“Please.” The word scrapes out of me, raw and desperate. “I know it’s a lot to ask. I know things are complicated. But I can’t—I don’t want to go through this surrounded by nothing. By strangers’ laundry detergent and century-old dust.”
He stares at me for a long moment. I can see the war playing out behind his eyes—the careful boundaries he’s maintained for years fighting against whatever just happened between us. Against the truth we finally admitted out loud.
Then he crosses to the bed and picks up a blanket.
He doesn’t just hold it. He presses it against his chest, his neck, runs the fabric between his hands. Deliberate. Thorough. Transferring as much of his scent as possible while I watch, transfixed, my mouth going dry.
When he sets it down, the chamomile and black pepper notes wrap around me like an embrace.
“More,” I breathe.
He works through the pile systematically. Pillow after pillow pressed against his body. Blankets dragged across his shoulders, his arms, his torso. The intimacy of it makes my chest ache—watching him mark these things for me, watching him claim them as ours without either of us saying the word.
By the time he finishes, the nest smells like him. Like us. Like something I never knew I needed until this exact moment.
I climb into the center and start the final arrangement. Pillows here. Blankets there. The heavy duvet forming a cave I can retreat into when the waves hit hardest. Mason’s scent surrounds me on all sides, and something deep in my hindbrain finally, finally settles.
“This is the best nest I’ve ever made,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
It’s not even a contest. Every other heat, I’ve thrown together whatever was available—hotel pillows, scratchy blankets, nothing that felt like home. This feels like safety. Like sanctuary. Like Mason built it with his own hands just for me.
The warmth under my skin flares higher without warning.
One second I’m admiring my handiwork. The next, every inch of my body feels like it’s been set on fire. My shirt is suddenly unbearable—too tight, too rough, toomuchagainst skin that’s gone hypersensitive. I claw at the hem without thinking, yanking the fabric over my head and tossing it somewhere that isn’t touching me.
Cool air hits my bare stomach and I gasp with relief.
“Phoenix.” Mason’s voice comes from somewhere to my left, carefully controlled. “I’m going to turn around now.”
“Don’t leave.” The words tumble out before I can stop them. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
A pause. Then: “I’m not leaving. I’m just… giving you privacy.”
I hear him shift, his back now facing me. Staying. Keeping his promise. Present without demanding anything in return.
Exactly like he always has been.
“Come here.”
For a long moment, he doesn’t move. Then, slowly, he turns to face me. His gray-blue eyes are carefully neutral, but there’s tension in the set of his mouth, the furrow between his brows.
“You should be resting,” he says. “The first wave will hit hardest and probably within less than an hour. It’ll be better if everything is ready.”
“Tell me what’s going on with you.”
He blinks. “Nothing is going on with me.”
“Bullshit.”
I watch his mask of calm flicker—just for a second—before it settles back into place.
“Phoenix, now isn’t the time?—“
“Now is the only time.” I pat the bed beside me, ignoring the way my hand trembles slightly. “Sit.”
He hesitates. I can see the war playing out behind his eyes—the professional instinct to maintain boundaries fighting against something deeper. Something that’s been building between us for years, unacknowledged and unnamed.
Finally, he crosses to the bed and lowers himself onto the edge, keeping a careful distance between us.
