Chapter 15 Colette
Colette
I watched him move around the cabin like nothing had happened. Like we hadn’t just… well.
He was all quiet efficiency again, straightening blankets, stoking the fire, pulling his flannel back on with a kind of weary determination that made my stomach twist. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he worked, the veins standing out just slightly. Every motion was controlled. Contained.
Too contained.
It shouldn’t have been attractive — this older, gruff man trying so hard to keep himself in line — but God, it was. The set of his shoulders, the soft scowl when he caught me staring, the way he refused to look at me for more than a second because he knew.
I should’ve felt embarrassed. I should’ve been the one retreating. But all I could think was how he’d looked a few minutes ago, undone and human and real.
He turned finally, catching me still watching. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said too quickly. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, “You’re terrible at pretending.”
His jaw tensed. “Pretending what?”
“That you don’t want to grab me again.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to taste. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just let the fire crackle between us while my pulse skittered and my smile tried not to give me away.
He was older. He was supposed to be steady, measured, untouchable. So why did he look like this — like the man who might just ruin me for every soft boy I’d ever known?
I waited for him to break first. For the sharp retort, the clipped tone, the cool dismissal — all the things Josh used to use when I got too close, when I laughed too loud, when I stopped being convenient.
But Silas didn’t do any of that. He just stood there, breathing hard, the faintest muscle ticking in his jaw. There was something steady beneath it all. Anchored. Like he was trying to build a wall not to keep me out, but to keep himself from falling through.
God.
It was unfair how that made me want him more.
Josh would’ve sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and told me to “be serious.”
Silas just looked at me — really looked — until I squirmed beneath it. His eyes weren’t judging, just heavy, searching.
“Don’t,” he said finally, voice low and rough.
“Don’t what?”
“Compare me to whoever came before.”
I blinked, surprised that he’d read me that easily. “You don’t even know who—”
“I don’t have to.” His mouth curved slightly, not a smile, but close. “I can see it written all over your face.”
I swallowed hard. “Maybe you’re just projecting, hotshot.”
“Maybe.” He stepped closer, just enough that the air shifted between us. “But I don’t think so.”
And the thing that terrified me most — the thing that made my pulse stutter and my chest ache — was that he was right.
Josh made me feel small.
Silas made me feel seen.
He turned back to the fire, pretending to busy himself with the logs. The muscles in his shoulders bunched under his shirt, and the sight of it — all that quiet restraint — made my stomach flip.
“You really don’t like being looked at, do you?” I said softly.
His hands stilled. “That’s not true.”
“Mm. Sure feels like it.” I shifted my weight, watching his profile as he straightened. “You get all tense. All—” I traced an invisible line down my arm. “Controlled. Like you think you can will yourself into calm.”
“Maybe I can.”
I laughed, quiet and sharp. “That’s boring.”
He finally looked at me, and oh, the heat in that glance. It made my knees weak, my breath catch. “Do you think I’m boring, Colette?”
“I think you want to be.” I moved closer slowly, deliberately, until I could smell the faint scent of cedar on him. “But I don’t think you are. Not even a little.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t touch me. But his eyes tracked every inch of me like I was something dangerous and precious all at once.
“You should be careful,” he said finally, voice low enough that it rumbled in my chest.
“Why? Afraid I’ll corrupt you?”
His mouth twitched. “Afraid you’ll try.”
“Afraid I’ll succeed,” I whispered.
Something snapped in the air between us — a string pulled too tight, a note held too long. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, my throat, everywhere.
He exhaled slowly, like he was talking himself down from a ledge. “You really don’t know when to stop, do you?”
“Not when it’s this fun.”
And maybe it was cruel, the way I smiled at him then — daring, reckless — but after years of walking on eggshells, of being told to quiet down, it felt good to be too much for someone who refused to run.
I didn’t mean for it to sound cruel, but the words slipped out, anyway. “You’re kind of like him, you know,” I said, eyes on the fire instead of his face. “Always trying to control the temperature in the room.”
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut. I regretted it instantly — the comparison, the venom tucked inside it — but something in me just wanted to see if he’d flinch. If he’d shut down the way Josh always did, that subtle withdrawal that left me talking to a wall.
Silas turned, slowly, the firelight throwing planes of gold across his face. “You don’t know what I’m trying to control.” The low rasp of his voice didn’t sound angry. It sounded wounded. Which was worse.
He set his mug down with a little too much care, like he needed to keep his hands busy so they wouldn’t betray him.
“I didn’t mean—” I started. But I had. And we both knew it.
Something inside me crumpled. The bravado, the teasing, all of it. “He made me feel small,” I said finally. “Like I had to apologize for every messy part of myself. Like I was… an inconvenience.”
My throat burned. “And now you look at me like I’m one of your half-finished stories. Like I’m something you can fix if you just edit hard enough.”
That stopped him cold. For a long moment, the only sound was the crackle of wood giving in to flame. Then, quietly, “You’re not broken, Colette.” He took one step toward me. “God, you’re just… alive. In a way that I haven’t been in years.”
Something in my chest twisted, sweet and painful all at once. He was close enough now that I could see the tremor in his hand, the line of tension down his throat. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“You’re impossible,” he murmured.
“You like that about me,” I whispered.
And then — the world stilled. My hand rose without permission, fingertips grazing his chest, feeling the shudder that ran through him. His breath brushed my cheek, hot and unsteady, and I swear the air itself leaned in, begging us to close that last inch.
A sharp crack split the tension — a branch outside, snapping under the weight of snow.
We both startled, the spell shattering.
I stepped back first, my pulse roaring in my ears.
He exhaled like a man who’d just survived something perilous.
Neither of us said a word.
We didn’t need to.
The fire filled in what we couldn’t.
The silence after nearly kissing someone feels different from other silences. It’s not empty — it’s crowded.
By the time I’d managed to unclench my fists and breathe again, he was already moving, like motion itself could erase the moment. He picked up his mug, stoked the fire, busied himself with anything that didn’t require looking at me.
I followed his lead. Or tried to. I reached for the kettle, nearly burned my fingers on the handle, and said, too brightly, “More coffee?”
His answering grunt might’ve meant yes, no, or please stop speaking before I do something stupid.
I poured anyway.
The smell filled the room — dark and bitter and safe — and I watched the steam rise, wishing it could fog up my memory as easily as it blurred the air.
He finally sat down at the little table, the wood creaking under his weight. “You don’t have to,” he said, without specifying what it was — make coffee, apologize, exist in his orbit.
“Too late,” I said. And somehow that made him smile, barely.
It was easier after that. Not easy, exactly, but manageable. He started sorting through a stack of papers, muttering about drafts and deadlines. I curled up in the armchair with my book — though I couldn’t recall a single word I read.
Every time I turned a page, I could feel his eyes flick toward me. Every time his typewriter clacked, I found myself glancing up.
We orbited each other like two magnets pretending not to notice the pull.
At some point, he made a quiet joke about how I’d probably spill ink everywhere if he let me near his drafts, and I told him that was a deeply unsexy assumption to make about a woman.
He choked on his coffee.
And just like that, the air shifted again — lighter, not harmless, but something close to peace.