By evening,the cabin is warm in that slow, creeping way that gets under your skin. Fire popping softly. Lamplight low. A couple of drinks in, just enough to loosen my limbs without dulling anything important.
Which might be the problem.
Because everything feels sharper instead of softer.
Boone sits across from me, solid and quiet, his presence a weight I can feel even when he’s not looking at me. Caleb’s near the window, arms folded, attention drifting but never really leaving. Silas keeps moving, restless energy circling the room, refilling glasses, leaning too close, smiling like he knows something I don’t.
Or maybe something I do.
I told myself this trip was about talking. About clarity. About fixing what got tangled.
I did not tell myself how impossible it would be to sit in a room with all three of them and pretend my body doesn’t remember.
Every time Boone’s gaze slides to mine, my breath catches. Not because he’s doing anything overt, he isn’t, but because he’snot doing anything. He’s holding himself still, a man standing at the edge of a line he refuses to cross unless invited.
That should make this easier.
It doesn’t.
It makes it unbearable.
I feel it in my chest, tight and restless. In my hands, itching for something to do. In the way my thoughts keep looping back to the same awareness: nothing is actually resolved. I said we should keep things professional, but I never said I didn’t want them.
I was just afraid.
Boone stands to toss another log on the fire, and the movement pulls my attention like a magnet. The stretch of his shoulders. The flex of his forearms. The way the firelight catches the angles of his face.
My insides snap. Decisively.
I set my glass down before I can talk myself out of it.
Before I can remember all the reasons this is complicated.
I cross the room on legs that feel steadier than I expect, stop in front of Boone while he’s still half turned toward the fire.
He looks at me, surprised flickering briefly across his face before it settles into a darkness.
“Delaney?” he says quietly.
I don’t answer.
I reach up, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, feeling his breath hitch under my hand. The contact sends a jolt straight through me, like my body’s been waiting for permission.
“I said we should be professional,” I groan. “And I meant it when I said it.”
His jaw tightens. “Okay.”
“But I didn’t say I could pretend this isn’t here.”
I tip my head up, close enough now that I can feel his heat, his breath, the way he’s holding himself back with sheer will.
“So this,” I whisper, “is me not pretending.”
And then I kiss him.
I press my mouth to his with intention, with choice, with the full weight ofI am doing thisbehind it.
Boone makes a sound in his throat that’s half restraint, half surrender. His hands hover for a split second, waiting, and when I slide my palms up his chest, giving him silent permission, he groans and pulls me in.
