Our suite door waits at the end of the corridor like a finish line I’m not sure I want to cross. My sneakers go quiet on thecarpet as I slow, buying a few more seconds of neutrality before we’re alone with what we almost were in that elevator.
Jason’s gait matches mine, just close enough that I feel the brush of air when his arm swings. We’re both pretending not to notice. I fish the keycard from my pocket—plastic edges damp from the heat of my hand—and aim for the reader.
“Hey,” he says, low. The sound skims down my spine, a promise or a plea, I can’t tell. Maybe both.
“I know,” I answer, because I do. About the line. About what waits if we cross it. About how easy it would be to take one more step over thin ice and listen to it sing as it cracks.
The potted plant rustles as the HVAC kicks on. Somewhere behind us, an elevator dings and doors hush shut. The floor feels empty except for us and the hum of what we haven’t said.
I lift the keycard.
A bright electronic chirp snaps the moment in half.
Not from my hand—from the other side of the door.
My brain stutters. The small LED above the handle flashes green, and the latch gives a tidy, traitorous click.
Jason’s hand shoots out on instinct, bracing the door before it swings fully open. The force of it knocks us both closer, his shoulder shielding me without thinking, all reflex and muscle memory. His eyes cut to mine, sharp and asking: Do we want to be seen together, right here, right now?
No. Not like this. Not with heat still left on my mouth and my pulse still arguing with common sense.
“Maintenance,” a voice mutters from the hall side of the door—muffled through wood and the wedge of space Jason’s forearm keeps. Or maybe it’s “Housekeeping.” It’s impossible to tell over the racket in my chest.
My mind sprints through contingencies. Room mix-up. Security sweep. PR ambush. Miles. God—Miles. If it’s him, ifhe sees Jason and me aligned in this doorway like we’re one problem, the fallout will be nuclear.
I paste on the kind of calm they train into surgeons. “One second,” I call, bright and professional, even as I press two fingers to the back of Jason’s wrist. He understands the push: steady. Not a fight. Just… time.
He eases pressure but doesn’t yield, the muscles under my fingers coiled and ready. I flatten my free hand over my shirt to make sure I look put together and not freshly kissed, which feels like trying to hide a fire with a glass of water.
“Ma’am?” the voice comes again, closer now, definitely on our side of the door. There’s the soft squeak of shoe rubber on carpet and the whisper of fabric, like someone shifting their weight. Another keycard chirp. Whoever it is owns this beeping like a badge.
I shoot a look down the corridor. Empty. Jessie’s cluster is gone. The housekeeper and her cart are around the bend. No witnesses—yet. That should be a comfort. It isn’t. Without an audience, the truth gets louder.
Jason’s jaw flexes. “Riley,” he murmurs, barely a sound, but I hear the question tucked inside my name: Ready?
I inhale, square my shoulders, and shift just enough to be the face whoever-it-is sees first. If there’s fallout, it should hit me, not him. I’m the staff member. I’m the one with rules scrawled on my bones.
The latch clicks again. The door pushes inward against Jason’s steady arm, an inch, two?—
—and then it stops, hanging open on a breath of recycled hotel air, the gap just wide enough for a shadow to fall across the carpet.
“Hello?” I say, voice bright as a scalpel.
The shadow moves.
The door swings open on Jessie. Her press badge glints under the hallway light, and a hotel engineer stands half-hidden behind her, a master key still in the reader.
“Maintenance,” she says brightly—to the hallway, for the record—then drops the act the second her eyes hit us. “Inside. Now.”
Jason eases back; I step forward, clipboard up like armor. Jessie enters, gives the room a single sweep—bed made, lights off, nothing incriminating—and exhales through her nose.
“You’re both very lucky I check incident alerts before the front desk calls security,” she says. “Next time, I won’t beat them to it.”
My pulse crawls up my throat. “Jessie?—”
“Save it.” Her tone is professional, not unkind. “You,” she points at me, “go to your room. You,” at Jason, “report to the coaches’ suite in fifteen. Danvers is already asking questions. Don’t make me write this up.”
The engineer shifts awkwardly. Jessie flashes him a PR smile. “Thanks for the quick response.” He nods and leaves.
