“When?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“On New Year’s Eve.” She felt his lips press to her forehead. “In Vancouver.” Her cheekbone. “When you walked through the door at upfronts.” The tip of her nose. “In my trailer before you left.” Her jaw. “When we got the tattoos.” Her shoulder. “The first time I kissed you.” Her neck. “When you forgot your lines at our first audition.” Her lips again, at last.
She thought about fighting it, even now. Insisting that he couldn’t possibly have loved her from the day he’d met her.
But it didn’t matter, she realized. There was no satisfaction in being right about this—if it was even possible. That wasn’t the point. The point was that he loved her now, and she knew it assurely as she knew her own name. The kind of love that cast a warm glow back through time, all the way to their first meeting, reframing the past through the lens of the present. Powerful enough to illuminate the protective shell she’d thought surrounded her heart, revealing that it wasn’t a shell at all, but a cocoon. Her heart hadn’t been calcifying, it had been biding its time, breaking down and rearranging on a molecular level until it was finally safe to burst free and reveal itself, trembling and brilliant and brand new.
She opened her eyes.
“I’d say, ‘Me, too.’ ”
He broke into a grin, so wide and unrestrained it was almost childlike. “Told you I wouldn’t forget.”
“Yours was a lot better than mine.”
“Yours was perfect.” He stroked her hair. “But I think I might have been working on mine for longer.”
“Well, it was worth the wait.”
His smile faded slowly, his expression turning serious. “Was it, though?”
She bit her lip. “I think we needed it. We weren’t ready for each other back then. We both had some growing up to do.”
“Maybeyoudid,” he muttered, but she could tell he was struggling to keep a straight face, especially as she giggled. He leaned forward and kissed her deeply, thoroughly. “Please tell me this was the last morning I’ll have to wake up without you,” he said quietly when he pulled away.
“Codependent much?” she teased, even though his words sent goosebumps of pleasure skating up her arms.
“We have a lot of lost time to make up for; I’d say we’ve earned a little codependency. But I won’t tell Dr. Deena if you won’t.” He nudged her onto her side, fitting her back against his chest, and she sighed.
“Shane?” she murmured, already drifting off.
“Yeah?”
“Can you still fuck me like you hate me sometimes?”
He laughed, bringing his hand down to give her a sharp smack on the ass, followed by a soothing squeeze. “I’ll try my best.”
26
Considering how little sleep he actually got, Shane woke up surprisingly rested. His humiliation the night before was barely on his mind—not with Lilah curled up naked in his arms. If he’d had his way, they wouldn’t have left that bed for another few days at the earliest. But they were due back on set on the other side of the country early the next morning, so moments after waking up, they were propped against the headboard, limbs still entangled, sorting out the logistics of the day ahead: packing up his room, grabbing Lilah’s things from her hotel, trying to change their tickets to get on the same flight back to L.A.
Lilah’s alarm blared relentlessly from somewhere in the outer room of the suite, so he dragged himself out of bed to dig theirphones out of their discarded clothes. When he slid back under the covers and handed Lilah hers, he caught a glimpse of her screen, flooded with notifications, the Hags group chat right at the top (forty-seven unread messages). She looked at it and groaned, dropping her head back against the headboard with a clunk, which was his cue to lean over and nip at her exposed throat, unable to contain himself, overwhelmed that he could.
They didn’t really have time to have sex again, but all it took was Lilah innocently asking what he wanted for breakfast, and before he knew it he was flat on his back, her thighs straddling his ears, her breath escaping in helpless gasps as she gripped the headboard. Once she came, he flipped her onto her stomach and slid into her from behind, sinking his teeth into her shoulder as he pinned her to the mattress.
After that, theyreallyhad to hurry.
Somehow, they made it to the airport with time to spare. As they waited at the counter to check his bag, he developed a gradual awareness of something that had slipped his mind in the mania of the past twenty-four hours.
He was comfortable with the level of fame he had now. He’d had years to get used to it, and it was nowhere near its most frenzied peaks—the first season ofIntangible,his relationship with Serena. For the most part, he was able to live his life relatively unbothered, minus the awareness in the back of his mind that he might be photographed at any time. But he could handle a sneaky picture here, an approach from a fan there. He liked talking to fans, actually, because he liked talking to pretty much everyone.
But the level of attention they were getting as they made their way through the terminal almost felt like that first season again. People were openly pointing, taking pictures without even trying to hide it, giving him that caged-zoo-animal feelingfor the first time in years. It made sense: the two of them together were of much greater interest than either of them were separately, even to people who didn’t watch the show. After last night, they were kind of asking for it.
He glanced over at Lilah, who was still wearing her sunglasses, her posture rigid, mouth set in a thin, humorless line. He wanted to reach for her hand to reassure her, but he wasn’t sure if that would make things worse. She returned his glance and smiled tightly, taking his hand herself, giving it a squeeze.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “We knew this was going to happen, right?”
Once they made it through security, they were able to escape into the airline’s VIP lounge. Shane hunted down some snacks and coffee as Lilah scouted a secluded corner by the window. When he returned, she was scrolling through her phone, a perturbed look on her face.
