She ran, I chased. She pulled away, I pushed toward her. She bristled with fire and fear and the sharp edges of a girl who’d never been safe—and I softened around her every time, made myself her landing place. Her fucking home.
This was my new purpose. Not the podium. Not the next checkered flag. But her—us. A heartbeat outside the sound of an engine.
She healed hurt I thought was permanent. And I’d spend the rest of my life making sure she never doubted how loved she was. How chosen. How irrevocably mine.
I stayed like that for a while, just watching her. Soaking in the rise and fall of her chest, the curve of her body beneath the blanket, the faint imprint of my teeth on her neck where I’d bit her last night. Every part of her was soft right now. Quiet. Safe. And somehow, still completely untouchable.
I dragged a hand through my hair and let the breeze cool the sweat on the back of my neck. The sound of the ocean outside felt like white noise, reminding me this was real. We were here, she’d said yes, my ring still on her finger.
I exhaled through a disbelieving laugh and slid quietly out of bed, tucking the blanket around her. She stirred once, nose scrunching, lashes fluttering, but didn’t wake.
Good. She needed the rest. And I needed to do something with my hands before I cracked wide open and lost it completely. Sometimes I didn’t know what to do with all these feelings. I’d gone my entire adult life feeling surface-level shit and burying the rest, so when something bubbled to the surface, I had to slip back into my comfort zone andmove.
I used to fill the silence with other things if sex wasn’t on the table. Work out. Study telemetry. Party too hard. Find distractions with expiration dates.
That shifted the moment she appeared.
And ever since we settled in at her place in the countryside, I’d found myself drawn to domestic, mundane tasks. Cooking. Cleaning. Unpacking boxes. Organizing drawers I was convinced she’d never use because there were so many. Sitting across the table from her just to listen to her laugh. Researching business law with her feet in my lap, discussing our next steps.
I crossed into the main room and snagged my briefs from the floor and tugged them on. I stepped over the clothes we’d peeled off each other last night, still strewn across the floor in a trail from the door. The air was warm and a little humid, salt clinging to my skin.
Padding barefoot into the small kitchen, I paused and stared at the coffee maker. The machine was some luxury thing I didn’t know how to use, but after a couple of curses and a very close call with the milk steamer, I managed.
I’d gotten pretty used to Aurélie’s stupid fucking fancy espresso machine—or whatever the hell it was—back home. Which, frankly, I felt was an impressive feat, considering I don’t evendrinkcoffee.
I cringed at the memory of the one time Ididtry it. During those quiet weeks in the French countryside, still finding our rhythm, still raw and reeling from everything. One sip and I was doubled over in the bathroom twenty minutes later. It waslike my insides were speed-running a pit stop strategy I hadn’t agreed to.
“Coffee is a laxative, mon amour,” she’d said, trying—and failing—not to laugh, wiping tears from her eyes from cackling so hard.
“Aye,no shit,” I’d muttered, wiping trauma off my face. “And you do thiseveryday?”
She’d just shrugged and said,“C’est normal,”like she wasn’t drinking jet fuel. She’d tease me about it this morning, I was sure of that, and I couldn’t wait.
She never let me live it down. Just like I never letherlive down what we dubbed her “emotional exorcism.” In the darkest, most solemn morning we’d ever shared, she’d projectile sob-vomited, then collapsed crying because she had to wear a fucking diaper from all the post-miscarriage bleeding.
I had never loved her more. Because it was real. And raw. And vulnerable in a way no one could understand unless they’d been there—on the floor, in the silence, in the grief. Trying to smile and laugh through it all because the alternative was to fall apart. But it was in those moments that we became closer, together, our souls entwining until we were completely inseparable and inevitable.
We were fucking feral. And fiercely tender. And somehow, it worked.
The resort mugs were delicate and white. I prepped her coffee just how she liked it using ingredients I’d had pre-stocked for our arrival—oatmilk, a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, and a splash of pistachio cream. Therealcream kind, not the artificial flavoring because, as she liked to sneer, “Do I look like someone who drinksartificialanything? Besides, the American FDA has approved it, and that’sexactlywhy I don’t drink it.”
It reminded me that beneath the fiery exterior, the dedicated driver, the submissive passion, lurked a politically-charged,conspiracy theory-wielding, bougie little brat. And I loved every fucking bit of it.
I brought the coffee back into the bedroom and set it on the table beside her, careful not to wake her just yet. But I couldn’t help myself; I leaned down, brushed my lips across her temple, her cheekbone, then the spot beneath her ear that always made her hum.
She did.
A faint, sleepy noise slipped from her throat as she shifted, stretching one arm out above her head while the other curled around the blanket. Her brows furrowed, then smoothed, lips parted. And then those hazel eyes blinked open, slow and lazy, pupils still blown from sleep.
“Morning, baby,” I murmured, voice thick in the Scottish brogue I found myself letting slip through more and more. She was my comfort, my safety, and that meant letting down my walls and letting her see my roots—all of them.
Even the parts I used to hate.
The accent I’d spent years suppressing to sound more polished. The rough hands that came from growing up doing everything myself. The way I talked with my eyebrows, the way I clenched my jaw when I was angry, the way I paced like a caged animal when things were out of my control.
She loved those parts. Just like I loved every self-conscious thing she tried to hide—the way she spoke about her reproductive health like her body had betrayed her, the way she picked herself apart in the mirror on the bad days.
Aurélie blinked once, twice… then turned her head and spotted the mug waiting for her. A smile bloomed instantly across her face, bright and crooked and devastating. She sat up and reached for it with both hands and pulled it close to her chest, inhaling dramatically like she was smelling a holy relic.
