“Oh… well, yeah.”Her lips twitched.“Still.I’m surprised you own it at all.”
I shrugged, tried to look bored.“Came with the house.”
For a beat, I thought she’d go back to glaring at her notes, let the silence choke us both again.But then she huffed out this little laugh—quiet, soft, reluctant.Like she didn’t mean to, but couldn’t help herself.
And damn if that sound didn’t loosen something tight in my chest.
It was small, nothing really.Just a laugh, just a crack in the storm cloud hanging over her.But I felt it like sunlight, seeping in where I hadn’t realized I was cold.For ten whole seconds, I swear I felt ten pounds lighter.
I busied myself with straightening a stack of papers, pretending I hadn’t been hanging on her reaction.But the truth clawed at me anyway: I wanted her to laugh again.Wanted her to look at me without that shadow in her eyes.Wanted things I had no business wanting.
The record popped, the old speakers humming, and she bent back over her notes, still smiling faintly to herself.And for once, I didn’t mind the silence that followed.It felt less like distance and more like a truce.
The record crackled on, some syrupy holiday tune I hadn’t heard in decades.I should’ve let it play out and kept to the shadows, but Belle never left things alone.
She glanced up from her notes, lips tugging into a grin that was half-mischief, half-challenge.
“So, you actually have taste after all,” she teased.
I snorted, muttering the only shield I had left.“Don’t push it.”
But she pushed anyway—of course she did.She always did.
Before I could retreat, she was standing, crossing the space between us with that stubborn light in her eyes.She extended a hand like she was offering me some fragile truce.
“Dance with me, Charlie.”
The words dropped like stones in my chest.
“No,” I growled, shaking my head.“Too old.Too stiff.Not built for that sort of thing anymore.”
She didn’t back down.She never did.Instead, she laughed softly, tugging at my sleeve with a persistence that made my heart stutter.
“You can grumble all you want, but you’re not getting out of it.Just one dance.For Christmas.”
“Belle…” I started, the warning rough in my throat.But her hand was still there, waiting, steady.Warm.
Against my better judgment, against the fortress I’d built around myself, I let her pull me in.
The first few steps were awkward as hell.My scarred hand hovered uselessly in the air, unsure where it belonged, terrified of the answer.My body moved like rusted gears grinding back to life, stiff, mechanical.I wanted to let go, to bolt, to put space between us before she saw how close I was to breaking.
But then she leaned in.Just lightly.Enough that her head brushed my chest, enough that her warmth settled against me like she’d been made to fit there.
The scent of her hair, faint and sweet like vanilla.The rhythm of her laugh when my foot shuffled clumsily against hers.The way she didn’t flinch from my hand when I finally, cautiously, set it at her waist.
It was too much.
And yet not nearly enough.
The weight of her trust pressed against me, more dangerous than any battlefield I’d survived.Nobody trusted me like this.Nobody looked at me the way she did—like the scars didn’t matter, like the past didn’t dictate the man in front of her.
Every step we took in that small circle of firelight and dust, I felt the walls inside me buckle.The fortress I’d lived behind all these years wasn’t built for this kind of siege.
I told myself it was just a song.Just a dance.Nothing more.But with her in my arms, humming under her breath, smiling up at me like I wasn’t a monster at all… it felt like the start of something I’d sworn I’d never allow again.
And God help me, I didn’t want it to end.
We moved clumsily, two people pretending to know the steps, her guiding more than me.I tried to keep pace, to not crush her toes, but we spun once and my hip clipped the edge of the desk.She laughed, quick and unbothered, tugging me along.For half a second I let myself laugh too—low, rusty, a sound I hadn’t made in years.
