Chapter 12 #3
“Want to start a new show?” he asks, as he settles into what is his side of the bed and grabs the remote. “I found a few new ones we can start when we’re done with the one we’re watching. I think we have just a few episodes left.”
How is he acting so casual? Why is this so hard for me?
“Yes, that’s fine,” I say too fast. “I’ll hurry.”
But now I need space between Ollie, who smells amazing, lying next to me on his bed. We’ve slept in the same bed countless times over the years. But now things have changed. We definitely aren’t looking at each other like we did back then.
“Take your time,” he says as he watches me, probably trying to figure out why I’m acting so weird.
I head to the shower and take a quick one, washing the day off me. I lean my head back and try to practice taking normal breaths. I towel off and dry my hair, braiding it in its usual nighttime braid.
I head back to the room and step in, just the glow of the TV lighting up the room.
I prop pillows against the headboard and put on the familiar opening credits of the show we’ve been watching for months. It’s comfortable, familiar, and safe.
Ollie’s on his side of the bed, and I’m on mine. I set up a very clear line of pillows between us like a peace treaty.
“See,” I say. “Plenty of space.”
“Thrilling,” he says, watching the TV. “I’ve always dreamed of sharing a bed with a pillow wall.”
Halfway through the episode, my eyes start to close. I fight to keep my eyes open and lose.
The next thing I know, low morning light is spilling through the curtain, and something warm is wrapped around me.
I freeze, and very carefully, I look down.
I’m curled into Ollie’s chest, my arm draped over his waist, my leg hooked over his as it belongs there. And his very hard cock is pressing into me. Morning wood. And it feels so freaking hot. Damn.
He’s still asleep, one arm around my back, hand resting at my hip like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I pull back slightly. “Ollie.”
He hums but doesn’t wake.
“I told you not to cuddle me.”
He opens one eye and then the other, clearly confused. “You’re cuddling me, Poppy.”
I scoff. “That’s not true.”
He glances down at our limbs, then back at me. “You’re literally wrapped around me like a koala.”
I sit up fast, cheeks burning. “I move in my sleep.”
“I can tell,” he says as he stretches, entirely too comfortable for a man who just got caught in a cuddle crime. “You snore a little, too.”
“I do not.” I scoff.
“You do,” he says. “It’s cute.”
“I hate you.”
He smiles. “No, you don’t.”
“I have to get ready,” I say finally. “First day is today.”
The words spark something bright in my chest. Excitement, sharp and buzzing, the kind I haven’t felt in a long time. I woke up before my alarm, heart already racing, mind jumping ahead to lesson plans and classrooms and the smell of oil and metal in a place that isn’t mine to keep afloat.
For once, the day ahead doesn’t feel like a list of things that could go wrong.
It feels like possibility.
I can’t wait to get started. To walk into that building knowing I belong there. Knowing I earned this. Knowing this job is mine because people saw me and trusted me and believed I could do it.
Hope feels strange in my body, light and unfamiliar, like a muscle I haven’t used in years. I almost don’t trust it.
But it’s there all the same, humming under my skin, pulling me forward.
And for once, I let myself feel it.
He nods. “You’re gonna crush it. It’ll be nice to have a solid job.”
“I’m still keeping the shop open Wednesdays and Saturdays,” I remind him. “I need to. Those will be long days.”
“I know,” he says. “We’ll make it work.”
We’ll.
The word catches on something inside me and tugs harder than it should.
It’s small, and casual. Ollie probably doesn’t even realize he said it. But it lands heavy in my chest all the same, warm and terrifying all at once. I’m so used to everything being I that hearing him include himself without hesitation makes my breath hitch.
We’ll figure it out. We’ll make it work. We’ll handle it.
The idea of not doing this alone feels unreal. Like stepping onto solid ground after years of bracing for the drop. I want to lean into it, let it settle, let myself believe in the safety of that word.
At the same time, it scares me.
Because getting used to we means trusting that he’s not going anywhere. Means letting go of the instinct to do everything myself and accepting that this isn’t just pretend in the ways that matter.
I swallow and nod like it’s nothing. But inside, that one little word keeps echoing, reshaping the edges of my world in quiet, dangerous ways
I swing my legs out of bed and head for the bathroom, pausing at the door.
“Hey,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For this. For all of it.”
He looks at me like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Always you.”
I shut the door and lean against it, heart pounding. “Always you,” I repeat back. Something we’ve said to each other since we were teens, when life got hard. We are each other’s ride-or-die. Always you.
This isn’t fake. Not really. Not all of it can be fake when we’re always that for each other.
And that thought both terrifies me and makes me smile as I get ready to start the rest of my life.