I don't have an answer. Not yet.
Instead, I pull her closer, settling her against my chest. She comes willingly, her body fitting against mine like she belongs there. Like she's always belonged there.
"So," I say against her hair. "This TV marathon."
She goes still. "Yeah?"
"One condition."
"Which is?"
"You pick the show. But I get to ask questions."
Her laugh vibrates through me. "You want to ask questions during the show? That's, like, the cardinal sin of binge-watching."
"I don't know these rules."
"Clearly." She tilts her head back to look at me, and the smile on her face does something dangerous to my chest. "Fine. But if you talk during the important parts, I'm kicking you out of your own bedroom."
"Noted."
She settles back against me, reaching for the remote on the nightstand. The screen flickers to life, and she starts scrolling through options.
I don't watch the screen.
I watch her.
The way her nose scrunches when she dismisses a show. The way she mouths the titles to herself. The way she's completely comfortable in my space, in my robe, in my bed.
This is dangerous, the logical part of my brain whispers. She makes you soft. She makes you vulnerable. She makes you want things you swore you'd never want.
I tell that voice to shut the fuck up.
"This one," Kristen announces, selecting something called Outer Banks. "It's about treasure hunting and rich kids versus poor kids and lots of dramatic running through swamps."
"Sounds terrible."
"It's amazing." She hits play and curls deeper into my arms. "Now shush."
I don't shush. I ask questions through the entire first episode—who is that, why are they doing that, why doesn't he just tell her—until Kristen threatens to smother me with a pillow.
I've never been more content in my life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kristen
"The pacing was perfect," Vittoria insists, waving her iced coffee like a weapon. "Every chapter built on the last one."
Nora snorts. "The pacing was a slog through wet concrete. I skimmed the entire middle section."
"You skimmed?" Vittoria's voice hits a pitch that makes two shoppers at the next kiosk turn around. "That's literary sacrilege."
"It's self-preservation. Life's too short for books that put me to sleep."
I trail behind them through the shopping center, half-listening to their argument about some fantasy romance they'd both read. Vittoria loved it. Nora found it "aggressively boring." They've been at this for twenty minutes now, and honestly? It's the most normal thing I've experienced in weeks.
Lily holds my hand, her other arm wrapped around the stuffed rabbit Vittoria bought her from the toy store we passed. Princess Bun-Bun the Second, apparently. Because the real Princess Bun-Bun needed a travel companion.
