He’s on the couch where I left him, leg propped up, reading one of the old paperbacks from the nearest shelf. The firelight warms his face. He looks up when he hears me, expression cautious.
“Hey,” he says, soft. “You OK?”
“Yeah,” I say, with a steadiness that surprises even me. “How are you holding up?”
He nods at his bandaged ankle. “Hurts. But manageable.” He grins. “Good thing series three wrapped filming already. I wouldn’t want to ride a horse with this.”
“Mmm.” I hover near the back of the couch, keeping a healthy, necessary distance. The madness of earlier hangs between us like a third presence neither of us can pretend isn’t there.
He closes the book, thumb marking his place. “About… forgetting,” he says carefully. “I’m gonna do my best. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. I don’t want to make this harder.”
Harder.Great choice of word, Nate.
“I know,” I say. “It’s OK. I did mean what I said. We’re stuck together, and it’s already tension city round here. Let’s not make it any worse.”
Nate’s eyes search mine, quiet and earnest. “I won’t touch you again. Not unless -”
“Don’t finish that,” I say quickly. “There is nounless.”
His throat works. “Right.”
Silence reigns again. Not comfortable. Not hostile. Just full.
He finally tilts his head toward the kitchen. “You hungry? I can help make lunch if you don’t mind passing me things I can’t reach.”
I almost laugh. Almost. “Yeah,” I say. “Lunch would be good.”
We move around each other in the kitchen with careful choreography; polite, neutral, pretending nothing changed.
But it did.
And I know that, even if Nate never touches me again, and even if I never let myself want anything I shouldn’t… Something in me woke up today. Something I’ve kept buried for years.
And no amount of determined forgetting will put it back to sleep.
CHAPTER 7
Nate
Fallon always said Mac kept the Montana cabin stocked for “emergencies.”
Apparently, Mac’s crises are resolved with a bottle of thirty year old single malt hidden behind a sack of old pancake mix.
“It’s criminal you haven’t already drunk all of this,” Ally says, holding the amber bottle at eye level. The fire catches in the liquid, turning it molten. “This is basically liquid gold. Or even liquidgod.”
“I don’t tend to drink much when I’m burned out,” I admit. “It hits weird.”
“Well,” she says, pouring a splash into two chipped mugs, “I’m still not letting this masterpiece age another year in that sad little cupboard.”
We’re not drunk. Not even close. Two-inch pours, water chasers, slow sips. Enough to make us warmer, looser. Maybe a little less guarded.
The storm softens against the windows, hissing instead of howling. My ankle throbs, but the heat from the fire and the heat from the whiskey blur together. Ally sits cross-legged on the rug, wearing my hoodie over my dad’s flannel, hair loose around her shoulders. Her cheeks are flushed from the bathroom steam earlier, and she radiates warmth like she was made for firelight.
“This is stupid,” she says, swirling her whiskey. “Being stuck in this cabin together. Us. Of all people.”
“Agreed,” I say. I don’t, obviously; this stolen one on one time with her is an incredible gift.
She glances up sharply. “You’re not supposed to agree so quickly.”
