His breathing was slow and even against the back of my neck. One of his hands rested against my stomach like even in his sleep he refused to let go of me. I felt my panic recede as I relaxed into him, my heart rate slowly normalizing.
Lying there with him was so surreal, but I definitely didn’t hate it. His skin was warm against my own, the rhythmic sound of his breathing combined with the spicy scent of him lulling me half asleep again within seconds, but even as I closed my eyes, I couldn’t fall asleep fully.
My mind kept whirring. Clips played out like short films behind my eyes. Memories of our chats on Discord and my cautious excitement when we’d first switched over to email.
Eventually realizing that I was just going to wake him if I stayed, I carefully lifted his arm and slid out from underneath it. He shifted a little, but didn’t wake. His breathing was still deep as I climbed off the bed and grabbed a robe from his ensuite bathroom.
With no real destination in mind, I padded downstairs, wrapping the robe tighter around myself. It was cooler down here, the apartment quiet in a way that reminded me of my late-night chats with CB.
So many nights, for so many years, when the world around me had grown quiet like this, I’d reached for my phone and he’d always been at the other end. CB. Nate. I was still having trouble getting my head wrapped around the fact that they were same person.
I passed my phone on the kitchen counter where I’d left it earlier, swiping it up out of habit. The screen lit up, the brightness making me squint for a moment, but then I saw the notifications. So many notifications.
What the heck is going on?
I clicked on a notification and an article opened up. Slightly jarred by the headline that jumped out at me, I sank down on the stool at the island.Billionaire Nathaniel Westwood Officially Off The Market.
Underneath it was a picture of Nate climbing out of the car at the party in New York. His jaw was tight and his eyes were sharp under the camera flashes. Another picture showed him inside the venue, one arm around my waist and my face turned up toward his like there was nowhere else I’d rather be looking. My left hand was visible at my side, a gaudy circle drawn around the ring.
I rolled my eyes at the shot, deciding that no matter what happened, I would ignore the paparazzi and what they said or thought about us. My own family had been featured in these shitty tabloids for a while after we’d moved from Detroit to New York.
Because our last name had dwindled from relevance back in what I personally thought of as the Stone Age, it had been big news that my father had emerged as afinancial genius, taking the city by storm. All of that had been bullshit, of course.
Dad was smart. For sure. But he’d also worked unbelievably hard, starting a hedge fund from our one-bedroom apartment inDetroit the year I was born and working his way up to where he was today, running a multi-billion-dollar company.
Occasionally, some photographer would decide it was time to catch the world up on the Vanderhauls, but outside of that, we’d mostly managed to fall off their radar. The company—and the family—were doing well, but not well enough to warrant the kind of attention the Westwoods got.
The next article I clicked into was worse, the headline sensationalizing Jane’s admission to the hospital aftera shocking incident.I frowned as I opened it, wondering if I’d missed something, but I soon realized the wording had simply been chosen to make it sound like she’d nearly died, turning her brief stay into something tragic and scandalous rather than frightening and precautionary.
Like her health and the heath of her child were nothing more than meaningless clickbait, entertainment for the masses. I locked the screen and stared at my own reflection in the dark window, my mind tripping over what it was going to be like being part of this family.
While they weren’t quite as stalked by these reporters as some celebrities or athletes, they certainly seemed to attract a fair amount of public interest. In that sense, it was no wonder Nate had sought refuge someplace where no one knew his real name.
In the cyberspace where I’d met him, he’d simply been Colonel Brandon and then CB. Since we both loved rules, we’d decided early on to make some and one of the first had beenno real names. At the time, I’d agreed becausewhy not?It wasn’t like being a Vanderhaul had always been a picnic, and besides, the anonymity of it made it feel safer in a way. I hadn’t felt as exposed opening up because he had no clue who I really was.
Looking at it from his point of view, however, it must’ve been so much more important to keep that mystery alive. To be able tobe entirely himself without the nameWestwoodhaving anything to do with it.
The thought brought a smile to my lips.How freeing it must’ve been for him.
Knowing what I knew now, it was almost an honor to have been on the other side of that. To have been able to give him that space to just… be. I unlocked my phone again and opened my messages, clicking into CB’s name near the top.
The thread stretched back years, pages and pages of words we’d written to each other. Jokes folded into confessions, late-night thoughts tangled up with early-morning realizations.
It hurt to look back at it all like this. A dull, aching kind of sadness settled behind my ribs. I scrolled slowly, reading pieces at random. I really had loved him, my CB.
I’d built space for him in my life day by day and year by year. I’d trusted him implicitly without ever seeing his face or knowing what his voice sounded like in person.
As I kept scrolling, something slowly started shifting. A phrase here and a joke there, a familiar turn of words and that dry sense of humor.
My brow furrowed, but the longer I read, the more it leaped out at me. The way he spoke. The jokes he’d made. It was all just soNatethat I couldn’t believe I’d missed it, but on the other hand, I’d only really gotten to know him like this recently.
My chest tightened anyway, because I’d been so in love with CB, so completely, hopelessly, head over heels in love with him, and all along, he’d been Nate. Nate had been that person I’d reached for in the dark, my reliable, sharp-witted, deep-thinking, highly intelligent knight in pixelated armor.
And now we were getting married. Some people would probably call that fate. Or maybe destiny. Whatever other term they used for something romantic and inevitable.
I huffed a quiet breath at the thought. I’d never been a romantic. Not until I’d let CB into my life and my heart anyway.
Meanwhile, Nate still felt foreign. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like a place I’d seen in pictures but had never actually visited.
