The rhythmof the keys was supposed to steady me. Familiar weight, familiar sound — mechanical certainty against the chaos of thought. But every time I looked up, she was somewhere else in the cabin, and my focus went with her.
Colette had shed her earlier teasing like smoke, moving quietly, almost gently now. She sat near the hearth, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, one knee drawn up beneath my sweater —mysweater — as she pretended to read. Every few minutes she’d turn it, slow and absent, but her eyes weren’t on the words. They flicked to me and away again, quick as a heartbeat.
It should’ve been harmless. Ordinary. Just two people waiting out a storm.
But she’d laugh under her breath sometimes — at the sound of the typewriter, at something she wasn’t saying — and it hit me like an echo of that morning, of skin and breath and the way her pulse had raced against my palm.
I tried to write through it. I really did. But my sentences tangled themselves up somewhere between the sound of her shifting on the rug and the memory of her mouth.
When I finally stopped, she glanced up at the sudden silence.
“Out of words, hotshot?”
I rolled my shoulders, pretending the stiffness in them was from work, not tension. “Something like that.”
Her smile was small, knowing. She turned back to her book, but I could feel her grinning.
I tried to write.
Really, I did.
The keys clicked beneath my fingers, but the sentences weren’t mine. They were hers. Pink hair, wild grin, socks that didn’t match, blanket wrapped around her like armor — she was laced into every line. I stopped, rubbed my temples, and stared at the sheet.
She hadn’t even said a word — just sat there, pretending to read, but the way her fingers lingered on the page of her book made my fingers itch to do the same. She was in my veins. My pulse. My thoughts. Every careful word I tried to write tumbled over her name before it could land.
I pushed back from the desk, exhaling sharply. “Focus, Silas.”
She glanced up, eyes bright, lips twitching. “Is everything okay over there?” Her voice was soft, casual, like she hadn’t just invaded the private corners of my brain and set up camp.
I swallowed hard, becauseeverythingwas not okay. The room, the fire, the snow outside — it all shrunk to just her. When I dared to glance up. She was perched on the arm of the couch, blanket half-wrapped around her, legs tucked beneath her, tilting her head like she was studying me.
I sat back down, fingertips brushing the keys, heart hammering. And there she was again. In the margin, in the rhythm, in the heat pressing against my ribs.
She hadn’t done anything, hadn’t touched me in hours, but I could feel her in every part of me. And I had no idea what to do about it.
“Yes,” I said finally, and it came out sharp. Too sharp.
She smirked. “You’re lying. Look at your brow. At the way you’re gripping the keys. That’s a brow-grip combination of someone who’s way beyond flustered.”
I coughed, cursed under my breath. “It’s… the storm. The snow. The — nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, mock-skeptical. “You sure it’s not me? Because I feel like it might be me.”
I almost dropped the typewriter on her. Almost.
The thoughtdidcross my mind.
“Go back to your book,” I said, fighting a grin and losing.
She leaned closer, resting an elbow on the arm of the couch. “Or you could stop pretending you’re able to ignore me. I’d be happy to help.”
And just like that, I was undone. My fingers twitched, my pulse jumped, my carefully controlled writer’s mind completely hijacked by the smallest human I’d ever known.
I… don’t know when she’d moved beside me. But she shifted — leaned a little too far, a little too casually — and somehow her weight ended up resting on my lap.
Not fully, not with intention. Just enough to make every nerve in me scream. Her knees were light, but the warmth radiating off her… every muscle in my chest tensed. I gripped the typewriter as if it were an anchor.
“You okay there, Silas?” she asked, voice soft and teasing. The blanket pooled around her like armor, but I could feel the heat of her thigh against mine.
