I stood there longer than I should’ve, just watching. The room was warm and quiet — the kind of quiet that made you forget you were supposed to leave.
There was a blanket folded over the back of the couch, so I pulled it down and tucked it around her shoulders. She murmured something I couldn’t quite catch, turning onto her side, one hand peeking out from the edge of the blanket.
I set the aspirin and the water on the coffee table, next to the note I scribbled on the back of a grocery receipt:
Hydrate. And maybe dream about someone less complicated.
It was supposed to be a joke, but as soon as I wrote it, the words hit too close to home.
I stood there in the half-light, one hand on the lamp, the other still holding the pen. Her face was relaxed now — no worry lines, no exhaustion, no forced composure. Just her. The same woman who ran herself into the ground trying to save the world, who looked at every broken thing like it was her personal job to fix it.
She deserved someone steady. Someone uncomplicated.
Not me.
Still, I couldn’t make myself move.
Her hair was a mess, a few strands fanned across her cheek. I reached out — not to touch, just to hover — then pulled back before I could make another bad decision.
You’re done for, I thought, chest tightening. You’re completely in love with her.
I turned off the lamp, and the room fell into darkness. The only sound left was her breathing — soft, even, steady — like the quietest confession in the world.
I let myself stand there for one more heartbeat. I tossed my ruined shirt into her laundry basket, grabbed a spare blanket from the couch, and came back just as she tried to apologize again. I didn’t let her.
Instead, I crouched in front of her, brushing a strand of hair out of her face with the back of my knuckles. “Go to bed,” I said softly. “You’ll hate yourself less in the morning.
And then… I left. Completely shirtless, fucking cold… but somehow, still fucking warm inside my chest.
Chapter 19
Ellery
Sunlight was the enemy.
It speared through the blinds and straight into my skull, dragging me out of sleep and into a hangover that felt downright biblical. My mouth was dry, my head pounded, and something was definitely trying to die in the back of my throat.
I groaned and rolled over, ready to curse the universe, when I noticed the nightstand. There was an empty glass of water, two aspirin tablets, and a folded note in handwriting I recognized instantly—messy, impatient, definitely Beckett’s.
Drink water, dream girl. Don’t call me next time.
I dropped the note and let out another groan, louder this time, covering my face with a pillow. “Oh, my…” I muttered into the cotton. “No, no, no.”
Bits of memory shuffled forward like uninvited guests—his truck, his hand steadying me on the porch, me saying something about a dream… oh gosh, the dream. Then a flash of warmth, lips maybe—had I kissed him? Had he kissed me? Or was that still part of the dream?
I peeked out from under the pillow, as if the answer might be written on my ceiling. “You did not call him,” I told myself out loud. “You absolutely did not.”
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, the brightness of the screen searing my already fragile retinas. Ten outgoing calls. All to Beckett Mason.
“Oh no,” I whispered, sinking deeper into the sheets. “Oh no, no, no.”
The timestamps were all between midnight and two a.m. Apparently, drunk me had been very committed to humiliation as a lifestyle choice. I scrolled through the call log with mounting horror and spotted one actual connected call. Ten minutes long.
“Ten minutes,” I said to the ceiling, equal parts disbelief and dread. “What on earth did I talk about for ten minutes?”
I closed my eyes, but that didn’t stop the memory from bubbling up—my own voice, slurred and far too cheerful, asking him why he had sex with me in my dream.
I buried my face in the pillow again. “I’m moving to another country,” I muttered. “New name, new passport, new everything.”
