Finn’s thumb brushed lightly against her hand, as if he was checking that she was still there.
She looked up at him.
He was watching her.
Not questioning.
Just… present.
Ivy stepped closer.
Let herself lean into him. Just for a second. Just enough to feel the solid warmth of him, the scent of him—earth and sun and something clean beneath it that she had started to associate with safety.
His mouth found hers easily. No hesitation. A brief kiss, not meant to consume, just to confirm.
Still here.
Still this.
He pulled back just enough to look at her. "How was your morning?"
She huffed a small laugh. "Complicated."
"Yeah," he said, like that tracked. "We’ll get to that."
He didn’t push. Didn’t ask for more than that. Just took her hand again and led her toward the kitchen.
When she walked into the space, her first thought was that it was Instagram Ready. The light had been set to catch the counter at an angle that softened everything without flattening it, the kind of warm, diffused glow that made butter look richer and tomatoes look like they held their own light. The cutting board had been nudged just off-center, leaving negative space inthe frame where a bowl or a finished plate could land naturally, as if it had always belonged there. Even the utensils had been arranged within reach, but not cluttered; each one placed where it would enter the frame cleanly if she needed it.
It didn’t look like a set. It looked like a kitchen that happened to be beautiful. Like someone understood that the point wasn’t the camera—it was the work—and the camera had simply been invited to witness it in the best possible light.
"Do you want to set up your camera first?"
Finn’s voice pulled her out of it. Out of the light. Out of the framing. Out of the realization that he had built this space for her without asking, without needing credit, just… because.
Ivy turned. Looked at him. At his face; open, steady, unguarded in a way that didn’t belong anywhere near the machinery of social media or the sharp-edged world Devon had just tried to pull her back into. She could already see it, if she let herself: comments, edits, narratives that twisted something real into something consumable.
She didn’t want that. Not for him. Not for Finn.
She could handle if she went back. She could pull on the facade. But she didn't want to see another Finn, but the grumpy, grinning one in front of her.
"I’m not filming."
Finn blinked, "No? You haven’t posted in a few days."
"I’ve been busy with my new boyfriend."
Oops.
Ivy's stomach dropped, her throat tightening as the realization hit her a split second too late. She had not just said that out loud. Oh, how she wished that had been a take, and she could go back and edit it out of the video. They hadn’t even been on a real date.
Finn had gone still. Not shut down. Not guarded. Just… paused, like he was recalibrating in real time.
Then he grinned. It spread across his face like something he didn’t bother holding back. "That guy sounds awful if he’s not recognizing and anticipating your needs."
Ivy glanced at the camera. The light coming in the window. The careful, thoughtful setup he had built for her without making a thing of it. He had anticipated her.
That didn't change her mind. It made her want to double down. She did not want to share him. Didn’t want to take something that was his—this instinctive way he showed up—and put it out there for people to comment on, to dissect, to claim.
