She touched him like she finally understood what it meant towantsomeone you trust. Every inch of him was familiar now. His laugh, his temper, the softness he tried to hide. But somehow this made him new again. Hers, fully.Finally.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she whispered.
His expression didn’t change. He didn’t flinch. Just exhaled, slow and sure, as if to saysame,and pressed a kiss to her temple like sealing a promise.
“Then I’ll catch you.”
And god help her, Holly believed him.
60
ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE (QUICK, SEND BACKUP)
Nate
“She smiled at me over coffee like I’d done something right. That was it. That was the win.”
The morning sun in Copenhagen had a softness that was completely unfair. It filtered through the curtains like a warm promise full of quiet possibility, the exact opposite of the jagged tension that had filled the house the night before. Nate woke first, shielding Holly’s back like he’d been designed to fold around her curves in sleep. He didn’t want to move, but his phone was buzzing like a mosquito in his ear.
Two missed calls from Jaime, and the group chat going off. And on top of all that, they would have to deal with his mother.
Nate lay there for a minute longer, one arm heavy around Holly’s waist. She stirred when he shifted, making a small, disgruntled sound and burrowing closer instead of letting go, her hand sliding back to hook over his thigh like a trap. He smiled, heart instantly racing the way it always did when hewas with her.
“Morning,” he murmured, pressing his mouth into her hair. “Hate to rush you, but we gotta move, Martinez. Jaime’s having some kinda team meltdown, and my mom’s lurking around the house like the Scandinavian version of JAWS, only much more terrifying.”
Holly cracked one eye open. “Hotel,” she said immediately, voice thick with sleep. “With room service. And zero emotionally competitive table settings.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Already booked. I panicked in the middle of the night like a grown man.”
She tilted her head back just enough to look at him, smirking as he brushed his thumb along her spine as he finally disentangled himself. “Come on,” he sighed. “Let’s escape before someone offers us yogurt with a side of judgment.”
Today wastheirday. Not ski slopes of judgment, not dinner tables of thinly veiled contempt. Today was Copenhagen. Today was air that wasn’t loaded with subtext. But before they could even make it out of the house with their bags, his mother appeared in the hallway again. Hair perfect, expression frosty in that glacial way that had worn Holly down by dinner.
“You’re being ridiculous, Nathanael,” she said, arms crossed in that posture ofI am reasonable and you are reckless. “You can’t just run off to a hotel like this. There are cameras, schedules, contracts. People will notice.”
Nate felt something tighten in his ribs. Not anger exactly, but the old reflexive bracing. This was the way she always spoke, as if life were a spreadsheet and emotions were a liability. His instinct used to be to soften and keep the peace at any cost. But not with Holly beside him making him feel ten feet tall and bulletproof.
He stepped in front of their bags, just a fraction of an inch closer to Holly, and met his mother’s gaze with a steadiness that surprised even him.
“We aren’t hiding,” he said, voice calm but firm. “We’re enforcing boundaries, Mor. Holly’s injured and is supposed to be resting. She deserves a day that doesn’t involve passive disapproval. And I’m not having this conversation again.”
There was no shouting. No dramatics. Just honesty laid out like a blade between them. His mother blinked, startled out of her polite imperiousness. She opened her mouth, but nothing came. Instead, she retreated with a faint sniff, and Nate felt the tension in his shoulders ease like a cord releasing.
Holly stepped forward. She was so graceful, so beautiful, as her fingers brushed his arm lightly and her rose and patchouli bodywash invaded his senses. “Thank you.”
By the time they checked into the boutique hotel on Nyhavn, the memory of yesterday’s dinner felt like a dark cloud dissolving under sunlight. Holly hobbled around the room with a lightness he hadn’t seen in her for weeks. More laughing, more sass, less tension in her shoulders. They didn’t talk about his mother. They didn’t talk about the show, or the future or how precarious all of this felt.
They made coffee in the little kitchenette, laughing as he stole bites of her croissant like it was a culinary hostage situation. Instead of pushing his hand away she just nudged him with a grin, like this wasallowed, like being an idiot in the morning was one of the highest forms of affection.
They wandered the city without an agenda, at a pace that she could manage and resting at cafes when she needed it. Just sunlight and small, delightful things. The way the cobblestonesfelt familiar under his feet, the way the canal water caught the light like shards of broken sky. She bought him a silly scarf that was bright red, absurdly oversized, with a pattern that looked like it had been designed by someone who watched too many cartoons. He wore it for the rest of the day with all the pride of someone who had just won an emotional championship.
Nate watched her like she’d painted the sky. Every heartbeat in his chest felt like it had rewritten its own rhythm just for her. She was light and fierce and feral and radiant all at once, like a chorus of every good thing the world had ever offered. And for one perfect, golden moment, it felt like the world was theirs.
It terrified him. Because butterflies were one thing, but butterflies with the potential for crashing were a whole different fear entirely. And just like that, he felt the same nervous flicker he had carried into the hospital that night she got hurt. He felt the ice-cold shadows of doubt creep in.
He loved her. Clearly, fiercely, and in a way that didn’t fit neatly into spreadsheets or polite conversation, or the tidy boxes his mother seemed to prefer. But he also knew that love this good was the kind that asked the hardest questions.
And even at home in Copenhagen, with her laughter in the air and her smile like a horizon he wanted to live inside forever, Nate felt a tremor of uncertainty. Because he finally understood how scary it was towantsomeone so entirely and not know if they were going to stay.
