"Perfect! Here's your key!" Melissa hands over an actual metal key attached to a wooden tag. Very primitive. I approve.
Cabin Seven is barely larger than a closet.
One room. One tiny bathroom. One window overlooking pine trees.
One twin bed.
The bed is absurdly small—comically, insultingly small. It looks like furniture designed for children or perhaps very polite hobbits. Barely big enough for Orla to stretch out in, let alone accommodate both of us. I could probably sleep diagonally across it and still have my feet dangling off the edge. If we both tried to fit, we'd be pressed together tighter than warriors in a shield wall.
I start laughing. Deep, genuine laughter that rumbles up from my chest and echoes off the wooden walls, bouncing around the cramped cabin like thunder in a canyon. The kind of laughter that comes when the universe presents you with something so perfectly ridiculous that you can't help but appreciate the comedy of it all.
"This isn't funny," Orla hisses, dropping her perfectly organized luggage just inside the door. "This is a disaster. This is completely inappropriate. This is?—"
"Perfect," I finish, grinning wider. "Cozy. Like a warrior's tent before battle."
"Microscopic," she corrects sharply, her voice climbing half an octave. "Like a sardine can. Like a coffin for two."
"Intimate," I counter, letting the word roll off my tongue with deliberate slowness, watching her cheeks flush.
She presses her fingers to her temples like she's physically restraining her brain from exploding. "I'll sleep on the floor."
"With your bad back? The one that makes you wince when you've been staring at spreadsheets too long?" I shake my head. "Absolutely not."
"Then you take the bed. You're the guest."
"I'm the warrior. I've slept on rocks, on frozen ground, on the corpses of my enemies." That last one makes her eyes widen in horror. "Joking. Mostly. The floor here is luxury."
I drop my metal box of belongings, the battered thing that serves as my briefcase, packed with emergency rations and a change of clothes that definitely won't fit the dress code, onto the floor with a satisfying thunk. The whole cabin seems to shake from the impact. I start scanning the limited floor space, already calculating which section will be least uncomfortable for my considerable frame. Maybe near the door, where I can stretch my legs into the tiny bathroom area. Or perhaps by the window, where the draft will keep me alert and?—
"Wait."
I turn, slowly, every muscle in my body suddenly tense with anticipation.
Orla stands by the bed, fingers twisting together. Her armor is cracking. The Ice Queen melting into something softer, more uncertain.
"You don't have to," she whispers, and her voice is so quiet I almost miss it over the relentless pounding of rain against the cabin's metal roof.
My heart pounds like war drums, like I'm standing at the edge of a battlefield facing down an entire army, knowing the fight ahead will change everything. Blood rushes in my ears. Every nerve ending feels electrified, hyperaware of the scant few feet between us, the warmth radiating from her body, the way her fingers have stopped their nervous twisting and now hang motionless at her sides.
I swallow hard, trying to make my voice work properly. "Take the floor, you mean?" The words come out rougher than I intend, gravel and want mixing together in a way I can't disguise. "Because I'm happy to?—"
"Yes." She meets my eyes. "We're adults. We can share. Platonically. For space efficiency."
"Space efficiency," I repeat slowly.
"Right." She nods, convincing herself. "Just sleeping. Nothing else. Professional boundaries maintained."
I take one step toward her, my bare feet silent against the wooden floorboards despite my size. The area between us shrinks. Then another step, slower this time, deliberate, giving her every opportunity to retreat, to rebuild those walls she's so carefully constructed around herself.
She doesn't move away. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't reach for her armor of spreadsheets and protocols and five-year plans. She just stands there, watching me approach with those sharp eyes that have begun to soften at the edges, her chest rising and falling with each breath she takes.
"Little Manager." I stop just before touching her. "If I get in that bed with you, professional boundaries will not survive the night."
Her breath hitches. "Maybe I don't want them to."
The last thread of my control snaps.
9
