He looked away, staring at a knot in the wooden headboard like it might rescue him. “I know it’s a lot,” he said. “I know you didn’t sign up for this. You were just trying to survive and then I happened to you. So if—if you decide you want something simpler. Someone simpler—”
“Stop,” I said.
His mouth snapped shut.
I took a breath, then another, because my heart had picked that moment to thump like it was auditioning for a metal band.
“Cole,” I said, and his name tasted like smoke and something sweet. “I'm a failed con artist with a history of bad decisions, one mailed threat away from getting my ass handed to me by the legal system. Simple is not in my vocabulary.”
“You could have it,” he said. “You could walk away and find someone whose father won’t try to have you arrested and whose chest doesn’t occasionally turn into a furnace.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But he wouldn’t be you.”
He tried to pull his hand back. I held on.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Look at me.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he did.
“I crashed your team’s party with a plan to ruin you,” I said. The words still tasted like ash, but I forced them out. “I walked in there intending to get you drunk and get you in a compromising position and then sell you to the highest bidder. And then you looked at me like I was a person and not a problem, and you talked to me like I was worth more than the nothing I started with, and somewhere between your father being a bastard and your team being ridiculous and your dragon putting its head in my lap, I realized I didn’t want your money. I just wanted…”
You.
The word stuck in my throat.
He watched me, something open and terrified in his eyes.
“I’m not good at this,” I said. “The future thing. The ‘I want’ thing. Most of my life has been a very careful balancing act between the next meal, the next safe place to sleep, and the next person I could convince not to kill me.” My mouth twisted. “It still is, if we’re being honest.”
He flinched at that.
“But when I let myself imagine more than that?” I swallowed. “You’re there too. Sitting on some couch, bitching about stats. Or teaching some terrified kid how to skate without eating ice. Or yelling at the TV with me because I beat you at soccer.’”
"Football," he whispered with a smile.
“And I’m there,” I went on. “Making you tea you forget to drink. Stealing your hoodies. Making fun of your pre-game playlist. Lying in bed with you and arguing about whether pineapple belongs on pizza.”
“It doesn’t,” he said automatically.
“See?” I smiled, weakly. “We’d be perfect.”
The corner of his mouth curled. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I am,” I agreed. “You still want me in your future?”
His eyes searched my face. For lies. For exits. Whatever he found there, it made his shoulders loosen a fraction. “Yes,” he said simply.
The word landed in my chest and bloomed.
“Okay,” I said, my voice coming out rough. “Then I guess we’re both stuck with each other.”
He breathed out. A slow, shaky exhale that felt like he was releasing something he’d been carrying for years. “Phoenix,” he murmured. “You know you don’t owe me—”
“I know,” I said.
His eyes softened.
I leaned in before I could overthink it and pressed my forehead to his. His skin was hot, my own temperature nowhere near dragon levels, but it felt…right. Balanced. The heat settled between us, not consuming, justthere.
