His warmth almost felt like a promise.
The trail was short. Quiet. And the overlook at the end was just a rocky ledge facing east. The West Rim yawned wide before us, the canyon still cloaked in shadow as the horizon began to catch fire.
We sat down, shoulder to shoulder, legs swinging over the edge.
“Hard to believe Vegas is next,” I said quietly.
Way too many questions hovered between us. And Vegas suddenly felt way more dangerous than any canyon. It meant noise. People. And it meant I’d just be a plane ride away from real life.
He bumped his knee into mine, breaking the silence. “You any good at poker?”
I smiled faintly. “Not really.” I glanced over at him. “I think I’m more of a spin-the-wheel-and-hope kind of girl,” I said, but then frowned. “Or I used to be. Seems a little reckless now.”
“You know, sometimes it’s not about beating the odds. Sometimes it’s just being willing to put something on the table.”
I exhaled slowly. “Yeah. But once that wheel spins, there’s no controlling where it lands.”
“Just hope,” he agreed quietly. His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes. His voice was low, thoughtful. “Every bet’s a risk. You just have to decide which ones are worth it.”
“How do you know which ones are worth it?”
He nodded slowly, like he understood exactly what I wasn’t saying. “You just know.”
I swallowed. “And if you’re wrong?”
“Then you deal with it.” His voice was low now, almost a murmur. “But not taking the chance...sometimes that costs even more.”
And just like that, our mouths met.
It wasn’t rushed or desperate—it was deliberate. Like an answer. Like a promise neither of us was ready to make out loud. His hand slid to the back of my neck as his lips moved against mine, slow and deep and sure.
When he finally pulled back, his thumb brushed my cheek. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “You look golden in this light.”
“You make me feel golden,” I whispered back.
We heard the sound of feet shuffling along the path—other early risers—but where we might’ve pulled away before, neither of us moved. We just stayed like that, our lips mere inches apart, so close I could count every single one of his ridiculously long eyelashes.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
For a second, I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for. And then I got it.
Somehow, we’d met at exactly the right time, both of us a little lost in ways we hadn’t fully admitted even to ourselves.
He’d stepped in when I needed someone confident, steady, and honest, not to fix me, but to remind me that I could stand on my own again. That I, the scorned half of a celebrity cooking show duo still had something to offer.
I shouldn’t have had to fake my life. At least now, I was actually being me. Messy. Real. Figuring it out one unscripted day at a time. Owning both the parts I was proud of and the parts I was still learning to carry.
And somehow, all of that had managed to help him too. Helped him see that life was never going to be perfect. That you didn’t have to carry everyone else’s weight to prove your worth.
That being enough didn’t mean being everything.
Honestly, for two people who hadn’t planned any of this, we were doing surprisingly okay.
And then he kissed me again.
How was it that every kiss Noah gave me seemed more romantic than the one before? Was it because we were on vacation? Or because it was Noah doing the kissing?
“You know,” Noah said after a while, when both of us were breathing evenly again, “I’ve been watching more of your old videos.”
