The kiss starts tender, careful. A soft brush, more breath than contact. Then it deepens. There’s something slow and aching about it, like lust has finally caught up with us. Her mouth opens against mine and I feel everything ignite. Her fingers slide into my hair. My hands find the curve of her hips, the line of her thighs, pulling her closer.
I move, adjust my weight, her legs wrapping around me. From the first second, it's indescribable, the giving in, the contact through thin layers of fabric. Both of us gasp from it each time we connect, touch. This feels right, like it was always where we were heading from the moment we met. My stomach flips, that rush like leaping out of a plane, the brief terror before the parachute opens. Then my phone rings.
The sound slices through the haze, loud and sudden. The ringtone I keep for our manager, Stefan. I groan, forehead falling to her shoulder, laughing into her skin. “Fuck my life.”
She laughs, too, breathless. “Maybe we should’ve taken the hint last night if this was what we wanted to do.”
“It’s still on the cards,” I say, sitting up, already reaching for the phone. “Just one quick phone call, stay right fuckingthere.”
I glance back at her as I answer. She’s still laying there, hair mussed, lips kiss-swollen, sunlight painting her skin in gold. I know before she even smiles that I’m already hopelesslyhers. The call slices through the last thread of stillness. I swipe to answer, already bracing.
“Finally,” comes Stefan’s voice, too awake for this hour. “Tell me you’ve seen Rithy’s feed.”
I groan. “What now?”
“He’s gone cryptic again. Moody shots of whiskey glasses, captions about betrayal and ghosts and blood oaths. It’s like an emo séance over there. Fans are losing their minds, half of them think the band’s imploding, the other half think you’re dead.”
Kasia snorts beside me, muffling a laugh against the cushion. I mouthdon’tat her. She grins wider.
“Look, I need you to post something to balance it out,” he goes on. “Something brotherhood-y. Artsy, but reassuring. You know,Obelus and Haima: the yin and yang of creative suffering.”
“Jesus Christ.” I rub a hand over my face. “Can’t you just tell him to delete the whiskey?”
“Tried. He said, and I quote, ‘It’s metaphorical.’ I give up. You do damage control. Make it mysterious but positive.”
“Because that’s easy before coffee,” I mutter. “Fine. I’ll think of something.”
“Good. Don’t take too long. Twitter’s already building theories about witchcraft.”
The line clicks off.
I drop the phone onto the couch. Kasia’s biting her lip, trying and failing, not to laugh.
“Witchcraft?”
“It’s the internet. Everything’s bloody witchcraft.”
She props herself up on her elbow, sunlight catching her hair. “So what’s the plan, MisterYin to His Yang?”
I glance around the cabin, dusty light beams cutting through the air, the piano half-covered in cloth, the worn wood floor, the lake glinting beyond the window. “Maybe this,” I say. “Something about retreating into nature for creative alignment. Pretentious but enough truth to be real.”
She laughs. “You meanmoody, cryptic, masculine despair.”
“Now you're getting it.”
We move around the room, playing at being serious, me adjusting the curtain light, her holding up her phone camera like it’s a professional's. She keeps biting her lip when she focuses, squinting one eye as if she’s trying to divine something instead of taking a photo. It’s ridiculous and perfect. I can’t stop watching her. For a second, the whole joke just… falls away. The room goes still except for the warmth of morning.
“You know, I wish I could just postthis.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What, the cabin?”
“You.” I say simply. “Just,you.”
Her cheeks flush, a slow smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You do that, and you’ll have a legion of angry men and women at my door.”
I laugh. “Worth it.”
She rolls her eyes, then takes my hand and tugs me back toward the couch. “Come on.”
