Blake's attention never left her face, even when she lowered the champagne glass, even when she looked at him like she was trying to decide whether she wanted to kiss him or cross-examine him. The distinction had always been dangerously thin with Willa. As she talked about British sad boys and minor keys and Robert Smith, he felt the familiar pull of amusement building alongside something softer. She was teasing him, obviously. She was also looking at him with an honesty that made every joke feel transparent around the edges. He could hear the affection underneath it. Could hear the confession tucked inside the mockery. By now, he knew the difference.

The accusation that he was campaigning for the title of favorite British man settled somewhere embarrassingly deep in his chest. He should have had a clever response ready. Something self-deprecating. Something capable of surviving her scrutiny. Instead, he found himself watching the way the evening light caught in her hair and thinking that he would happily lose every argument she ever started if it meant getting to stand here listening to her make them.

When she called him annoying, his smile widened immediately because the look accompanying the insult stripped all venom from it before the words even landed. He saw the way her eyes softened. Saw the heat beginning to thread beneath the affection. Saw the exact moment she stopped pretending she wasn't looking at him. That awareness moved through him slowly, like warmth spreading through cold hands. It wasn't surprise. Willa had never been difficult for him to want. The dangerous thing was how the wanting had only deepened over time. Marriage hadn't dulled anything. It had somehow made every feeling sharper.

The word wife caught his attention exactly the way she knew it would. He felt it every time she said it. Not because it was new anymore, but because it still carried the same quiet shock. Wife. Not girlfriend. Not partner. Not some temporary title waiting for circumstances to change. Wife. The woman standing in front of him with champagne on her breath and mischief in her eyes and more honesty in her heart than she knew what to do with. Wife. The word settled differently every single time, and he suspected it always would.

As she crossed the remaining distance between them, Blake felt his body respond before his thoughts could organize themselves. He noticed her bare feet against the floorboards. The careful way she moved. The complete absence of performance in it. She wasn't trying to be seductive. That was what made it impossible to ignore. Every step felt deliberate because it was honest. She wasn't hiding the fact that she wanted to be close to him. Wasn't disguising it behind humor or distraction. She was simply coming toward him.

Her hand settled against his chest, and Blake's gaze dropped briefly to her fingers before lifting back to her face. When she touched the chain at his neck, when she toyed with it absentmindedly while holding his eyes, he felt a laugh threaten somewhere low in his chest. Not because anything was funny. Because she had no idea how impossible she made it to think when she looked at him like that.

The mention of her imaginary itinerary only confirmed what he already suspected. He listened to her describe a version of the evening built around responsible adulthood, champagne, music, and scenic appreciation, and every word made him more certain she didn't believe any of it herself. The longer she spoke, the more her voice shifted. The more honest it became. The more she revealed without meaning to.

His eyes followed hers when they dipped briefly toward his mouth.

That particular look had never been subtle.

Neither was the feeling that followed it.

By the time she admitted that some of her reasons for marrying him were extremely physical, Blake felt the corners of his mouth tug upward despite himself. Not because the statement surprised him. Because it was so unapologetically Willa. She could deliver a declaration of love and a flirtation in the same breath and somehow make both feel equally sincere.

When her hand rose to his hair, his eyes closed briefly. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel her relearning the shape of him. He knew she liked touching it. Knew she was still adjusting to the change. Knew she was fascinated by it despite all her complaints. The knowledge settled warmly beneath his ribs.

Then came the choices.

Blake listened carefully, not interrupting once.

The first option sounded exactly like them. Cake. Music. Champagne. Long conversations that wandered nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The kind of evening that started with jokes and ended with confessions. The kind of evening they had both spent months missing.

Then came the second option.

The smile that appeared on his face arrived slowly, helplessly, as she leaned closer and lowered her voice. He felt the brush of her fingers against the back of his neck. Felt the warmth of her breath. Felt every bit of affection and longing wrapped around the words she wasn't quite saying outright.

But it was the final part that reached him most.

Not the teasing.

Not the invitation.

The honesty.

I want the honeymoon.

All of it.

The simplicity of that landed harder than anything else she'd said.

For a moment, Blake just looked at her.

Really looked at her.

At the woman who had crossed countries to get here. The woman who had spent half the evening making jokes because the alternative was admitting how much she cared. The woman who loved fiercely enough to survive distance, schedules, exhaustion, and every logistical nightmare two musicians could create for themselves.

His hand rose slowly to her face.

Not rushed.

Not dramatic.

Just certain.

His thumb brushed lightly across her cheek as he held her gaze.

The smile never fully left his mouth, but something gentler settled beneath it.

"You know what's unfair?" he asked quietly. "You spend ten minutes giving a speech like that, and somehow I'm still expected to make a decision."

His hand slid from her cheek to the side of her neck, holding her there with easy familiarity.

"The champagne stays."

His eyes flicked briefly toward the bottle.

"The cake stays."

Then back to her.

"The music definitely stays."

His smile deepened.

"But if you're asking whether I'd rather spend the next hour staring at the view or staring at my wife, I feel like the city has to accept a very distant second place."

The confession came easier than it once would have. Maybe because they were alone. Maybe because she'd already gone first. Maybe because he was tired of pretending he wasn't affected by her.

He leaned forward and rested his forehead lightly against hers.

"I missed this," he admitted, his voice quieter now. "Not Prague. Not the suite. Not even the honeymoon part."

His fingers tightened gently at the back of her neck.

"You."

The word lingered between them.

Simple.

Complete.

True.

Then the seriousness cracked just enough for amusement to return.

"Although," he added, glancing briefly toward the cake, "I do think we'd regret abandoning that lemon frosting. It seems vindictive."

His eyes returned to hers.

"So my official ruling is that we have champagne, cake, music, and my extremely beautiful wife for a little while longer."

The smile that followed was warm and entirely unguarded.

"And after that, we stop pretending we're the sort of people who can be trusted with an expensive honeymoon suite."

Forehead to forehead, Willa let her eyes fall shut for one second longer than was strictly necessary.

Mostly because he had gone and said something devastatingly reasonable, which was rude.

Mostly because his hand was still warm at the back of her neck, and his voice had dropped into that quiet place that made sarcasm feel less like armor and more like something she could take off and leave somewhere for a while.

Mostly because he had said her like it was the entire answer.

That was the part that got her.

Not the compliment. Not the pretty-wife phrasing, though she was absolutely filing that away for later use in arguments and possibly tax purposes. It was the way he made the rest of the world sound optional. Like Amsterdam could wait. Like Krakow could wait. Like all the machinery of both their lives had finally gone quiet enough for them to hear each other breathe.

Her fingers rested lightly against his chest, feeling the steady beat beneath the fabric.

“Okay,” she murmured, mouth curving before she opened her eyes. “First of all, suspiciously competent ruling. Very mature. Very measured. I don’t know what committee approved this version of you, but I’m unsettled.”

She tilted her face just enough that her nose brushed his.

“Second of all, calling me extremely beautiful while making sensible decisions is manipulative, and I will be reporting it to no one because I benefit directly.”

The joke softened as soon as it left her mouth. It had nowhere sharp to land. Not with him this close. Not with the warmth of him settling into her bones. Not with all the missed months gathered between them and, for once, nowhere urgent to go.

She loved him so much it made her ridiculous.

That was the truth of it.

Not neat. Not dignified. Not conveniently shaped for interviews or photographs or whatever story people had decided to tell about them from the outside. She loved him in a way that made her want to kiss him until her lipstick disappeared entirely and also correct his posture and also steal all his hoodies and also stand in front of him, barefoot and overexposed, letting him see every soft, stupid part of her.

It was inconvenient.

It was excessive.

It was hers.

She pulled back only enough to look at him properly, and the sight of him this close sent a low, warm thrill through her that had nothing to do with champagne and everything to do with the fact that she wanted him with a clarity that felt almost luxurious. No guessing. No distance. No pixelated hotel-call version of him.

Just him.

Right there.

Her husband, too pretty for his own good and looking at her like she was something he was allowed to keep.

Willa’s eyes narrowed with affectionate accusation.

“You’re also wrong about one thing,” she said. “We absolutely can be trusted in an expensive honeymoon suite.”

A beat.

Her hand slid slowly down the front of his shirt, stopping just above his waist.

“For maybe eight minutes.”

She stepped away before the heat in her own voice could make her abandon the cake entirely, which would have been understandable but tragic. The cake had not emotionally harassed them for this long to be ignored now.

Willa reached toward it, ignoring all civilized dessert protocol, and broke off a small piece with her fingers. Soft cake, a smear of frosting, just enough to be sweet and dangerous. She held it up between them with exaggerated seriousness.

“Open,” she said, because apparently she had become the kind of woman who gave instructions in hotel suites while music played and her pulse behaved like it had backstage adrenaline in it. “You made a ruling. Now you have to accept consequences.”

She brought the bite to his mouth slowly enough to be deliberate, her gaze fixed on his face as she fed it to him with her fingers. The intimacy of it hit her harder than expected — not dramatic, not performative, just the simple domestic shock of doing something soft and teasing and married.

The frosting caught on her fingertips.

Of course it did.

Willa looked down at the smear, then back up at him.

“Well,” she said, very calmly, despite the fact that her stomach had just done something deeply unprofessional, “we can’t waste it. There are children somewhere being raised without adequate lemon frosting.”

She lifted her hand to her mouth and licked the frosting from her fingers, one slow pass, then another, tasting sugar and citrus and a little bit of the moment itself. Her eyes stayed on him because she had no interest in pretending innocence. Innocence had left the building somewhere around the phrase expensive honeymoon suite.

The sweetness melted over her tongue.

Her smile went softer, warmer, still edged in trouble.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “That cake is going to be a problem.”

She reached for her champagne next, needing the cool glass in her hand mostly so she would not immediately put both hands back on him. The first sip was crisp and bright, bubbles bursting against the sugar still on her tongue. She swallowed, eyes closing briefly at the contrast.

Then she held the glass toward him.

“Here,” she said. “Hydration, but slutty.”

The second the words were out, she laughed under her breath, pleased with herself and fond of him and unbearably aware of the way the evening had folded around them into something loose, intimate, and dangerous in the gentlest possible way.

She waited while he drank, watching the glass, his mouth, the faint trace of champagne left behind. It was unfair how easily the smallest things could undo her when they belonged to him. A sip. A glance. The way he stood close enough that her body kept leaning toward him without waiting for permission.

When she took the glass back, she had another small drink before setting it aside with decisive care.

“Okay,” she said, turning back to him. “Before this turns into us eating cake in one place until we fuse with the furniture, come with me.”

She caught his hand.

Not tugging hard.

Just enough.

An invitation with confidence behind it.

She threaded her fingers through his and drew him toward the windows, closer to the low, shimmering spill of the city outside. The music deepened around them, slow and aching, the kind of song that made everything feel a little more dramatic than it had any right to be. Willa loved that. She liked drama when it knew how to behave. She liked romance when it had dirt under its nails.

She liked this most of all: his hand in hers, his body following easily, the shared silence that did not need filling because she was already turning into him.

Near the glass, she faced him and lifted their joined hands between them.

“We are dancing now,” she informed him. “Not because I’m sentimental. Because I’m full of cake and champagne and I need to make several questionable choices in a controlled environment.”

Her free hand settled at his shoulder, then drifted to the back of his neck with the easy familiarity of someone who had touched him in enough cities to know exactly where she wanted him. She stepped in close, close enough that their bodies found the rhythm before either of them had to think about it.

It was not elegant.

Not really.

It was barely dancing at first. More swaying than anything, her bare feet shifting against the floor, her body tucked close to his, the music moving around them in dark, romantic waves. But it was theirs. That made it better than elegant. Better than polished. Better than anything anyone could have staged.

Willa tipped her face up toward him, eyes bright, mouth curved.

“Look at us,” she said softly. “Aren’t we disgusting?”

Her fingers brushed lightly at the back of his neck.

“Cake. Champagne. Slow dancing by a window. If anyone finds out we’re this tender, we’ll have to release something loud and emotionally unstable immediately to rebalance the brand.”

She was teasing, but barely.

The truth sat warm underneath it, impossible to miss and impossible to ruin. She wanted the tenderness. Wanted the absurd little honeymoon rituals. Wanted the cake and the music and his hands and the slow sway of their bodies in the spring-dark glass. Wanted all the parts they had skipped, all the parts they had earned, all the parts that were waiting for them in the next forty-eight hours and whatever impossible stretch came after.

She leaned her forehead to his again, her smile fading into something softer.

“I missed being close to you,” she admitted, voice low enough that it belonged only there. “Not through a screen. Not in pieces. Just this.”

Her hand moved down his shoulder, then over his chest, resting there again.

“This is what I wanted.”

The words were simple.

They felt enormous.

So naturally, she followed them with a tiny, necessary recovery.

“And the cake,” she added, eyes lifting back to his. “But mostly this.”

Her mouth brushed his once, light and teasing, not quite a kiss.

Then she settled closer into the music.

“For now,” Willa murmured, affectionate and wicked in the same breath, “you can keep staring at me. I’ll allow it.”

Blake had been holding it together remarkably well right up until the point she called him suspiciously competent.

The accusation landed somewhere between his ribs and his ego. He felt his mouth pull into a smile before he could stop it, felt the warmth of her forehead against his and the weight of her hand resting over his chest. Beneath her palm, his heartbeat kept moving with stubborn consistency, but he was suddenly aware of it anyway. Aware of the room. The music. The faint scent of lemon from the cake. The city beyond the windows fading from gold into blue.

When she told him she was unsettled by his maturity, he huffed out a laugh.

“I knew there’d be consequences.”

The brush of her nose against his made the words come out quieter than he’d intended.

Then she accused him of manipulation.

Not real manipulation. Willa manipulation. The kind that came wrapped in affection and impossible logic and somehow managed to sound like both a complaint and a compliment at the same time.

His thumb moved once at the back of her neck.

“Good,” he said. “I’d hate to waste a perfectly reasonable argument.”

The joke barely had time to settle before he watched something soften behind her eyes again.

That always got him.

Not because it was rare.

Because it wasn’t.

Most people thought Willa was all sharp corners and bright lights and velocity. Blake knew better. He knew how much tenderness existed underneath all that movement. He knew how often she disguised it before anyone else could touch it. Knew how brave she was every time she stopped trying.

So when she pulled back enough to look at him properly, he let her.

Didn’t rush her.

Didn’t fill the silence.

Just stood there and looked back.

Then she informed him they could absolutely be trusted in an expensive honeymoon suite.

He believed her for approximately half a second.

The moment her hand slid down the front of his shirt, his eyebrows lifted.

When she amended the statement with eight minutes, he barked out a laugh.

“Eight?” he repeated. “That’s incredibly optimistic.”

Before he could continue, she was already retreating toward the cake.

His attention followed automatically.

It always did.

He watched her break off a piece with complete disregard for civilized behavior and immediately felt vindicated in every life decision that had led him here.

Then she held the bite up and ordered him to open his mouth.

The command shouldn’t have affected him as much as it did.

Maybe it was the confidence.

Maybe it was the fact that she’d somehow turned feeding him cake into a solemn legal proceeding.

Either way, he obeyed.

The cake was genuinely excellent.

That realization barely had time to register before he noticed the frosting on her fingertips.

Then she noticed it.

Then she delivered her entirely serious public service announcement about neglected children and lemon frosting.

Blake’s mouth pressed together.

Failed.

The laugh escaped anyway.

And then she licked the frosting from her fingers.

His eyes closed briefly.

Not because he was suffering.

Because he was.

When he opened them again, she was smiling at him with that look that usually meant she knew exactly what she’d just done.

“Yeah,” he said. “The cake’s definitely the problem.”

He didn’t sound particularly convincing.

The champagne arrived next.

Her description of it nearly ended him.

He took the glass, shaking his head as he looked down at it.

“That’s the worst thing you’ve said all day.”

A beat.

Then:

“And unfortunately very accurate.”

He took a drink.

The champagne was cold. Crisp. Bright.

When he handed it back, he caught himself watching her the same way she’d been watching him moments earlier. The small movements. The way she held the glass. The way she smiled to herself before setting it aside.

Ordinary things.

Except none of them felt ordinary after months apart.

Then she caught his hand.

No hesitation.

No uncertainty.

Just certainty.

Come with me.

Blake’s fingers immediately threaded through hers.

He followed.

Of course he followed.

The city stretched beyond the windows in scattered lights and dark rooftops. Reflections ghosted across the glass. Somewhere below, Prague continued existing without any awareness that two musicians were slow dancing badly in a hotel suite while arguing about dessert.

When she announced they were dancing, he nodded solemnly.

“Excellent. I’ve always wanted my first ballroom lesson to be champagne-related.”

Her hand found the back of his neck.

His settled at her waist.

The distance between them disappeared naturally.

Not because either of them decided it should.

Because it always did.

The music drifted around them while they swayed.

Nothing complicated.

Nothing choreographed.

Just movement.

The kind that happened when two people had spent enough time finding each other in crowded rooms that their bodies stopped needing instructions.

Then she looked up at him.

Asked if they were disgusting.

Blake glanced around the room as though genuinely considering the evidence.

“The Cure. Cake. Champagne. Prague.”

His gaze returned to hers.

“We might be the worst people alive.”

The smile that answered his own joke faded into something quieter when she kept talking.

Because underneath the teasing was something else.

There always was.

He felt it when she leaned closer.

Felt it when her forehead returned to his.

Felt it when her voice dropped.

The admission landed hard.

Not dramatic.

Not explosive.

Just honest.

And somehow honesty always hit deeper.

Blake’s hand shifted higher along her back.

His jaw tightened briefly.

Not enough for her to notice.

Probably.

He looked past her shoulder toward the city lights for a second before bringing his attention back where it belonged.

Here.

With her.

When her hand moved over his chest again, he covered it with his own.

Held it there.

The warmth of her skin soaked through immediately.

Then she told him this was what she wanted.

For a moment, he couldn’t answer.

Not because he didn’t know what to say.

Because he understood exactly what she meant.

The flights.

The schedules.

The calls.

The constant cycle of arrivals and departures.

The feeling of always leaving just after finding each other again.

This wasn’t grand.

It wasn’t public.

Nobody was taking photos.

Nobody was selling a story.

It was just this.

A room.

A record.

A city outside the glass.

Her hand beneath his.

Her voice in his ear.

And somehow it felt bigger than half the milestones people spent years planning.

Then she added the cake.

Blake laughed softly.

There she was.

The recovery.

The escape hatch.

The joke she offered whenever a feeling got too close to standing unprotected in the open.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her forehead.

Slow.

Unhurried.

Then rested his temple lightly against hers.

“I know,” he said quietly.

Not about the cake.

About everything else.

His hand tightened around hers before relaxing again.

And when she gave him permission to keep staring, he looked at her for another second longer than necessary.

Then another.

Completely unapologetic.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because I wasn’t planning to stop.”

Here’s Willa’s continuation from that moment:

Willa’s mouth curved before she could stop it.

Of course he wasn’t planning to stop.

Of course he said it like that, low and certain and too close to her skin, like staring at her was some perfectly ordinary thing he got to do now. Like she was not actively melting in his hands while trying to maintain at least the suggestion of dignity. His temple was warm against hers. His hand covered hers over his chest, and beneath both of them his heartbeat moved steadily, stubbornly, alive under her palm.

She should have said something clever.

Something about his dedication to eye contact being medically concerning. Something about filing a complaint with whoever had given him permission to look at her like that in a room with champagne and low music and no responsible adults present. Something bright enough to keep the tenderness from flooding all the way up her throat.

Instead, she let out a small breath and stayed there.

That was becoming the theme of the evening, apparently.

Staying.

Not filling every second. Not reaching for noise the moment something honest touched her. Just standing close enough to feel the warmth of him through his clothes, close enough that the music moved through both of them at once, close enough that the city lights beyond the glass blurred into something soft and far away.

“You’re a menace,” she murmured.

The words had no bite. They barely had shape. They were mostly warmth and breath and a smile pressed into the small space between them.

Her fingers flexed under his.

She could feel how easy it would be to make the next forty-eight hours vanish by wanting too much at once. That was the danger of getting him back in person. Her body forgot how to pace itself. Her heart forgot it had ever learned restraint. Every missed call, every night she had fallen asleep with a phone going dark beside her, every show she had played with adrenaline still burning through her and no way to crawl into him afterward — all of it gathered at once, greedy and aching.

Part of her hated herself for not postponing the album.

The thought came fast, sharp enough to surprise her.

She had shoved it down so many times that it had started returning in stranger shapes. In hotel rooms. In airport lounges. In the hollow little seconds after a crowd stopped screaming. What if she had waited? What if she had pushed the release back, moved the dates, found some way to exist at his side instead of in parallel? She could picture it with dangerous clarity: herself tucked into corners of his tour, watching from side stage, stealing his hoodies, climbing into bunks too small for two people, waking up in whatever city had claimed them for the night. She could have been there for the ordinary things. The bad coffee. The exhausted mornings. The after-show silence. The stupid, private jokes that didn’t survive being typed out.

She could have been with him.

The ache of that almost made her close her eyes again.

But there was another truth underneath it, just as solid and just as inconvenient.

She would have regretted it.

Maybe not right away. Maybe not during the first week, when missing him would have been replaced by the dizzy relief of having him within reach. But eventually. Quietly. In some back room, some dressing room, some soft hour when he was onstage doing exactly what he was made to do and she was standing in the wings with her own songs waiting somewhere behind her teeth. She would have felt it then — the little bruised place where ambition had been asked to be quiet for love. The part of her that still needed to make things, break things, build something loud enough to live inside.

She loved him too much to make him the reason she abandoned that.

She loved herself enough to know she would have resented the shape of the sacrifice, even if she never resented him.

That was the awful, grown-up thing about wanting everything.

Sometimes everything came in pieces.

Two days in Prague.

A cake on a table.

A record spinning behind them.

His hand over hers.

Her chest pressed close to his.

Fine, then.

If pieces were what they had, she would wring every drop of life from them. She would take the champagne and the cake and the dancing and the way he looked at her like she had been gone too long. She would kiss him until the room tilted. She would sleep next to him and wake up annoyed by how much better the morning felt with his body in it. She would memorize the sound of him moving around the room, the weight of his arm, the shape of his laughter when she said something stupid on purpose. She would not waste a second pretending not to want the time they had.

Her hand slid out from beneath his only so she could wrap both arms around him properly.

Closer.

That was the only answer she had right now.

Closer.

“I was going to make a very good joke,” she said quietly, tipping her face up just enough to look at him. “Devastating, probably. Career-best work. You would’ve laughed, I would’ve been unbearable about it, the whole evening would’ve benefited.”

Her smile flickered, but her eyes stayed soft.

“But then you got all sweet and quiet, and now I have to stand here feeling things like some kind of acoustic version of myself.”

The music curled around them, dark and lush, the kind of song that made every small movement feel intentional. Willa shifted her weight, guiding them into another slow, unpolished sway. Her bare foot brushed his boot. Her hip fit against him. She could feel the shape of his hand at her back, the familiar pressure of it, the way he held her as if he had learned exactly how much room she needed and exactly when to close the distance.

She rested her cheek briefly against him.

“I hate that I missed this much,” she admitted.

There it was.

Not all of it. Not the entire wound. Just one clean edge.

Her throat tightened, but she kept going before she could decide bravery was overrated.

“I hate that there were cities where you woke up and I wasn’t there. I hate that I had nights where I wanted to call you and didn’t because I knew you needed sleep, or because I needed sleep, or because time zones are a personal attack and I hope they know that.”

A little of her usual spark returned on the last words, but it did not erase the rest. It only helped her carry it.

“And I hate that some tiny, dramatic, badly managed part of me wishes I could’ve just thrown everything in a bag and followed you around like a very stylish Victorian ghost.”

Her fingers moved against his back, slow and restless.

“But I also know I would’ve been miserable if I’d put my own work down. Not because of you. Never because of you.” Her voice softened further. “Because I need it. I need the songs. I need the shows. I need to be that version of myself too.”

She pulled back enough to see his face.

There was no apology in her expression. Not exactly. Only honesty. The kind that did not ask to be softened into something easier.

“I just wish loving you didn’t have to be scheduled around call times and flights and soundcheck.”

Her mouth tipped into a smaller smile.

“Very inconsiderate of the universe, honestly. Poor planning. No emotional intelligence.”

She rose onto her toes and kissed him before the feeling could spread too wide.

It was not a performance of a kiss. Not dramatic. Not meant to lead anywhere yet, though it carried the heat of that possibility under its skin. It was slow at first, then lingering, her hands tightening at his back as if her body wanted to underline the point her voice could not quite finish. She kissed him like she was putting herself back where she belonged. Like she could press all the missing into him and have it understood without translation.

When she eased away, she stayed close enough that her lips brushed his when she spoke.

“So we’re not wasting it,” she whispered. “That’s my current official emotional position.”

She paused.

Made a face.

“No. Too formal. Hate that. My current vibe is: we are going to enjoy this aggressively. With feeling. Possibly poor judgment. Definitely cake.”

Her smile widened, brightening the softness without destroying it.

She turned them slightly as they danced, enough that the glass caught their reflection in a faint, ghosted blur. For a second, she saw them there — not clearly, not like a photograph, just shapes in the window. Her pale hair. His dark clothes. Their bodies pressed together in the low light. Something about it made her chest ache again, but this time she welcomed it.

A little ache meant it mattered.

A little ache meant she was here enough to feel the edges of the moment while she was still inside it.

Her hand slipped up to the back of his neck. Her thumb moved once, absently affectionate.

“I’m going to be very annoying for the next two days,” she told him. “Just so you can prepare. I’m going to want breakfast in bed even if we don’t sleep enough to deserve breakfast. I’m going to steal your clothes. I’m going to take at least one blurry photo of you that you’ll hate and I’ll love. I’m going to make you listen to whatever song I’m obsessed with right now until you either understand it or develop a rash.”

She looked up at him, eyes shining with mischief and devotion braided so tightly together they were almost the same thing.

“And I’m going to kiss you whenever I want, because I have been extremely patient and frankly I deserve reparations.”

The last word almost made her laugh at herself, so she kissed the corner of his mouth instead. Quick. Soft. Then again, because once was clearly insufficient. Then his cheek, his jaw, the place beneath his ear because she could, because they had time, because he was warm and solid and leaning into her like he had no intention of being anywhere else.

Her lips lingered there.

The music kept moving.

The city kept glowing.

Somewhere, the cake waited. The champagne waited. Amsterdam waited. Krakow waited.

But not yet.

Not this second.

This second belonged to her hand on his neck and his body under hers and the slow, sweet certainty of making a small pocket of the world theirs by refusing to hurry through it.

Willa drew back just enough to look at him again.

The sarcasm was still there, curled at the edge of her mouth, but beneath it was something open and bright and entirely unhidden.

“So,” she said softly, “you can keep staring.”

Her fingers tightened gently at his nape.

“But you should know I’m going to make it very difficult for you to do anything else.”

Blake almost laughed when she confessed the joke she’d been planning had died somewhere between his words and the space they occupied together, but the sound never quite made it out. It lodged somewhere behind his ribs instead, softened by the way she remained close, by the warmth of her forehead resting against his and the quiet admission hidden beneath her humor. He could feel her breathing before he consciously registered it, slow enough now that it had begun to match his own, the rhythm settling between them while the record continued its melancholy drift through the suite.

The comment about becoming an acoustic version of herself tugged a smile from him anyway. His thumb traced an absent circle where it rested against the back of her neck, not to interrupt her train of thought, only because touching her had become as instinctive as breathing. “I happen to like the acoustic version,” he murmured, his voice barely rising above the music. “She’s got terrible timing for jokes, apparently… but she’s my favorite.”

The words had scarcely left him before he felt the shift in her weight as they found the slow sway again. Her cheek settled against him, and something inside him unclenched so quietly he almost missed it. He hadn’t realized how much of himself had been braced for departure until the simple weight of her against his began undoing it. Beyond the tall windows, Prague glowed in blurred reflections across the glass, church spires dissolving into evening, but he found himself aware instead of the faint brush of her hair against his jaw and the steady warmth pressed along his chest.

Then she admitted what she’d hated.

The honesty landed without warning.

His hand flattened a little more firmly against her back before he’d even thought about moving it, as though some deeper instinct had answered first. He listened without interrupting, feeling each sentence arrive separately, each one exposing another corner of the distance they’d learned to survive. Airports. Missed mornings. Calls never made because exhaustion had won. The frustration wasn’t directed at him—he knew that the instant she spoke it—but that almost made it harder to hear. It was grief without blame, longing without accusation, and somehow that carried even more weight.

When she spoke about following him instead, his eyes closed briefly.

He could picture it too easily.

She’d have been magnificent and miserable in equal measure. She would have made every backstage hallway brighter within minutes, charmed every exhausted crew member, stolen half his wardrobe, complained theatrically about bus coffee, and somewhere beneath all of it he would have begun noticing the restlessness she tried so hard to disguise whenever she wasn’t creating. He knew that version of her. Knew how quiet she became when songs stayed trapped inside her too long. Knew the particular look she wore when inspiration had nowhere to go.

By the time she told him she needed her own work, relief arrived tangled with sadness.

Of course she did.

He wouldn’t have loved her if she hadn’t.

Blake eased back just enough to meet her eyes fully, searching her face without trying to solve it. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said softly after a long moment. “I hated being away from you.” His thumb brushed once along her side before settling again. “But I would’ve hated watching you become less of yourself even more.”

Her wish about flights and schedules pulled a quiet breath from him. There wasn’t anything clever waiting this time. Only recognition.

“I know,” he answered. “Some days it feels like the calendars think they own us.”

Then she kissed him.

It wasn’t hurried, and it wasn’t uncertain. It arrived with the quiet confidence of someone choosing him again, and Blake met her halfway without thinking, his free hand lifting naturally to rest against her shoulder. The taste of champagne still lingered faintly between them, touched with lemon from the cake, and for a suspended moment the music, the room, and the city beyond the windows all seemed to move at a respectful distance while he simply existed inside the warmth of her mouth.

When she eased back, he didn’t chase her.

He stayed exactly where she left him, close enough that her whispered promise settled warmly against his lips.

His smile grew slowly as she revised her own declaration almost immediately afterward.

“There she is,” he said, amusement threading through the tenderness. “That sounds much more official.”

They continued swaying, and he let her guide the turn without resistance. Their reflection drifted across the window in soft fragments, interrupted by the lights outside, two silhouettes moving more by instinct than choreography. He caught sight of them only for a heartbeat before his attention returned to her, because the real woman standing in front of him was infinitely more compelling than any reflection could be.

When she began listing her plans for the next two days, he listened with increasing affection. Breakfast in bed. His clothes disappearing into her possession. Blurry photographs. Songs played on repeat until surrender became the only practical option. Each promise painted another ordinary moment they hadn’t been allowed often enough, and each one settled somewhere surprisingly precious.

“I object to exactly one of those,” he replied, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “You’ll never convince me those blurry photos are flattering.”

Before he could say anything else, she stole another kiss.

Then another.

Then another somewhere along his cheek.

His laugh escaped quietly this time, dissolving into a smile as she continued her affectionate campaign with all the determination she’d promised. Each brief kiss landed differently—one playful, another impossibly gentle, another lingering just long enough to make him instinctively tilt toward her instead of away. His hand slid a fraction higher along her back, holding her a little closer without interrupting the easy rhythm they’d settled into.

The record continued turning.

The champagne remained untouched on the nearby table.

The cake waited patiently beneath the soft glow of the lamps.

Nothing demanded their attention except the person in front of them.

When she finally drew back enough to meet his eyes again, Blake didn’t answer immediately. He let himself look at her exactly the way she’d accused him of doing, unhurried and completely unapologetic, taking in the laughter still lingering around her mouth, the shine in her eyes, the way the city lights caught the edges of her hair.

His fingertips brushed lightly along the curve of her jaw before coming to rest there.

“I have a feeling,” he said with quiet certainty, “that you’re going to make the next two days go by far too quickly.”

The corner of his mouth lifted again.

“So I’m not wasting a second of them either.”

Blake didn’t answer immediately.

He simply looked at her.

Not because he couldn’t think of something clever to say—God knew years with Willa had sharpened that instinct—but because every time he opened his mouth lately, she managed to hand him something far better than any joke he could return. The record turned steadily somewhere behind her, its soft crackle folding into the room between notes, while the city beyond the windows settled deeper into evening. Reflections drifted across the glass, blurring Prague into ribbons of amber and blue, until it became impossible to tell where the lights outside ended and the ones inside began.

His thumb remained against her jaw, feeling the warmth beneath her skin, the tiny shift of muscle every time her smile threatened to grow. He found himself studying details no photograph would ever hold properly—the faint smudge of lipstick she’d missed after the cake, the tiny crease at the corner of one eye that only appeared when she was trying not to laugh, the loose strands of pale hair that had escaped behind her ear during the evening. None of those things belonged to magazine covers or red carpets.

They belonged to moments like this.

He loved them more than he knew how to explain.

The music swelled gently around them, melancholy without becoming heavy, and he let it carry the silence instead of rushing to fill it. Their slow swaying hadn’t become any more coordinated, but it had become instinctive. Every subtle shift of her weight found an answering movement from him before either of them had to think about it. Her body leaned; his adjusted. His hand settled a fraction lower along her back; she came with him naturally. Somewhere along the way they’d stopped leading and following and simply started moving together.

His gaze dropped briefly to their joined hands.

Two wedding bands caught the lamplight with each slow turn, flashing softly before disappearing again. Such small circles. Such an enormous promise.

A quiet smile tugged at his mouth.

“You know,” he said, his voice low enough that it seemed to belong to the music rather than interrupt it, “I’ve played to stadiums full of people. I’ve stood under enough lights to forget what darkness looked like for a while.” His eyes lifted back to hers, the smile deepening into something gentler. “None of it has ever felt as remarkable as getting to stand here with you while you argue with cake and declare war on decorative ribbon.”

A soft laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

“I don’t think anyone tells you that’s what marriage actually is.”

His fingers threaded a little more securely through hers, and he lifted their joined hands just enough to guide her into an unhurried turn beneath his arm. It wasn’t polished. Halfway through he nearly stepped on the hem of her dress, caught himself at the last second, and laughed again, shaking his head.

“There it is,” he murmured. “The glamorous honeymoon dance everyone imagines.”

When she settled back against him, he drew her in without hesitation, one arm circling her comfortably as though he’d been waiting to close that last inch of distance all evening. He rested his cheek lightly against her hair for a moment, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo beneath the sweetness of champagne and vanilla still lingering in the room.

“I missed this,” he admitted quietly. “Not the airports. Not finally arriving. This.”

The word carried everything he couldn’t fit into longer sentences.

The record.

The city.

The warmth of her tucked against him.

The luxury of having nowhere they needed to be for another hour.

He leaned back just enough to see her again, his expression softening as another verse drifted through the suite.

“You know what my favorite part of today was?” he asked.

He smiled before she had a chance to guess.

“It wasn’t seeing Prague.”

His thumb brushed absently across the back of her hand.

“It wasn’t checking into this ridiculous suite. It wasn’t even the cake, and that cake is making a very strong case for itself.”

His eyes stayed on hers.

“It was the first second I saw you in the airport.” His smile warmed with the memory. “Everything before that felt like waiting. Everything after that has felt like the day finally started.”

He fell quiet again, not because he’d run out of words, but because they no longer seemed as important as simply being there with her. The song continued to spin around them while the city shimmered beyond the windows, and Blake let himself admire her without embarrassment or apology, content to memorize another ordinary, extraordinary evening with the woman who had somehow become both the great adventure of his life and its deepest sense of peace.