“It’s ambience.”
“It’s an electrical fire hazard.”
She grins and tosses a pillow at me before heading towards the dresser. I follow more slowly, taking everything in properly now.
Unlike my room growing up—which had never really been mine—this place is filled with evidence of Wynter everywhere.
Books stacked beside the bed with tatty bookmarks hanging out the edges, marking favourite pages.
Concert tickets tucked into the mirror frame. Perfume bottles crowding the dresser.
There’s a faded university hoodie hanging off the desk chair and a battered teddy bear shoved awkwardly between pillows like she couldn’t quite bring herself to get rid of it.
And photographs.
Dozens of them.
They’re clipped around the mirror in no particular order. Wynter laughing with friends. A younger version of Lucy holding teenage Wynter in a headlock while both grinning at the camera.Alec proudly standing beside a much younger Wynter holding exam results.
And then a woman who looks so much like Wynter it catches me off guard for a second.
Same eyes. Same smile. Just darker hair.
Her mother.
Then my gaze catches on him.
Josh.
The same picture she kept beside her bed at my apartment.
She’s tucked beneath his arm smiling up at him while he looks at the camera like he already knows he’s the luckiest man in the world. Young and happy.Completely unaware of how short life really is.
Wynter notices where my attention lands and clears her throat quietly. “Sorry,” she murmurs, immediately stepping forward. “I forgot that was still there.” She reaches to take the photo down and I catch her wrist gently before she can.
She looks up at me uncertainly. “It’s okay,” I tell her quietly.
She studies my face like she’s checking whether I actually mean it. I do. Because standing here in the middle of her childhood bedroom, surrounded by every version of who she used to be, I realise something important.
Josh isn’t competition. He’s part of her story. Part of what shaped the woman standing in front of me now.
Slowly, she lets her hand fall away from the picture. I tug her gently towards me instead, wrapping my arms around her waist.
“This room is so you,” I murmur against her hair. “Especially the fairy lights.”
She laughs softly into my chest. “They make things feel softer.”
My eyes drift around the room again. The worn carpet. The scribbled notes still pinned above the desk. The old, cracked jewellery box overflowing with tangled necklaces. It feelsintimate in a way expensive places never do. Like I’m seeing pieces of her nobody else gets to anymore.
“You were happy here,” I say quietly.
She nods against me. “Mostly.”
I tilt her chin gently until she looks up at me. Then I kiss her. It’s slow and soft. She melts into me almost instantly, her hands sliding beneath my jacket while mine settle against her hips.
And Christ, kissing her in this room does something dangerous to my head.
Her mouth curves slightly against mine before she pulls back just enough to breathe. “You’re thinking too loudly again,” she whispers.
