Chapter 9
nine
WILLOW
I woke up with the memory of Callum’s lips on mine.
I could still feel the phantom pressure of Callum Hayes's hands in my hair, his body over mine on the couch, the way he'd kissed my neck and I'd made a sound that should've embarrassed me but instead made him pull me closer.
I stared at the guest room ceiling. His guest room ceiling, in his pristine apartment, where I was currently living as his fake girlfriend who had very really kissed him last night and was now supposed to get up and face him in the kitchen as if my entire operating system hadn't been reformatted.
Cool. Great. No problem.
I checked my phone. 5:47 a.m. My alarm would go off in thirteen minutes.
I could hear movement beyond the bedroom door—the quiet clink of a mug, water running, the particular rhythm of a person who'd been awake for a while.
He was already up. Already functioning. Probably already back in one of those suits that made him look composed and untouchable and not at all the same man who'd come apart against my mouth eight hours ago.
I pulled the covers over my head and considered my options.
Option A: Walk out there, act normal, pretend last night was a blip. A fluke. An anomaly caused by proximity and dim rooms and the dangerous intimacy of living in another person's space. Adults did that, right? Compartmentalized? Put things in boxes?
Option B: Climb out the window. Fifteen floors was a lot, but I'd seen that movie where the guy scaled a building with suction cups. Granted, I didn't have suction cups, but desperation was a powerful motivator.
Option C: Walk out there, acknowledge what happened, have an honest conversation about feelings and boundaries and the fact that our arrangement had just detonated.
I chose Option A with a cowardly enthusiasm that would've made any emotionally constipated person proud.
The shower bought me fifteen minutes. I stood under Callum's fancy angel-tears water pressure and rehearsed casual greetings. Morning! Hey there. Oh, hi, didn't hear you. Each one sounded more deranged than the last.
I toweled off, pulled on my own jeans and a sweater—no more borrowing his clothes, not after last night, not when wearing his t-shirt would feel less "roommate" and more "woman staking a territorial claim"—and finger-combed my hair into a state that was presentable if not inspired.
Deep breath. Open the door. Act normal.
He stood at the kitchen island, back to me, pouring from the French press.
Suit. Charcoal today. White shirt. Hair pushed back, still damp at the edges.
He'd shaved. He looked the way he always looked—put together, controlled, unreasonably attractive in a way that I'd spent a year pretending didn't register.
Oof. Why is he so fucking hot?
Probably because now I knew what that jaw felt under my palms. Now I knew his control was a choice, not a permanent condition, and it shattered beautifully when I pulled him down to me.
Stop it. Stop it right now.
"Morning," I said. Casual. Breezy. Nailed it.
He turned. Those gray eyes found mine, and I watched him do his own rapid assessment. Whatever he was looking for—regret, panic, the wild-eyed look of a woman about to bolt—he didn't find it. Or he hid his reaction.
"Morning." He slid a coffee across the island. "I used the Ethiopian blend."
"Thanks."
I took the mug. Our fingers didn't touch. We were both very careful about that.
Silence. The kind that screamed.
He sipped his coffee. I sipped mine. The city sprawled beyond his windows, millions of people starting their day without the particular torment of standing three feet from a man they'd kissed senseless the night before.
"The Whitmore Gallery opening is tomorrow," he said. "Seven o'clock."
"Right. Yeah. I remember."
"I'll have a car here by six-thirty. I assume you have a different dress than the green one you wore to Ashford’s gala?”
“Yes.”
"Okay."
More silence. I cupped the mug with both hands, staring into the coffee as though it contained answers.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Willow—"
"I should get to the shop." I grabbed my bag from the chair where I'd dropped it last night—a lifetime ago, before the couch and his mouth and the complete obliteration of every rule we'd set. "Mika's been covering a lot and I don't want to dump on her."
He paused, didn’t offer to drive me like yesterday. I was grateful. Not that I didn’t wholly appreciate that his ride was better than mine but…yeah, better to stick to my own ride today.
"See you tonight," I said, already moving toward the door.
"See you tonight."
I made it to the elevator before the exhale punched out of me. My legs felt wobbly and my pulse was doing a thing that had nothing to do with caffeine.
Twenty-three years old and running away from a conversation I wasn't equipped to have.
On brand, Monroe. Very on brand.
Brew & Bean smelled the way it always did—roasted beans, warm milk, the faint sweetness of vanilla syrup—and I clung to the familiarity of it as I unlocked the front door and started my opening routine.
Grinder on. Ovens preheated. Pastry case stocked.
The espresso machine was behaving today, which felt cruel—a temporary reprieve before its inevitable and expensive death.
Mika arrived at six-thirty, shaking rain from her umbrella and carrying a paper bag from the bakery down the street.
"Almond croissants," she announced, dropping the bag on the counter. "I decided we deserve nice things today."
"Based on what?"
"Based on the fact that it's Thursday and Thursdays are—" She stopped. Looked at me. Really looked at me, with those dark eyes that missed nothing and forgave everything. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Willow."
"What?"
"Your face is doing the thing."
"I don't have a thing."
"You have a very specific thing where your left eye twitches and your smile goes brittle and you start moving at double speed so no one can pin you down long enough to ask questions — and you didn’t immediately berate me for bringing in pastries from the competition.
” She blocked my path to the espresso machine. "Talk."
"Can we just—I need to prep the—"
"The prep can wait sixty seconds. Are you okay? What happened?"
The morning rush wouldn't start for another twenty minutes. The shop was empty. It was just me and Mika and the dying cooler making its ominous grinding noise in the back.
"Callum kissed me," I said. "Or I kissed him.
We kissed each other. It was mutual and devastating and happened on his couch last night while I was supposed to be reading Jane Austen and instead I—" I pressed my palms flat on the counter.
"We kissed. For real. No audience, no performance, no manipulated reason. Just... us."
Mika's face cycled through surprise, delight, vindication, and concern with the speed of a slot machine landing on every emotion at once. She grabbed my arm.
"Okay. Start from the beginning. Leave nothing out. I want every detail but start with…is he a good kisser or sloppy like a St, Bernard puppy?”
I blushed. “He’s very good,” I admitted.
Mika squealed and did a little happy dance of smacked of ‘I told you so’ energy. “I knew it. Continue.”
"I fell asleep reading on his couch. I woke up and he was right there, sitting next to me, and he brushed the hair from my face and I opened my eyes and he was just—" I struggled for the right way to describe it. "Looking at me. Just... there. And he kissed me. And I kissed him back. And it was—"
“Mind-blowing?”
"It was—" I dropped my head to the counter, forehead against cool laminate. "It was the best kiss of my entire life and I'm having a crisis about it."
Mika pulled a croissant from the bag and set it in front of me. "Eat. Then explain the crisis part."
I took a bite. Chewed. Tried to organize the storm in my head into sentences that made sense.
"He's forty."
"Uh-huh."
"He has a daughter who's three years younger than me."
"You've mentioned."
"He listens to NPR. He meal preps. He drives a sedan that's never seen a French fry. He irons his underwear, probably."
"I doubt he—"
"The point is, he's seventeen years older than me.
That's supposed to be a problem. A dealbreaker.
An ick. I should be cringing. I should be thinking about how he was in college before I was born.
How he had a whole marriage and a kid and a divorce while I was still watching SpongeBob and learning fractions.
" I ripped off another piece of croissant.
"But I don't feel any of that. None of it.
I keep waiting for the gross-out moment to hit and it just.. . won't."
"That's the crisis?"
"Yes! The crisis is that the age thing doesn't bother me and I'm worried it should and I'm also worried that me worrying about it is proof that I'm not mature enough to be with a man his age, which is a paradox that's eating my brain alive."
Mika leaned against the counter, arms at her sides. "Can I be honest?"
"When have you ever not been?"
"Fair. Here's my take." She picked up her own croissant. "You're not freaking out about the age gap. You're freaking out about the fact that you're falling for him, and the age gap is a convenient wall to hide behind so you don't have to deal with the actual scary part."
"That's not—"
"Devon was what, twenty-four when you dated? Twenty-five?"
"Twenty-four."
"Same generation. Same cultural references. Same age bracket. And he made you feel small every single day you were together. He criticized your choices, talked down to your ambitions, and walked out telling you that you lacked direction." Mika took a bite. “I mean, when you’re adults, I don’t think age has anything to do with how you should feel about someone. Sometimes the chemistry is just too real to ignore.”
I stared at her. Hated that she was right. Hated it with the particular fury reserved for truths you've been dodging.