I remember staring at the ceiling, perfectly still, afraid that if I moved even an inch it would break whatever fragile thing was happening.
I don’t remember the last time I slept all night, but last night… I did. I tried to remember the last time I woke up with a woman still in my bed.
I couldn’t remember the time for that either.
Probably because it's never happened—I’ve never let it happen. I don’t stay, or don’t linger, or make promises I don’t plan to keep. I don’t do mornings. I especially don’t do the real kind of sleep—the kind where your guard drops and someone else exists in your space for hours without you waking every twenty minutes to make sure they aren’t going through your things or collecting ammunition.
And yet, there she was.
Breathing softly, hair across my arm, mouth parted in sleep, like she wasn’t carrying a hundred thoughts even while unconscious. No tension in her shoulders. No vigilance. Just warmth.
I hated how much I liked it.
I hated how fast my mind went there. How easy it was to imagine her waking up slowly, blinking at me, making some mouthy comment about my body being an alarm clock. How easy it was to picture her tucked into my side again while I pretended I wasn’t holding on.
I didn’t touch her. I don’t know if that’s restraint or fear. Maybe it’s both.
I slipped out of bed like a thief, quiet as I could, because some part of me wanted to come back and find her in the exact sameplace. Like proof it wasn’t a hallucination. Like proof, she stayed again, even when I wasn’t asking.
My steps crunch over packed snow as I cut around the side of the village and head for the chalet path, my pulse kicking up for reasons that have nothing to do with cardio.
It’s ridiculous.
She’s a PR agent. She’s here for a job. She’s not mine. She isn’t even… anything.
But my brain doesn’t care about logic this morning.
All it cares about is that in a few minutes I’ll open the door and smell coffee, or hear her moving around, or see her hair pulled up messy while she sits at the table with her laptop like she owns the space.
The thought makes my chest feel tight in a way I don’t know what to do with.
I reach the chalet, pull the door open, already bracing for heat to hit me… And the first thing I notice is the silence.
No clink of a mug. No soft keyboard taps. No frustrated sigh at bad Wi-Fi… nothing.
The air feels colder than it should. My gaze snaps to the entryway.
Her boots are gone.
Her bag is gone.
And the bed… the bed is made. Too neatly, I might add. Like she was never there at all.
There’s a note but all it says is:Thank you for giving me a safe place to stay.
What the hell does that mean? Was that a goodbye note?
I move through the chalet like I'm searching for evidence of a crime. The kitchen, the living room… there’s nothing left of hers around. Even the towels we used last night are gone, like she erased every trace of herself before she left.
My pulse kicks up, hard and fast, the kind of adrenaline spike that comes right before a fight.
Did she leave?
Did she take the first fucking flight out without saying a word?
I grab my phone and pull up her contact, thumb hovering over the call button.
No.
