Because with Olivia in my arms, all that matters is the future.
FOUR
olivia
We steponto campus together the way we always do, side by side, in sync.
Only today, it feels different.
Maybe it’s the stark contrast between Halford, with its perfect paths and structured schedules, and the last few weeks spent in New York, where everything felt more intimate, more consuming. Maybe it’s the way the cold bites sharper here, the air clearer but heavier at the same time.
Or maybe it’s justhim.
Nathaniel moves beside me all quiet confidence and magnetic pull. There’s a shift in the way he carries himself now—something restored, as though stepping back onto this campus has returned the control that had frayed at the edges in Manhattan.
I saw a different version of him there—one I don’t think he meant to show me.
Being around his family, surrounded by old memories and expectations, had unmoored him in a way I don’t think he has ever allowed himself to be in Boston. He had beenraw—not just with me, but within himself, like the act of merely existing in thathouse had forced him into a confrontation he wasn’t prepared for.
His brother’s absence clung to him like a shadow, one he never acknowledged outright, but it was there—in the way his jaw clenched at the mention of his name, in the way he avoided certain rooms as if they held ghosts only he could see. He never spoke of it, never allowed himself what he considered the indulgence of mourning, only acknowledged it when the weight of it became too heavy to ignore. And when that happened, I witnessed firsthand how it wrung him out entirely.
But here, that shadow is gone. His carefully curated mask of composure has snapped back into place with startling ease.
I felt it the moment we landed in Boston. The way his hand found the small of my back with certainty, guiding me forward like there had never been any question of where I was meant to go.
He hasn’t brought up the proposal again. But Ifeelthe weight of it.
Just like the other offer to move in with him. A compromise—a second chance to say yes.
He hasn’t pressed me about it, but as we stepped off the plane and he guided me toward the black Mercedes waiting on the tarmac, I could hear the words he wasn’t saying.
Come back with me.
Inside the car, the gentle coaxing began. After securing my seatbelt, Nathaniel reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine as his thumb traced slow, reassuring strokes against my skin. “Are you tired, baby? You can rest on the way home.”
Home.
It wasn’t a question ofwhere.It was a foregone conclusion.
I shifted, biting my lip. “I should probably?—”
He cut me off with a squeeze of my hand, gentle but firm. “It’s late. Your dorm can wait.” A careful pause. Then, smoothly, as if it were nothing, he added, “Unless you’d prefer to sleep alone tonight?”
He didn’t say it to pressure me. He didn’tneedto. The aftershocks of New York still reverberated between us—the confessions, the vulnerability, the pain he had let me see. I knew that if I insisted on going back to my dorm, it wouldn’t just be about where I slept.
It would be a refusal. A boundary set.
And I wasn’t ready to draw that line.
So, I exhaled and nodded. “Okay. Your place it is.”
Nathaniel’s relief was palpable. His fingers tightened around mine, and he lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to my knuckles.
“That’s my good girl.”
I should have been unsettled by how clearly he expected this outcome. But instead, a strange warmth bloomed in my chest.
And now, here we are.
