew—and Cameron hated the idea of her carrying that even for a little while.

And underneath all of it was the thing that hit hardest:

She’d built a life.

Really built it. Not waited in it. Not floated through it. Built it.

And she sounded just a little proud of herself at the end, whether she meant to or not, and that nearly undid him in a brand-new way.

His thumb brushed once, slow and thoughtful, over the fabric at her side.

Then he let out a quiet breath.

“That’s not a mediocre highlight reel,” he said finally, voice low and warm in the dim room. “That’s a whole life.”

The words settled between them without any rush behind them.

He meant them exactly as they came out.

He tipped his head slightly against the headboard, eyes still on her face.

“A messy one in places, sure,” he added, the faintest pull of a smile touching his mouth. “A little fish-based trauma. Some emotional property damage. One poor hardware store fella who probably thought he was headed for forever and got a hard no on the shared-kitchen dream.”

That got just enough humor into it to keep the room breathing.

Then the smile softened again.

“But it’s still a life, Luce.”

The nickname slipped out this time without either of them flinching from it. Soft. Familiar. Earned back inch by inch instead of grabbed for.

“And it sounds like yours.”

That mattered more than any single part of the story.

He looked down at where her hand rested over his chest, then back up to her eyes.

“You didn’t just… wait around till something happened to you.” He shook his head once. “You figured yourself out. The hard way, maybe, but still.”

A little more quietly, he added, “That’s not nothing.”

His gaze traced slowly over her face after that—not in a hungry way, not this time, but in that steady, open way he had when he was taking her seriously enough not to rush past her with easy reassurance.

“The class thing makes sense,” he said. “The dating thing too.”

And when her mouth almost twitched like she might joke over it, he got there first, just enough to keep her from having to hide.

“I mean that.” His hand flattened a little more fully against her back. “You don’t do real well trapped in something because it looks respectable. Never have.”

That got a quieter smile out of him.

“You can fake it for about ten minutes if you really commit. Then you start getting that look.”

He didn’t overexplain.

He didn’t need to. She knew the look.

The one where she smiled just enough to be polite while internally setting the entire scenario on fire.

Cameron let that sit for a beat before his expression shifted again—softer, more careful this time.

“And I hate the part where you didn’t trust yourself after me.”

There was no self-pity in it. No fishing for forgiveness.

Just truth.

He took the hit where it belonged.

“I get it,” he said. “I do. But I still hate it.”

Because she had deserved better than that. Better than second-guessing her own choices because of what he had done at eighteen with all the self-awareness of a golden retriever in a varsity jacket.

His mouth pulled faintly at the thought, a little rougher around the edges now.

“And the heartbreak line?” He looked at her, one brow lifting slightly. “Mean.”

A second later the warmth returned to it. “Fair. But mean.”

That got the sting out of the sentence without taking the honesty away.

Then he grew quiet again, eyes moving over her face, her hair, the oversized shirt she’d pulled on like armor and comfort all at once.

“The thing about you getting good at walking away, though…”

He paused there.

Not because he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Because he wanted to say it right.

“I think that’s part of why this works now.”

His fingers moved once against her side.

“Not because I want you halfway out the door.” A faint breath of a smile. “Obviously.”

He tipped his head a little, watching her.

“But because you know how to leave now if something feels wrong. You know how to call it when it isn’t yours. You know how to stop before you disappear inside somebody else’s version of what they want.”

A small shrug.

“And that means every time you stay?”

His eyes held hers.

“I know you mean it.”

That was the center of it for him. Maybe the center of the whole night.

Not just that she was here. That she was choosing it.

Now. As herself. Knowing full well how to walk if she needed to.

That made every soft thing bigger. Not smaller.

It made the hand over his heart feel like trust instead of habit. The bed feel like choice instead of nostalgia. Her letting him into her apartment, her darkroom, her room, her side of the bed feel like something he had no business taking lightly.

Cameron’s arm tightened around her just enough to bring her a fraction closer.

“I like that you got proud of yourself,” he said quietly.

His mouth curved a little when he said it, because she absolutely had, whether she’d tried to disguise it or not.

“At the end there.” He gave her a look. “You did.”

And because he knew her, because he knew the instinct to deny it was probably already loading somewhere behind her eyes, he kept going before she could throw a joke at him.

“You should be.”

Simple. Firm. No room to wiggle out of it.

“The shop. The pictures. This place. The fact that you know what fits and what doesn’t now.” He shook his head once, a little awed in spite of himself. “That’s not small, Lucy.”

Then, more lightly, because the room had earned a little breath again, “Even if your dating résumé is apparently full of men with fish and concerningly early cohabitation goals.”

That got a softer laugh out of him, and this time when it faded he didn’t let the warmth go with it.

The admission about the friend came back to him then, and his hand slid up and down her back once, gentle as a thought.

“I don’t think you’re the kind of person people outgrow,” he said.

He kept his voice low. Matter-of-fact. Like he wasn’t interested in making a speech out of something that deserved better.

“I think you’re the kind they miss later if they’re dumb enough to drift.”

That one came from somewhere very clean in him.

No embellishment. No angle.

Just Cameron Tate, older now, finally able to say the thing straight when it mattered.

His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth and then back to her eyes.

“And for the record,” he added, softer now, “I’m glad none of it made you smaller.”

The classes that didn’t fit. The dates that didn’t land. The people who drifted. The heartbreaks that didn’t take. The years alone.

None of it had shrunk her.

If anything, it had done the opposite.

Made her sharper. Clearer. More herself.

He could feel it all around him in the room.

Then he huffed out a breath and tipped his head back against the headboard for a second like he was collecting himself.

“Also,” he said, tone drying just enough to match hers, “community college dropout is a hell of a branding choice. Very rebellious. Very misunderstood local business owner.”

His eyes cut back to hers, warmer now.

“I’m into it.”

That brought the softness back into the room in exactly the right proportion.

Then Cameron shifted slightly, enough to angle himself more toward her without dislodging her hand from his chest, and looked at her with that same quietly wrecked expression he’d worn half the night whenever she let him too close to the center of her.

“I’m glad I came back when I did too.”

He didn’t dress that one up. Didn’t need to.

Because the rest of it was already there between them: her saying it, him meaning it, both of them knowing too well that if timing had bent wrong by even a little, none of this would’ve happened like this.

He reached up then and tucked a piece of hair back from her face, fingers grazing her temple before settling briefly at the side of her neck.

The touch was intimate in that easy, after-midnight way that belonged to them now.

“When was it?” he asked softly. “The first time you looked at the shop and knew it was yours.”

A beat.

“Not legally. Not paperwork. I mean really yours.”

His thumb moved once under her jaw.

“The first time you stopped feeling like you were borrowing your life and started feeling like you lived in it.”

The question hung there warm and open.

Not because he needed to keep her talking. Because he wanted to know.

Because if this was what the night had become—her hand over his heart, his arm around her, truth traded slow in the dark—then Cameron was greedy for it in the gentlest way possible.

Greedy for all the parts of her he hadn’t earned the first time. Greedy for the stories he never got because he’d left too early and grown up too late. Greedy, now, in the way a man got when he finally understood that knowing someone wasn’t a possession. It was a privilege.

His mouth tipped faintly.

“And after that,” he murmured, “I absolutely want the junior parking lot rankings.”

That got the playfulness back where it belonged, low and easy and wrapped around something steadier underneath.

“Because there are at least four people I’m prepared to argue about.”

He paused, then added with a softer smile, “Maybe five if we’re being honest.”

And Cameron, with Lucy tucked warm against his side and the night stretched wide and quiet around them, found himself wanting exactly what he’d promised her a little while ago:

not to rush, not to push, not to spoil it by asking too much too fast—

just to stay right here and keep learning her until morning made them stop.

Lucy stared at him for a long second after he finished.

Not blankly.

Not because she didn’t know what to say.

Because unfortunately—and she did mean unfortunately—Cameron Tate had just answered her in the most thoughtful, emotionally competent, deeply irritating way possible.

And that was a problem.

A real one.

Because she had spent a truly impressive number of years building a very stable internal case against him, and he was currently in her bed, warm under her hand, looking at her like she was something worth understanding all the way through.

Which was rude.

Her mouth twitched first.

Then she narrowed her eyes at him just slightly, like maybe if she looked annoyed enough, it would somehow undo the fact that he had just said three or four things that landed directly in the center of her chest and sat down there with their boots on.

“You,” she said at last, quiet and pointed, “are being wildly inconvenient tonight.”

There was no real bite in it. Only warmth. Only that Lucy edge that came out whenever she was trying very hard not to let tenderness fully win in public.

Or, apparently, in bed.

Her fingers moved once against his chest, tracing a tiny absent line over his T-shirt before she exhaled softly through her nose.

“Also,” she added, “I hate how annoyingly right you are about the ‘I can fake it for ten minutes and then internally set the room on fire’ thing.”

A beat.

“That was a very invasive observation.”

But she was smiling now. A little. Enough that he’d see it.

And more than that—she wasn’t hiding from him.

She held his gaze instead.

Let him see the fact that everything he’d just said had actually gotten in.

That she’d heard every piece of it.

That she knew when someone was trying to hand her something real and, for once, she wasn’t immediately sprinting for the nearest exit disguised as a joke.

Her expression softened then. Not dramatically. Just honestly.

“I know,” she said more quietly. “About the trust thing.”

Her voice didn’t go fragile. It just went true.

“I know it wasn’t all you. Life did eventually jump in and contribute its own weird little traumas like an overcommitted group project.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“But you definitely got the ball rolling, so congratulations on that legacy.”

That earned itself the tiniest dry note again, but it didn’t take the meaning out of it.

She still meant it.

And he knew she did.

Lucy shifted a little higher against him then, enough to rest more fully on her side so she could see his face properly without having to crane her neck like a Victorian woman dying beautifully on a chaise lounge.

Her hand stayed over his heart.

Like it belonged there.

Like she’d forgotten to be weird about that part.

And then, because he had asked an actual question and apparently deserved an actual answer, she sighed softly and let herself think back.

Really back.

To the shop.

To that Tuesday.

To the version of herself that still hadn’t fully understood she was already in the middle of her own life.

Her eyes drifted past him for a second, not because she was leaving the moment, just because memory sometimes needed a different angle to come into focus.

“It was…” she started, then smiled to herself a little. “It was stupidly small, actually.”

A beat.

“Which feels on brand for me.”

Her voice went softer.

“It wasn’t some big dramatic day. Nobody handed me keys in slow motion while Fleetwood Mac played in the background. There was no spiritual thunderclap.”

Her mouth tipped.

“Which, honestly, feels cheap. I deserved at least one tasteful indie-film montage.”

Then she looked back at him.

“It was raining.”

Of course it was.

“Like really gross Tennessee rain too. That weird cold kind that makes the whole street look vaguely depressed.”

Her fingers moved idly over his shirt while she talked.

“And I’d been there all day because my mom had left early and my dad was in the back doing fake inventory, which is what he calls standing near boxes while listening to sports radio and eating contraband peanut M&Ms.”

She glanced up at him.

“There is an emergency candy drawer, by the way.”

A beat.

“I know that sounds fake, but it is absolutely real and deeply respected.”

Then she smiled a little to herself again.

“And I was up front by myself, and there were no customers, and I remember the heater was making that weird ticking noise like it was threatening to die out of spite…”

Her voice softened more there.

“And I just looked around.”

That was it.

Simple.

She shrugged one shoulder lightly beneath the blanket.

“At the stupid velvet pumpkins. And the shelf I’d repainted twice because the color was wrong. And the display in the front window that I’d rearranged three times because I hated all the spacing.”

Her eyes flicked back to his.

“And I had this very unsexy realization that nobody was coming to hand me a more official life.”

That one sat there for a second.

Then she added, quieter—

“That if I kept waiting for something bigger or more impressive or more explainable to happen, I was gonna miss the fact that I was already standing in something I loved.”

Her expression changed a little after that.

Softer. Less defended.

“It was the first time I didn’t feel like I was helping with someone else’s dream.”

And there it was.

The center of it.

Lucy looked at him for a beat longer after saying that, then gave the smallest little shrug like she hadn’t just casually handed him the blueprint of her adult life in one sentence.

“So,” she said dryly, “obviously I went in the back and cried for, like, four minutes.”

A beat.

“Very graceful. Very business owner of me.”

Her nose wrinkled.

“There was also a box of ceramic geese back there at the time, which really took a lot of dignity out of the moment.”

That got a little smile out of her again.

Then softer—

“But yeah.”

She looked back at him fully then.

“That was the first time it felt like mine.”

A pause.

“The first time I felt like mine, probably.”

That one she didn’t cover with a joke.

Didn’t rush to soften.

Just let it sit there between them.

Warm and a little vulnerable and real enough that she could feel it in the quiet.

Then she caught the look on his face and immediately had to ruin it a little for self-preservation.

“Anyway,” she murmured, “that was very vulnerable of me.”

Her brows lifted.

“So I’m gonna need you to either kiss my forehead or say something mean about Tyler McKinney to restore balance.”

A beat.

“Those are your only respectful options.”

But she was smiling when she said it. Really smiling.

And before he could answer, she went on, because if he had truly invited the junior parking lot rankings into the room, then that was on him.

“You absolutely cannot argue with me about Tyler, by the way,” she informed him, now speaking with the grave authority of a woman discussing war history.

“He was insufferable.”

Her eyes widened slightly for emphasis.

“He had the confidence of a man who got called handsome by one emotionally unstable aunt at a barbecue and then built an entire personality around it.”

She looked at Cameron very seriously.

“And the body spray situation was criminal.”

A beat.

“You could taste him in the air from thirty feet away.”

Then she continued, getting a little more animated now, because apparently this was what she did with emotional intimacy—she followed it directly with deeply committed social analysis.

“Rachel Hensley is obviously top three, but she loses points because her breakdown over the duplicate Steve Madden wedges at homecoming was, while unhinged, technically iconic.”

Her mouth twitched.

“She recovered beautifully. I respect resilience.”

Another finger lifted against his chest.

“Travis Cole is absolutely on the list because he spent all of junior year leaning against his truck like he was in a country music video no one had financed.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“He had one chain wallet and thought it made him mysterious.”

Then she paused.

Looked at him.

And smiled in that sweetly dangerous way that meant he was about to become collateral damage.

“And yes,” she said softly, “you were on the list.”

A beat.

“But not in the same category.”

Her fingers curled lightly into his shirt again.

“You were your own separate issue.”

Lucy’s smile deepened, small and fond and impossible to miss now.

“You were in the ‘too charming to be allowed near emotionally vulnerable teenage girls unsupervised’ category.”

Her brows lifted.

“Which, frankly, was worse.”

Then, a little quieter—

“More dangerous.”

She held his gaze when she said that one.

And there was humor in it, yes. But something else too. Something warmer. Something truer.

Because that had been the thing about him back then, hadn’t it?

Not just that he was pretty, or popular, or good at being liked.

It was that he had always made people feel chosen too easily.

And when you were seventeen, that could look a whole lot like forever if you weren’t careful.

Lucy’s expression softened around the edges again after that.

“But,” she added, voice gentler now, “you did at least have significantly less body spray than Tyler McKinney.”

A beat.

“So that helped your overall ranking.”

Then she smiled—really smiled—and settled more comfortably against him, her hand still warm over his heart, her knee still looped over his leg, her whole body relaxed in that quiet, unthinking way it only got when she felt safe enough to stop monitoring every little thing.

And that was maybe the truest part of the whole night.

Not the confessions.
Not the kisses.
Not even the darkroom.

This.

This soft after-midnight stretch of honesty and dry humor and old history being turned over carefully in warm sheets while Bedford Falls slept outside her window.

Lucy looked at him for one more long second, the corners of her mouth still curved.

Then she asked, quieter this time—

“So what was your category?”

A beat.

Her smile sharpened just slightly.

“And be honest, because I promise you I already have a ranking and I will fact-check it.”

Cameron was already gone by the time she got to the ceramic geese.

Not in the catastrophic, can’t-form-a-thought way she’d been knocking him sideways earlier tonight.

In the quieter one.

The more dangerous one.

The kind where she handed him something small and specific and absolutely, unmistakably hers—the rain, the heater ticking, the velvet pumpkins, the ugly little back-room cry that had somehow become the hinge point of her whole life—and he felt it settle so deep in him it almost made his chest ache.

Because of course that was how it happened for her.

Not with fireworks.
Not with applause.
Not with somebody finally showing up to tell her she was doing it right.

Just Lucy, alone in a shop on a wet Tuesday, looking around and realizing no bigger, shinier, more official version of her life was coming.

That this was it.
And that it was enough.
More than enough.

Maybe the first thing that was fully hers.

Jesus.

He looked at her for a second too long after she said it, and when she caught the look on his face and tried to save herself by demanding either a forehead kiss or a mean Tyler McKinney comment, Cameron huffed a soft laugh and leaned in without a word.

He kissed her forehead first.

Slow.
Warm.
The kind of kiss that landed like an answer.

Then he stayed there for half a second, mouth brushing lightly against her skin, and murmured, “You absolutely deserved the tasteful indie montage.”

That got the corner of his mouth lifting before he drew back just enough to look at her again.

“And Tyler McKinney smelled like a department store exploded in the back of a Ford.”

There.

Respectful option fulfilled.
Balance restored.

Mostly.

But the look in his eyes when he settled back against the pillow was still too full of her for the joke to erase much of anything.

Because she’d said the first time the shop felt like hers.
Then she’d said the first time she felt like hers.
And Cameron had no real defense against lines like that. Not from her. Not when she was soft in his arms and smiling like she knew exactly how badly she was getting him tonight.

His hand moved over her back once, dragging warm through the soft cotton of her shirt.

“That Tuesday sounds perfect,” he said quietly.

A beat.

“Not perfect-perfect. Obviously. The weather sounds terrible, and I’m real sorry about the ceramic geese.” His mouth tipped faintly. “But the rest of it.”

He shook his head a little, like he was still picturing it.

“The heater threatening mutiny. Your dad fake-inventorying with contraband candy. You up front fixin’ the spacing on something nobody else would’ve even noticed.” He looked at her then, his gaze warm and steady. “That sounds exactly like the moment it would happen for you.”

Not dramatic.
Not polished.
Just true.

“And for the record,” he added, softer now, “I like that it was small.”

His thumb brushed once at her side.

“Feels more honest.”

Like her.
Like the shop.
Like tonight, really.

That one sat there warmly between them for a second before she launched into Tyler and Rachel and Travis with the full, grave seriousness of a woman defending sacred local history, and Cameron laughed under his breath again—genuine now, loose and easy.

The Tyler description nearly got him.

One emotionally unstable aunt at a barbecue.

He turned his head into the pillow for a second, grinning helplessly, then looked back at her and said, “That is so specific it has to be true.”

And the body spray thing?

He actually winced.

“Yeah, no, that’s fair. There were days you could taste that man in homeroom.” He lifted his brows. “Which, frankly, should’ve been actionable.”

By the time she got to Travis Cole and the chain wallet, Cameron was smiling openly.

Not just because she was funny—which she was, always had been.

Because she’d settled all the way in now.

Her weight against him.
Her knee over his leg.
Her hand over his heart like it had forgotten how to be self-conscious there.

That part undid him quietly while she was busy pretending to hold court over the junior parking lot.

And then she got to him.

Said he’d been his own separate issue.

Said he belonged in the category of boys too charming to be allowed near emotionally vulnerable teenage girls unsupervised.

That did something to his face that he couldn’t stop.

Part laugh.
Part surrender.
Part well, hell.

He dropped his eyes for a second, smiling into the blanket like she’d managed to catch him and call him out in one breath.

“Okay,” he said, looking back up at her. “That one’s fairer than I’d like.”

A little more quietly, with the same warm self-awareness that had been threading through him all night, he added, “Also kind of brutal.”

Not because it wasn’t true.
Because it was.

That had been the problem, hadn’t it?

Not just that he’d been liked.
That he’d liked being liked.
That he’d moved through the world like being chosen and being worth choosing were the same thing, and when you were seventeen and good at sports and everybody in town knew your name, nobody exactly stepped in to teach you the difference.

Lucy had learned it the hard way because of him.
Cameron knew that.
Felt it.

But right now she was smiling when she said it, fondness all through the edges, and he was too stupidly grateful to have her here in his arms to go dark on her over it.

So he let the warmth stay.

When she asked what his category was, though—told him to be honest because she already had a ranking and would fact-check it—Cameron looked at her for a long second like he was genuinely considering the historical record.

Then he exhaled through his nose and said, “Honestly?”

His hand slid up her back and settled between her shoulder blades, holding her a little closer as he thought it through.

“I think I was in the ‘every adult thinks he’s a nice boy and that’s how he gets away with way too much’ category.”

That one came out easy.
Too easy.
Because he knew it in his bones now.

His mouth pulled a little crooked.

“Real dangerous mix. Baseball, manners, and a face that made teachers assume I had good intentions.”

A beat.

“Which, to be clear, I mostly did.” He glanced down at her. “I was just also an idiot.”

That got a small laugh out of him, warmer around the edges than the line deserved.

Then he kept going, because if she wanted honesty, she was getting it now.

“I think I was the guy people trusted too fast.”

The words were quieter.
Not flirty.
Not defensive.

Just plain.

“The guy moms liked. The guy dads didn’t mind drivin’ their daughters around town with. The guy who could stand in somebody’s kitchen and act like he’d never break anything.”

His fingers moved once against her back, almost apologetically.

“And that was the worst part, probably. Not that I was secretly awful.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t. I just… wasn’t as good as the version people were seeing yet.”

That landed softer than the rest.
Closer to the truth than the joke category had.

Cameron looked down at her then, expression gone open again in that way she kept pulling out of him whether he meant to give it or not.

“So my official category?”

He thought about it for another beat, then smiled a little.

“Small-town golden retriever with a truck and no emotional supervision.”

That one he gave her with a straight face for almost a full second before it broke and he laughed.

Because it was true.
Embarrassingly true.

“And before you say anything,” he added, pointing lightly at her with the hand that had been on her back, “the baseball thing should’ve canceled out at least part of the charm problem. I had to wear those awful white pants on purpose. That should’ve counted as a warning.”

The line came warm and low, and when her smile deepened, Cameron felt it like a reward he absolutely did not deserve and was happily taking anyway.

Then his expression softened again.

He tucked his hand back around her, fingertips trailing lightly at the base of her spine beneath the shirt, and looked at her with all the late-night fondness he’d been trying not to drown her in since Cherry Street.

“But you were right about the more dangerous part,” he said quietly.

No dodge.
No grin.

“You weren’t wrong.”

Because she hadn’t been.

Because seventeen-year-old Cameron had made being chosen feel easy.
And easy had looked a lot like forever when you didn’t know better yet.

His gaze moved over her face slowly, soft and full and just this side of too much.

“I hate that I proved you right that way.”

That part he didn’t dress up.

Then, because he wasn’t going to let the room tip too far back into ache when she’d worked this hard to bring them somewhere softer, he nudged her gently with his knee under the blanket.

“But I do appreciate the significantly-less-body-spray footnote.”

His smile came back, low and crooked.

“Feels like an important part of my legacy.”

A tiny beat.

“And I want it on the record that Tyler McKinney still loses.”

He shifted then, just enough to angle down toward her a little more, his nose brushing once near her temple before he kissed the corner of her forehead again—lighter this time, almost absentminded with affection.

When he spoke after, his voice dropped into that quieter register that belonged to the hours after midnight and the space under the covers and the version of him that didn’t seem capable of bullshitting her anymore.

“I think my favorite part of tonight,” he said, “might be hearin’ you talk about the shop like that.”

A small pause.

“Or maybe watchin’ you do rankings like it’s a congressional hearing.”

That brought the teasing back just enough.

Then he looked at her with a smile that softened almost as soon as it arrived.

“No, it’s the shop thing.”

He didn’t hesitate on that.

“The way you knew it was yours.” His thumb moved once against her back. “The way you knew you were.”

That sat in the warm quiet between them for a second.

Then Cameron’s eyes flicked over her face with a more playful glint again, because apparently he had recovered enough to get brave.

“Though for the record,” he murmured, “if I’m gettin’ my own category, I think you need one too.”

A beat.

“Somethin’ like—looks sweet, notices everything, quietly ruins your life in a permanent way.”

His mouth pulled crooked.

“Real dangerous girl, Lucy Corbett.”

And there it was again—that easy, boyish softness under the flirt, the smile that meant he was messing with her a little but only because the truth underneath was already sitting there plain as day.

Because she had ruined him, hadn’t she?
In the nicest way.
In the most lasting one.

He didn’t say that part out loud.

Not yet.

Instead he just stayed there with her in the warm dark, one arm around her, one hand still spread over her back, holding her like he had nowhere better to be—which, right then, he genuinely didn’t.

Then his brows lifted just slightly.

“So,” he said, eyes warmer than his tone, “what happened to the ceramic geese?”

A tiny pause.

“Please tell me they didn’t survive long enough to become part of the permanent inventory.”

Lucy didn’t answer him right away.

Not the geese part.
Not the category part.
Not even the dangerous girl thing—which, honestly, should’ve been addressed immediately on principle.

She just… looked at him.

Properly.

The kind of look that didn’t dodge or soften or joke its way out of anything. The kind that stayed a second too long and said more than she would’ve admitted out loud if you’d asked her to explain it.

Because he kept doing that.

Saying things like you knew it was yours like it wasn’t a small miracle anyone had ever seen her that clearly in the first place.

Saying the way you knew you were like that hadn’t taken her years to figure out in quiet little pieces no one applauded.

And then—casually, like it was just a fact—calling her dangerous.

Her mouth twitched.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, finally, voice soft but edged just enough to feel like her again. “Quietly ruin your life in a permanent way?”

A beat.

“That’s a strong allegation to make while I’m currently being extremely well-behaved.”

But she didn’t pull away when she said it.

Didn’t break the way she was folded into him, her leg still hooked over his, her hand still resting over his chest like it had settled there hours ago and decided not to leave.

If anything, she tucked in a little closer.

Which—unfortunately for her argument—probably supported his point.

Her fingers shifted slightly against his shirt, absentminded, tracing nothing in particular, and her eyes stayed on his for another second before she exhaled softly through her nose.

“Also,” she added, quieter now, “for the record… you’re not wrong.”

That landed simple.

No dramatics.
No deflection.

Just truth.

“You were that guy.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“The moms-loved-you, teachers-trusted-you, ‘he seems like such a nice boy’ guy.”

A small pause.

“And then you’d go and be just emotionally catastrophic enough to keep things interesting.”

There it was.

Dry.
Accurate.
Not entirely unkind.

Her mouth softened at the edges after it, though, the weight of it already settling into something easier between them than it used to be.

“You weren’t evil,” she said, quieter. “You were just… unchecked.”

A beat.

“And seventeen.”

She let that sit there, because it mattered. Because it was true. Because she wasn’t eighteen anymore either, and neither of them were standing in a parking lot pretending feelings were something they could just out-charm or out-run.

Then her gaze flicked back up to his, a little spark returning.

“But I stand by my classification,” she added. “Public safety concern. Should’ve come with a warning label.”

That got her the faintest hint of a smile before it softened again.

“And for the record,” she added, more quietly now, “you don’t get to hate yourself for proving me right back then and also expect me to like you now.”

Her thumb pressed once, lightly, against his chest where her hand rested.

“Pick a lane.”

There was no bite in it.

Just Lucy.

Honest.
Clear.
Not letting him get away with turning himself into something smaller than what he’d grown into just because it was easier to apologize forever than actually accept that he’d changed.

Then—

finally—

she circled back.

To the geese.

Her nose wrinkled again on instinct.

“Oh, they were done for,” she said, immediate and decisive.

Then she shifted slightly, propping herself up just enough to see his face better, her hair falling a little messier around her shoulders as she settled into the story.

“Like… the second the store was legally mine?”

She shook her head.

“I took a hit.”

A small, unapologetic shrug.

“Anything that didn’t fit what I wanted it to feel like—gone.”

Her brows lifted.

“No nostalgia. No ‘but your mom loved this.’ No ‘it’s always been here.’”

A beat.

“Respectfully? I did not care.”

There was a quiet kind of pride in it now. Not loud. Not performative. Just… earned.

“I kept the bones,” she added, softer. “The stuff that felt like it had history without… suffocating everything.”

Her fingers traced a slow line over his shirt again, grounding herself in the feel of him while she talked.

“But everything else?”

Another small shrug.

“Sold it. Donated it. Gave it to people who thought ceramic geese were a personality trait.”

That got the faintest ghost of a grin out of her.

“And then I got a little… obsessive.”

Her eyes flicked back up to his.

“Like, I spend an embarrassing amount of time on eBay now.”

A beat.

“Not casually. Not ‘oh I’ll check this out.’ I mean tracking listings, Cameron.”

Her tone was dry, but there was something lighter underneath it now—something fond.

“I have saved searches. Alerts. I have opinions about shipping prices.”

Another beat.

“I’ve messaged people at two in the morning over a chipped frame.”

She watched his face for a second, like she knew exactly how that sounded.

“And I drive,” she added, quieter now but just as certain, “like… two hours sometimes. Just to go to some random thrift store in the middle of nowhere because someone online said they saw good mid-century stuff there once in 2018.”

Her mouth tipped slightly.

“Fifty percent of the time it’s nothing.”

A pause.

“But the other fifty…”

Her eyes softened a little.

“You find something.”

Not big.
Not flashy.

Just right.

“And then it’s in the shop,” she said. “And it fits. And it stays.”

Her hand settled more fully against his chest again, her weight sinking back into him as she relaxed into the quiet of the room.

“That’s kind of my whole system now,” she murmured. “Get rid of what doesn’t feel right. Go find what does.”

A small beat.

“Repeat.”

She glanced up at him again, a little smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“So no,” she added lightly, “the geese did not make it.”

Another beat.

“They died so the aesthetic could live.”

Cameron had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too early.

Not because she was intimidating him with the warning-label thing.

Because she was doing that Lucy move again—calling him out with one hand and curling closer with the other.

Public safety concern. Pick a lane. The geese were done for.

All of it in the same soft voice while her leg stayed looped over his and her hand kept tracing lazy little patterns against his chest like his heartbeat had become part of her thinking process somewhere in the last hour.

It was getting hard to take any of her complaints seriously.

Not that he planned on telling her that.

At least not right away.

His mouth pulled crooked first, then warmer when she got to the part about taking a hit on the shop inventory the second the place was legally hers. No nostalgia. No mercy. No deference to ceramic birds just because they’d been there longer than she had.

By the time she said they died so the aesthetic could live, Cameron’s laugh had slipped out clean and low into the quiet room.

“Jesus,” he murmured, looking at her like she’d just confessed to a small but deeply justified crime. “Cold.”

The word came out fond.
Admiring, even.

Because she wasn’t really cold about it. Not in the way that mattered. He could hear the care all through the story—the bones she kept, the history she respected, the way she’d made room for the shop to become itself instead of letting it stay embalmed in everybody else’s idea of what it had always been.

That was Lucy all over, wasn’t it?

She didn’t destroy things for fun.
She cleared out what felt dead so something living had room to breathe.

That thought landed in him harder than he expected.

His hand moved up her back slowly, settling between her shoulder blades, warm and broad through the cotton of her shirt.

“And for the record,” he said, quieter now, “you’re right about me picking a lane.”

His eyes stayed on hers when he said it.

No joke over that part.
No shrug.

“I’m not lookin’ for a lifetime pass to keep apologizin’ instead of actually bein’ better.”

That sat there cleanly between them.

Then his thumb brushed once along her side, and the warmth returned to his face.

“So I’ll work on not actin’ like I still deserve detention for crimes committed in the junior parking lot.”

A beat.

“Even if the historical record is not great.”

That got just enough air back into the room to keep it from turning too serious again.

Then he followed her back to the shop.

To the saved searches.
The shipping opinions.
The two-in-the-morning messages about chipped frames.
The two-hour drives on the word of some stranger online who might’ve seen one good chair in a rural thrift store eight years ago.

And God.

That got him worse than it should have.

Not because it was funny—though it was a little.

Because she sounded lit from within when she talked about it.

Not louder, exactly.
Just more precise.
More herself.

Like every part of her that spent the day being charming and capable and dry and well-adjusted quietly gave way to something sharper and more alive the second she started talking about finding the right thing and knowing, instantly, where it belonged.

He loved that.

Way too much, probably.

His gaze drifted over her face while she talked, taking in the little shifts—the almost-smile, the certainty, the lack of embarrassment when she admitted the obsession even while calling it embarrassing.

He let her finish before he said anything.

Then, with a look that was openly wrecked in the gentlest possible way, he said, “See, this is exactly what I mean.”

A tiny beat.

“Dangerous.”

His hand slid from her back to the side of her waist, holding her there while he looked at her like he was assembling evidence in real time.

“You’re sittin’ here tellin’ me—with your whole face lit up, by the way—that you’ve got saved searches and shipping beef and some secret back-road thrift-store circuit like you’re runnin’ a one-woman vintage cartel…”

His mouth tipped.

“…and I’m supposed to act like that’s not gonna permanently alter a man?”

The smile on his face told her he knew exactly how ridiculous he sounded.

The look in his eyes told her he meant every word.

He dipped his head a little, closer now, voice dropping softer.

“You get that, right?” he murmured. “That this is how people end up gone over you.”

Not just because she was pretty.
Not just because she was warm in his bed and funny in the dark and knew how to kiss him until he forgot his own name.

Because she cared about things in a way that made the whole room rearrange itself around her.

Because she made systems out of instinct.
Beauty out of clutter.
A life out of whatever she decided was worth saving.

That was the lethal part.

Cameron brushed his knuckles lightly along her side, then let his hand settle again.

“And I like that you took a hit on the geese,” he added, grin returning. “No hesitation. No mercy. Just—sorry, birds, you no longer serve the vision.”

He made a tiny chopping motion in the air with one hand, then tucked it back around her.

“Real leadership.”

He was teasing, yes.
But under it sat the same admiration as before.

The kind he didn’t know how to hide from her anymore.

His eyes dropped to her mouth for half a second, then lifted back to hers.

“That whole system, though,” he said. “Get rid of what doesn’t feel right. Go find what does.”

He repeated it like he was trying the shape of it out in his own mind.

Then he gave the smallest nod.

“That’s a hell of a system.”

There was something more thoughtful in him now. Something quieter.

Because it wasn’t just about the shop and the geese and the road trips and the eBay alerts.

It was about her.
About everything she’d told him tonight.
About the way she’d learned to walk away from what didn’t fit and keep building toward what did.

And Cameron, lying here with her weight sunk into his side and her hand over his heart like she trusted it there, had a very specific, very humbling thought:

He was grateful as hell to be in the second category.

He didn’t say that part out loud.
Not because it wasn’t true.
Because it felt too big to toss in casually.

So instead he reached up and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger for a second at the side of her neck.

“What was the best one?” he asked softly.

A beat.

“Not the most expensive. Not the most impressive. The one you found and knew immediately you were keepin’ it.”

His thumb moved once under her jaw.

“The thing that made the whole stupid two-hour drive worth it.”

The question was warm, curious, greedy in that gentle way he kept becoming around her tonight—hungry for the pieces of her story that didn’t belong to anybody else.

Then, because he couldn’t help himself, his mouth curved again.

“And if you say some perfect battered old mirror or a chair with suspiciously beautiful legs, I’m countin’ that as cheating.”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead once more, lighter this time, almost smiling against her skin.

Then her temple.

When he drew back, he stayed close enough that she could still feel the warmth of him there.

“Also,” he murmured, “I’d like it officially noted that you say things like ‘the aesthetic could live’ and then expect me not to look at you like you’re trouble.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“That feels unrealistic.”

The line landed exactly where he meant it to—half tease, half confession.

Because the truth was, she had been trouble from the second she started talking.
Not the loud, dramatic kind.
The quieter one.

The kind that got under your skin by being specific and funny and a little ruthless about ceramic geese and then turned around and handed you the blueprint of her whole adult life in bed at one in the morning like it was no big deal.

That was the kind that lasted.

Cameron’s hand spread once more over her back, easing her a little closer into him on instinct, and the smile he gave her after that was soft and fond and entirely too gone for a man who was still, technically, trying to play it cool.

“So no,” he said gently. “I’m not worried about the geese anymore.”

A tiny pause.

“I’m mostly worried about the day you decide my apartment’s got bad bones and start makin’ executive decisions.”

Lucy made a face the second he said executive decisions.

Not a dramatic one.

Just enough.

A tiny squint. The faintest wrinkle of her nose. The kind of expression that said he had said something objectively annoying and unfortunately a little bit charming at the same time.

Which was, frankly, becoming a pattern tonight.

Her fingers stilled for half a second against his chest while she looked at him, and the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that she could feel the heat rising into her face again before she’d even decided what she wanted to say.

Because he kept doing that too.

Saying things in that low, easy voice like one-woman vintage cartel and this is how people end up gone over you and I’m grateful as hell to be in the second category without technically saying the last part out loud, but somehow still managing to make her whole body understand it anyway.

It was deeply irritating.

Her gaze dropped for a second—not away exactly, just down to the space between them, to the soft fold of the blanket, to the place where her hand rested over him like she needed a second to recover some amount of dignity before she looked back up.

When she did, there was a little pink still sitting warm across her cheeks.

“Okay,” she muttered, voice quieter now, edged with a tiny thread of embarrassment she wasn’t going to acknowledge if he valued his life. “You actually need to stop saying things like permanently alter a man like that.”

A beat.

“It’s very…”

She searched for the word and failed in real time.

“…effective.”

That got her nowhere closer to composure.

So she solved it the only way Lucy Corbett ever solved anything that threatened to get too sincere too fast:

she got dry about it.

“And no,” she added, a little more pointedly now, “you’re not allowed to act like I’m some sort of criminal mastermind because I know how to use eBay filters and have standards.”

Her mouth twitched.

“That is called taste.”

Still, she was smiling when she said it.

Small.
Soft.
Not fully under her control.

Because he was looking at her like she was the most interesting thing in the room again, and that had always been annoyingly hard to withstand when it came from him. Maybe harder now, actually, because older Cameron didn’t throw charm around like confetti anymore.

He aimed it.

And worse—

he meant it.

Lucy shifted a little closer into him without really deciding to, the movement happening before she could stop it, her leg sliding a little more comfortably over his and her shoulder settling more fully into the shape of him beneath the blankets.

Then she narrowed her eyes at him slightly.

“And for the record,” she said, “your apartment would absolutely be in danger.”

A beat.

“Not because I’m controlling.”

Another beat.

“Because men always have at least one lamp that makes them look like they’re being interrogated.”

Her brows lifted faintly.

“And I just know—know—you probably own at least one tragic piece of furniture you’re emotionally loyal to for no reason.”

She could picture it too easily.

Some ugly chair.
A weird side table.
A deeply suspicious recliner inherited from a cousin or purchased out of pure masculine confusion.

The thought made her mouth pull into a real smile this time.

“I wouldn’t even do it aggressively,” she added. “I’d be very subtle.”

She lifted one hand from his chest just enough to demonstrate with sleepy little fingers.

“One throw blanket. A lamp. Maybe a better framed print situation.”

A pause.

“You’d wake up one day and just feel calmer without knowing why.”

That got her.

A soft little laugh slipped out of her before she could help it, and she ducked her face briefly into the side of his chest like she could hide it there.

It didn’t work.

Mostly because he was warm and she liked being tucked there more than she should have, and also because she was still, annoyingly, a little pink from the way he’d looked at her a minute ago.

When she finally tilted her face back up, her hair was a little messier, her expression softer.

And this time, when she answered his actual question, she did it without sidestepping.

“The best one?” she repeated, quieter now.

Her eyes drifted for a second—not far, just enough to catch on the dim shape of her dresser, the shadowed corner of the room, the familiar outlines of things she’d picked with her own hands.

Then they came back to him.

“It was this mirror, actually.”

Her voice changed when she said it.

Not bigger.
Just more precise.

“There’s this thrift place outside Franklin that looks like it should absolutely be a front for something illegal.”

A beat.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere. No sign. Just an old white building and one very suspiciously judgmental cat.”

She felt his hand at her back and kept going, the picture of it opening in her head as she spoke.

“And I almost didn’t stop because it was raining and I’d already driven forever and the first room was mostly broken wicker and weird porcelain children.”

Her nose wrinkled at the memory.

“Which is never a good sign.”

Then her face softened again.

“But in the back, leaning against a wall under a stack of ugly seasonal decor, there was this tall old mirror.”

She looked up at him again.

“The frame was chipped in one corner and the gold was all dulled down and kind of perfect.”

A small pause.

“It wasn’t fancy. It just… felt like it had already lived a whole life before it got to me.”

Her fingers traced once lightly over his shirt again, absentminded.

“And the second I saw it, I knew exactly where it was gonna go in the shop.”

Her mouth tipped.

“So naturally I had to drag it to the register alone like some kind of deranged Victorian widow.”

That made her smile again, but softer this time.

“And when I got it home and leaned it against the wall?”

She shrugged, one shoulder lifting against him.

“That was it.”

Her voice lowered just a little.

“The whole front room made sense after that.”

There was a quiet satisfaction in the memory even now, still warm after all this time.

Not because it was a mirror.

Because it had been one of those rare, immediate little yeses.

The kind that didn’t need explaining.

The kind she’d learned, finally, to trust.

Lucy looked at him for a second after that, her face still a little flushed, her expression more open than she probably would’ve let it be if it weren’t one in the morning and warm under the covers and him looking at her like every tiny stupid detail actually mattered.

Then she huffed softly through her nose.

“And before you get too smug,” she added, “no, I’m not telling you where it is.”

Her brows lifted.

“Because the second I do, you’re gonna go in there and look at it all pleased with yourself and I’ll have to die.”

A tiny beat.

“And I live there, so that would be inconvenient.”

But she was smiling when she said it.

Really smiling now.

The kind that sat all the way into her cheeks and made her eyes look brighter even in the low light.

Then, quieter, with less armor around it:

“I like that you asked that.”

That one came out before she could stop it.

She felt it the second it landed between them and almost took it back on instinct.

Almost.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she let herself stay there in it.

Let herself look at him.

Let herself mean it.

“Most people ask what sells the best,” she said softly. “Or what’s worth the most. Or what kind of stuff tourists buy.”

Her fingers curled lightly into the fabric of his shirt.

“You asked what I kept.”

A small pause.

“That’s… different.”

Her cheeks warmed again—God, again—and she rolled her eyes a little at herself before leaning forward just enough to press a quick, slightly shy kiss to the corner of his mouth like she needed to do something with the feeling before it got too obvious.

When she pulled back, her nose brushed his once.

Light.
Affectionate.
Barely there.

Then her mouth curved.

“But if I ever see a recliner in your apartment with cup holders,” she murmured, “I’m leaving you to die in it.”

A beat.

“No executive mercy.”

Lucy’s own smile lingered for a second after she said it, small and helpless at the edges, like she’d accidentally let herself get too soft and was now trying to recover without fully leaving the warmth of it.

She didn’t get very far.

Mostly because he was warm.

And solid.

And because every time she shifted even a little closer, he just seemed to make room for her like it was the most natural thing in the world.

So instead of pretending she was about to say something devastatingly cool and detached, she just let herself sink.

A little deeper.
A little more honestly.

She turned her face into his chest, the soft cotton of his shirt warm against her cheek, and tucked herself in with the quiet, sleepy confidence of someone whose body had already made up its mind about where it wanted to be. Her leg stayed looped over his, her arm slid more securely around his middle beneath the blanket, and she gave a tiny, content little exhale that she absolutely hoped he wouldn’t clock for how embarrassingly comfortable it sounded.

Too late, probably.

Still, she kept her face mostly hidden there, which at least gave her the illusion of control.

From where she was tucked against him, her voice came out slightly muffled and softer than before.

“Give it a month,” she murmured.

A beat.

“Your apartment’s done for.”

Her mouth curved faintly against his chest.

“Subtly,” she added, like that was an important legal distinction. “I’m not gonna, like, storm in there with a mood board and ruin your life in one afternoon.”

A tiny pause.

“It’ll be gradual.”

That made her smile more, and she could feel it where her cheek pressed against him.