"They're my family. Not by blood, but by choice." I adjusted my glasses. "That's what my manuscript is really about. Not finding home but making it. Building the life you need instead of waiting for it to appear."
"That's the story," Brent said softly. "That's your emotional truth."
Something clicked into place. He was right. That was what I'd been circling around for two years without quite naming it.
"Thank you," I said. "For seeing that. For helping me see it."
"That's what we're here for. Helping each other see."
***
Later that night, after dinner and socializing and more writerly conversation, we got ready for bed. But it felt different than last night. Charged in a way I couldn't quite name.
Brent disappeared into the bathroom first. I tried not to think about him in there, tried not to hear the water running. I forced myself to focus on organizing tomorrow's materials.
When he emerged in sleep pants and a t-shirt, his hair damp and his expression more open than I'd seen it all day, I forgot to look away. Our eyes caught, and for a moment neither of us moved. Then I grabbed my things, mumbling something about my turn.
The bathroom was still warm from his shower. Still smelled like him. I stood under the spray and tried to get my head on straight but all I could think about was that we were sharing this space. That he'd be in bed when I came out. That I'd be aware of him breathing a few feet away all night.
When I finally emerged in my sleep pants and old t-shirt, my glasses slightly fogged and my hair damp, he was in bed with my manuscript. But he looked up when I came out and his expression flickered with something I didn't quite catch before he looked back down at the pages.
I settled into my own bed with his laptop, trying to focus on the fragments of his new project. But I kept glancing at him over the screen—the concentration on his face, the way thelamplight caught in his hair, the long fingers holding my pages with careful attention.
Whatever was building between us felt dangerous. Thrilling. Terrifying.
"You're making notes," I said, noticing the paper beside him.
"Just thoughts. If you want them." He looked up. "I promise I'm being gentle."
"I trust you."
And surprisingly, I did.
We read in charged silence, the lamp casting warm light, the lodge quiet around us. The intimacy of it—both of us in bed, reading each other's work, alone in the soft darkness—felt almost too much.
"Jason?" Brent said eventually, his voice low.
"Yeah?" I looked up and found him watching me instead of reading.
"That thing you said earlier. About being the Observer. About it being easier than being the main character." He set aside my pages carefully. "What if you could be both? What if you could observeandparticipate? Watchandbe seen?"
The question hung between us, weighted with more than its surface meaning. The air felt thick, charged.
I thought about that. About years of safety. About this retreat, this room, this man who saw my work and called it beautiful. About the way my pulse jumped every time he looked at me. About how I'd spent all day aware of him in ways that had nothing to do with his celebrity and everything to do with the warmth of his laugh, the intelligence in his eyes, the way he moved through space.
"I don't know if I know how," I admitted.
"Maybe that's what you figure out this week." His smile was soft in the lamplight, but there was desire in his eyes. Want. "We'll both figure out our scary stories."
"Deal."
We turned off the lights, and in the darkness I was excruciatingly aware of him. The sound of his breathing. The warmth radiating from his bed feet away. The knowledge that tomorrow we'd do this all over again—share this space, work together, and pretend that the tension building between us was just friendly collaboration.
And lying there in the dark, listening to him breathe, feeling the pull of whatever this was between us, I thought maybe being in trouble didn't feel as scary as I'd expected.
Maybe it felt exactly right.
Chapter 3
