Whatwasunusual was the warm weight pressed against my side, the soft hair tickling my chin, the steady rhythm of breathing that wasn’t my own.
Sydney.
She was still here. Still real. Not a dream I’d conjured up out of loneliness and desperation.
I stayed perfectly still, not wanting to wake her. Early light filtered through the curtains, casting soft gray shadows across the room, and I used it to memorize her—the way her lashes fanned across her cheeks, the slight part of her lips, the small furrow between her brows that smoothed as she shifted closer in her sleep.
Last night had been… I didn’t have words for it. I’d been with women before—plenty of them—but nothing had ever felt like that. Like coming home and setting out on an adventure at the same time. Like finding something I hadn’t known I was missing.
She made a small sound and burrowed deeper into my chest. My arm tightened around her automatically, and before I could stop myself, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
I was in deep trouble. The best kind of trouble.
Eventually, my stomach started making demands I couldn’t ignore. I eased out of bed, careful not to wake her, tucked the blankets around her, and padded barefoot to the kitchen.
Breakfast. I could do breakfast.
Eggs, bacon, toast—nothing fancy, but solid. The kind of meal that saidI’m glad you’re herewithout requiring me to say the words out loud.
I was cracking eggs into a bowl when I heard her footsteps in the hallway. Soft. Hesitant. I turned to greet her and nearly dropped the eggs on the floor.
She was wearing one of my flannel shirts.
Just the shirt, as far as I could tell. It skimmed past her thighs, the sleeves rolled to her elbows, the collar slipping off one shoulder to reveal a stretch of smooth skin I’d kissed last night. Her hair was mussed from sleep, her feet bare, and she looked at me with those warm eyes like I was exactly what she wanted to see first thing in the morning.
“Hi,” she said, almost shy.
“Hi yourself.” My voice came out rougher than I’d intended. “Coffee’s almost ready. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
She settled into the same chair she’d used the night before, tucking her legs underneath her, and watched me cook. I liked that. Liked having her here, filling the space with her presence. The cabin had never felt empty before—but now I understood what it had been missing.
I plated the food—scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, buttered toast—and set it in front of her before pouring us both coffee. Weate in comfortable silence for a while, broken only by the clink of forks and the occasional hum of appreciation from Sydney.
“This is really good,” she said around a bite of eggs.
“It’s just eggs.”
“Perfect eggs.” She grinned at me, and my heart kicked up a notch. “You’re going to spoil me.”
“That’s the plan.”
When we finished eating, I refilled our mugs and leaned back against the counter while she stayed at the table. The morning sun crept higher, warming the kitchen, and everything felt settled. Easy. Like we’d been doing this for years instead of hours.
“So,” Sydney said, wrapping her hands around her mug. “What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…this. Us.” She gestured vaguely between us. “I came here hoping it would work, but I didn’t really have a plan beyond showing up. Do we just…see how it goes?”
I thought about it. About the life I’d imagined for myself before she’d shown up and turned everything sideways.
“I always figured I’d end up with a quiet life,” I said slowly. “A wife, eventually. Maybe one kid. Nothing too complicated.”
Sydney went still. She set her mug down with exaggerated care.
“One kid?”
