“We’re okay,” he says, breath hot against my temple. The words land in pieces on my skin:we,okay. Both are a problem.
“Hands,” I manage, which isn’t a sentence, just a rule remembering it exists.
He doesn’t let go. He looks down instead, and our faces are stupidly close—bare inches of wet air and worse ideas. Water beads on his lashes, makes his eyes brighter, meaner, blue like an emergency sign. My name is still in his mouth. Something like a yes is in mine.
Outside, the driver curses the universe in a language with more consonants than mercy. Inside, the heater wheezes and the radio fuzzes and all of it is background to his hand. My body is traitorous, heat licking out from where he holds me until it finds my pulse and starts playing drums with it.
“Let go,” I whisper—and don’t move. I can feel the shape of his answer before he gives it: the hesitation he rarely allows, the awareness of every line we drew and keep erasing with our feet.
He releases by degrees, not a drop but a slow surrender that leaves fingerprints my skin will read like braille. The absence islouder than the contact. I route air back into my lungs and face forward, planting my palms on my knees as if I can press the world flat.
The hotel’s sign flares around the bend—a blue crown smudged by rain. Relief hits, then bucks. The cab hits another slick patch and the lights go out—not outside;inside. The dashboard dies; radio quits; wipers freeze mid-arc. We lurch into a darkness so total it feels physical, a black you could bruise on.
“Power cut,” the driver says—panicked and unhelpful—wrestling the dead wheel.
Horns detonate behind us. The taxi spins a quarter turn, momentum grabbing the frame like a bully’s hand.
Jason’s fingers catch my wrist. “Sunshine?—”
The world tilts. Tires lift. Black swallows blue. My mouth shapes his name and the sound is yanked away as the cab drops into the dark.
Chapter 6
Stuck Together
Jason
The hotel lobbyis trying too hard—gold chandeliers, a piano that plays itself, a floral arrangement bred in a lab to intimidate men who forget anniversaries. We’re back at our hotel and dripping on the marble like a stray dog in a tux. Riley stands two feet to my left, ponytail damp, expression set toI dare you.
The night clerk smiles the way people do when they’ve been trained to handle celebrities and Karens. “Mr. Maddox—so sorry for the inconvenience. Citywide outage jammed our system and, well.” His fingers flutter over the keyboard like he’s playing defense. “We have one suite left. The Crown level. Comped upgrade, of course.”
“Great,” I say. “We’ll need two keys.”
“Of course.” He prints them. “And one bed.”
The sentence lands with the weight of a slapshot. Riley’s glare slides past my shoulder and cracks against the desk. The clerk blinks, then adds, chipper and doomed, “The Crown suite has an exceptional sofa.”
“Trade us,” I say. “Two standard rooms. Broom closets. I’ll sleep in the elevator. She gets a door she can lock.”
He winces. “We are… sold out.” He gestures at the lobby where three other teams have colonized the sofas, a sleeping toddler drools on a jersey, and a PR rep we know too well is arguing about blackout curtains. “We can bring a rollaway?”
Riley’s voice is surgical steel. “We’ll take the suite.”
“Riley—”
“Professionalism,” she says without looking at me. “We handle problems. We don’t make scenes.” Her eyes flick to the growing line behind us. She’s right. I hate it.
The clerk clears his throat, eager to live. “Elevators are to your right. Power’s back on, but ice machines are… temperamental.” He slides our keys across like peace treaties. “Enjoy your stay.”
We don’t answer. We peel off toward the elevators in a silence with razors in it. In the steel box we stand with enough space for a third person made of common sense. The floor count ticks up. Riley watches the numbers. I watch her reflection watching the numbers and practice not being the kind of man who saysI’ll take the couch; you take the bed. I am that man. Being him in front of her feels like an audition she didn’t ask to sit through.
The suite door opens on money: a view of the city’s wet jewels, a couch the size of a small continent, a single king bed framed like a crime scene. I dump my bag by the sofa and aim for casual. “I’ll take that,” I say, flipping a throw blanket over the back like I didn’t just calculate how many vertebrae I can offend before morning skate.
“Fine,” she says, already moving toward the bedroom with clinical efficiency. “You need eight hours horizontal. Couch will ruin your back.”
“My back’s a tank.” A muscle twangs like wire. I don’t flinch; she still notices. Of course she does.
Her eyes narrow. The trainer takes the wheel. “Bedroom. Now.”
