Chapter 17
Seventeen
AVA
There’s a spot past the old wharf, down a narrow, gravel path that tourists never find.
It hugs the edge of the salt marsh where the tide breathes in and out as though it’s the world’s longest-held sigh.
A single weathered bench tilts slightly beneath the bare-limbed willow tree, right where the coastline curves.
I’ve been coming here since I was a kid. It’s my quiet refuge through everything—schoolyard disasters, heartbreaks that hollowed me out, rejection emails that felt personal, deadlines that tried to eat me alive.
It always smells of salt and damp wood, kelp clinging to rocks, and something older beneath it all. It’s calming. So naturally, I brought Soren Pembry here.
Idiot.
In my defense, I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t meant in a this is my sacred place, come share it with me, oh-so-handsome-boy sort of way. I just needed air. Space. A moment that wasn’t filled with haunted floorboards and Soren’s devastating voice saying things I don’t know how to process.
I nearly had a panic attack inside the Witch House. Right after, Soren stood there, six feet of messy sincerity, and told me that the second he saw me in the flesh, chin lifted with something to prove, he just… knew.
Knew what?
We’ve known each other face-to-face for what? Three weeks? Ish. Twenty-plus days of fake dating, public spectacles, and private moments that were never supposed to amount to anything except positive numbers.
What does he truly know about me? He doesn’t know what I look like when I fall apart in a hotel room over a bad review.
He doesn’t know that sometimes I reread the first rejection email an agent ever sent me to remember how far I’ve come.
He doesn’t know how hard I have to work to feel like enough in this industry.
So what if he’s read all my books? He’s obviously created this bold, clever version of me in his head—one where the heroine possesses edgy dialogue and a soft heart that she keeps hidden until chapter twenty-two.
I’m not her.
Soren’s swept up in the rush. The buzz. The fake romance, the unresolved tension pulsing with more lust than logic.
And for a minute—no, longer than a minute—I almost got pulled under with him.
I dove on top of him last night inside my innocent childhood treehouse, the same place I used to read library books and eat peanut butter sandwiches, and proceeded to grind over his very real, very hard cock. There was nothing innocent about it.
The wine and the emotions made me forget what boundaries were. And I wanted to forget. I wanted to let go and drown in that moment, in him, with him.
Thankfully, a tiny, screaming voice of reason yanked me back before I made a grave mistake and did something I couldn’t explain or undo.
Lust is easy. Lust feels good. Whatever this is with Soren—it could burn through more than our clothes. It could level me.
The stakes are too high, the numbers between us too big. And he’s the fuck boy of ShelfSpace. I’m already fighting an uphill battle to be taken seriously—I don’t need to hand the internet a scandal with a bow on top.
I do want to believe him. When he looks at me, it’s not for a stage. It’s mind-bending. And way too risky for me to consider. Feelings are reckless and don’t come with a safety net.
That’s not romantic.
That’s terrifying.
So, when Soren and I walked out of the Witch House and he asked me, “Where to next?” I just... pointed.
Now he’s here, standing with his hands in his coat pockets, staring out at the water with an adorable expression that guts me even more.
“This place is magic,” he says, turning to look back at me.
“It’s a swamp,” I reply, my voice coming out lighter than intended.
Soren doesn’t flash the full grin—the one that has broken hearts from coast to coast—but the one he’s seemingly reserved just for me.
I’m on the bench, arms crossed, legs bouncing. My pulse is a mess, and my mind won’t stop replaying his outstretched hand and that: “Hi, I’m Soren Pembry.”
Those words reached under my ribs and tugged.
“You should know I don’t bring anyone here.”
“I’m honored,” he says, genuinely.
That makes it worse. Because here’s the thing: Soren Pembry is the enemy.
Or was. Then he became the fake boyfriend.
And now he’s the man whose tongue was in my mouth, whose body heat is still branded on my skin, whose cock—dear god, that cock—has no business rubbing up against me in the early morning. But did.
I shouldn’t trust him. I certainly don’t trust his dick. Worse, I don’t trust me. Around him. Or around his… Well, you get it.
But I haven’t let anyone in for a long time. The last time I kissed someone and felt it all the way to my toes was years ago. I haven’t laughed like this, or shared quiet spaces, or…
Let myself want…anything.
“You’re looking at me with such reservation, Bells.” He lowers himself to sit beside me. “Is it because of the dick thing?”
My throat clogs. “What?”
“You said you don’t trust my—and I quote—massive dick,” he teases. “So I’m wondering if I should be offended.”
My face flames. “I did not say that out loud.” Did I?
Soren smiles, wide and wicked. “You did.”
Burying my face in my hands, I groan. My inner dialogue seriously needs a time-out. How is my brain not connecting to the part where we filter these things before they hit the air?
“Relax.” His shoulder nudges mine. “It’s cute, the way you talk out loud—like I’ve got backstage passes to your brain.
And I’m only giving you shit. But let’s be real, Bells—you’ve been staring at me for ten straight minutes as though you’re running a private poll in your head: strangle me or straddle me.
Figured I’d cut the tension before it combusted and took the wharf with it. ”
“This was a mistake.”
As I move to stand, Soren palms my knee, stopping me.
“You keep calling me a mistake.” His tone is now exasperated. “And yet… here we are. Sitting on a bench at your sacred spot. Just a boy, asking a girl—”
“Don’t you dare.”
A grin tugs at his mouth, but his eyes are serious. “You see the irony, right?”
I do. I live it. I write it.
The silence between us is loaded with the weight of all the things we’ve said. And the mountain of things we haven’t hovers above–a volcano ready to explode open.
Soren angles his body toward mine. “Bells, I need to know?”
I eye him with caution. “Need to know what?”
“Well, actually, it’s more of an explanation.”
“What do you mean?”
His voice is stripped of charm and games. “What exactly happened to make you build walls tall enough to keep even someone as determined as me out? And I’m pretty relentless when I want something, but Bells, you have a full-blown fortress. Moat included.”
I inhale a breath, not wanting to go there. Again. But also… I’m done with swallowing it down and tired of holding it in.
My pulse hammers, and my mouth moves before my brain can stop it. “Okay, you want the truth?” I ask, hoping I won’t regret this.
“God, yes.”
I stare down at my hands. “I believed someone when they said I was everything. Their person. Their one. And when that changed, I didn’t get a warning. I got replaced. With several other women, actually.”
Soren exhales a breath that’s meant to be felt. “I’m so sorry.”
“This someone was good at pretending.” My voice cracks at the edge.
“And I was stupid enough to believe it was real.” I look away, swallowing down the painful memory.
“So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t jump all at once, because you’re pretending too, Soren.
And everything is so muddled, I don’t know what’s safe. What’s wrong or what’s right—”
“So now you don’t trust what’s in front of you?” I cut in. “Because of someone else who lied behind your back?”
“I trust myself…” Silence and tension swell between us. “...except when I’m with you.”
“I know,” he agrees, like he’s Luke Freaking Skywalker after Princess Leia tells him she loves him. He grins, trying to lighten things between us.
I roll my eyes, look away.
Soren grasps my chin and turns me back to face him.
“I want to be clear. I’m not going to knock down your walls, Bells.
Not until you’re ready. I’m hoping you might hand me a layout of the underground dungeon to your intensely built fortress.
Or at the very least, let me keep showing up until the front gate creaks open a little. ”
My laugh is watery. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe,” he shrugs. “So is pretending the chemistry between us doesn’t exist.”
His smile heats my core. And I don’t hate it. That’s the problem, isn’t it?
Soren dips his head to meet my eyes. “Do you ever wonder what would happen if you didn’t run?”
I hesitate before answering, “Yeah. I do.”
“And?”
My head turns to avoid his gaze.
“Bells, it kills me to say this, but… as your friend…” That word suddenly sounds poisonous. “Thank you. For telling me. For opening up a little.”
My laugh cracks, surprised and shaky. “Do you hate the word, friend?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely. You used it to keep me at a distance.”
“You’re not wrong.”
Before I can pull away, before I can deflect, he adds, “You’re not a game. If you were… please know this…I’d still want to lose myself in every level of you.”
Air is trapped inside my lungs. My knee bounces in overdrive speed.
“I mean it,” he says, voice rough. “And yeah, it sounds cheesy or cliché, but some clichés are rooted in truth. You have burrowed under my skin. Fast. And I don’t want you out.”
I want to tell him to stop. That he’s making it worse. That he’s making it so hard to push him away.
All I manage is, “You’re exhausting.”
“That I am,” he replies, smiling. “That I am.”
I don’t know what scares me more—that I might be starting to believe him. Or that I already do and I’m denying it.
The thought gives me pause. My lips press together. And my “What If Demons” fly.
What if I chilled the fuck out?
What if I did give in?