Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
AVA
Two days later, we’re not tearing through each other. We’re just… being. Normal people, not horny disasters.
The fire pops in the hearth, casting an amber glow over the dining room. It’s silent except for the occasional clink of puzzle pieces and the rustle of Soren flipping through the edge pile with extreme dramatic concentration.
I watch him, thinking how right now we’re… safe. Real. And I don’t know what to think about that.
Normal isn’t usually mine to keep. Safe has always felt like a temporary state, something that collapses the second you breathe too hard.
But here I am, sitting across from Soren Pembry—my rival, my fake boyfriend, the man who should be the opposite of safe or normal—but I feel both.
Soren glances up and smiles. I get back to work on the puzzle. We’ve been working on this thing for over an hour—a thousand tiny pieces forming an old bookshop storefront—and somehow we’re still not sick of each other. That’s another fact that should terrify me.
Yet, it doesn’t.
Outside, the snow has mostly melted. A slushy mess now lines the edges of the road, the mid-afternoon sun having done its job before dipping low again. The charm of our wintry bubble is fading. And tomorrow, they’ll start clearing the roads.
Tomorrow means real life.
Tomorrow means this ends.
Soren places a piece into the top left corner and grins. “Boom. That, my Bells, is the corner of a bookshelf.”
“You’re practically a national treasure,” I deadpan, sipping my hot tea.
There’s a shift in his gaze. The smirk lingers, but it’s quieter now. I’m a little scared.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I ask.
“Have I done a good job?”
The mug hovers halfway to my lips. “On the puzzle? Honestly, I’m impressed. You’re a corner-piece king.”
Soren huffs a laugh, but it’s hollow. “No, Ava. Not that.” His gaze drops to the table, and his thumb runs along the rim of his mug. “I mean… have I done a good job showing you that this could be something… More?”
The question sinks between us like a stone in water. I set my tea down carefully, but my hands are shaking. My fingers curl around the ceramic again, searching for warmth that’s suddenly harder to find.
“I haven’t been subtle about my feelings,” he says, voice tender. “I want more than one snowed-in weekend of fucking and flirting. I want you, Bells. For real. Out there in the real world. Not the fake one we manufactured for fans.”
Soren looks at me, and it wrecks me. It’s open, terrified, and dead serious. He’s laid his entire heart out on the dining table between puzzle pieces and steaming hot mugs.
I don’t know what to say.
“Soren…”
“You don’t have to give me an answer right now,” he adds quickly.
“But I’ve never felt like this…with anyone.
And I’ve spent the last two days trying to memorize the way your smile curves when you’re trying not to laugh.
Or how you hum while concentrating. Or how you still smell like sugar cookies even when you’ve been buried in snow. ”
I let out a breath. “You’ve been busy.”
Soren chuckles, running a hand through his hair. “I know. It’s a lot. But I mean it. And I’ll show you that I mean it every single day, forever, if that’s what it takes.”
A pause. Silence. The hope in his eyes makes mine sting.
“I need to think it over, okay?” I say softly. “It’s not a no.”
Soren’s eyes flash with a mixture of that same hope and now certainty…but also disappointment. He exhales. “Then that’s enough for me. For now.”
We go back to the puzzle, but the air has changed. It’s laced with words we’re not saying, a web with a thousand emotions we’re both navigating through—but not always the same ones. Some of them collide. Some miss each other entirely. But they’re all crashing together in the silence between us.
“Why?” I ask.
Soren eyes shoot up.
“We’ve been rivals for a year. And then all of a sudden, you decide I’m the girl for you? What changed? What made you know, like you said.”
Soren sets down a puzzle piece and leans back in his chair, arms crossed, eyes locked on mine.
“As I’ve stated, I developed a thing for you after I read your book.
Your voice was in every line. Every page.
And your hero—he got to me. I related to him on levels I didn’t even know existed.
Not because he was perfect. But because he wasn’t.
” Soren leans forward, elbows on the table, gaze unwavering.
“You wrote this man who was angry and messy and trying so damn hard to be better. And the woman who saw through all of it—who loved him anyway. And I thought… shit. That’s how I want to be. ”
Blushing, I bite my bottom lip.
“I didn’t know how to be with you,” he continues. “You were smart. Funny. You could cut me without flinching. So, I kept throwing jabs online. Made it a game. Kept it fun. But the first time I saw you in person… the real Ava Bell and not the online version, I was done.”
“Done with what?”
“Everything that didn’t have you in it.”
I stare at him, wondering how and why the universe gave me this man.
“You’re special.” He doesn’t smile. Neither do I. And finally, the walls guarding my chest finally crumble to dust. “You came into my life for a reason.”
I break eye contact first. It’s not that I don’t believe him. I do. For some crazy reason. And that’s what makes it so terrifying.
My thumb runs along the rim of my mug, mirroring the gesture he made earlier. I stare down into the cooling tea, watching the steam rise and fade like a breath I’m too scared to let go.
“Look…” My voice cracks. I clear it. “Soren, you have to promise to take it slow.”
He doesn’t argue. He listens. Gives me space.
“You can get swept up in the ‘show.” And that’s the kind of thing that’ll make me run away. Fast.”
Recognition flickers in his expression, accompanied by a hint of understanding.
“I don’t need all the fireworks,” I whisper. “I just need you to walk, instead of sprint.”
Soren’s hand covers mine, grounding, warm.
“Then I’ll walk, Bells,” he says. “Even crawl if I have to.”
My heart shudders at that. It isn’t fear. It’s relief—over the weight of being heard without being rushed.
A beat passes. My pulse kicks, but I try to smile anyway, because I want this too. I like him too much to let him go.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll try.”
His grin doesn’t explode across his face. It blooms—slow and stunned. He wasn’t expecting me to say yes.
“You will?” he asks softly, like it’s the most important question he’s ever posed.
I nod, swiping stray strands of hair from my face. “I’m still scared.”
Soren’s hand finds mine. His strong touch doesn’t demand anything—but promises everything. “You don’t have to be fearless,” he says. “Just honest.”
I exhale through a laugh, a real one this time. “That’s not my specialty.”
“Good,” he says. “I’ve got enough delusional optimism for the both of us.” Soren’s mouth curves into that lopsided grin that undoes me.
We don’t go back to the puzzle. We channel our inner eight-year-olds and build a fort instead.
What starts as a joke turns into a production.
We stack couch cushions against the walls.
Drape quilts between furniture. Clip fairy lights along the edge of my bookshelf using hairpins and sheer dumb luck.
He even folds my favorite velvet bathrobe into a “throne,” because apparently, even make-believe queens need proper lumbar support.
Soren tosses a throw blanket over two dining chairs and declares, in a truly awful British accent, “Behold, the romantic lair of Bellatrix the Bold and her morally conflicted warlock boyfriend.”
I laugh and kiss him silly.
Outside, the sky is bruised with dusk but clearing, one star shimmering through the retreating clouds. Inside, it’s warm. Dim. The scent of pine trees drifts through the air.
We lie back on the living room rug, wrapped in blankets and entangled limbs. My cheek presses against the soft cotton of his tee, his heartbeat a grounding thrum beneath it. My whole world is syncing to his rhythm.
Above us, the ceiling glows faintly. Soren propped his phone flashlight beneath an overturned whiskey tumbler, the glass scattering light like a prism.
It’s not much—just a constellation of crooked shapes on plaster—but he swears it’s the stars.
And somehow, with his arm curled tight around me, I almost believe him.
Soren speaks so quietly, it sounds like a wish. “Okay. Favorite firsts?”
I shift a little, eyes trained on the twinkling pattern above us. “You mean…first kiss?”
Soren nods. “That. And other things. First concert. First lie. First heartbreak. First book that ruined you. Whatever comes to mind.”
“Treacherous waters.”
His arm moves behind my shoulders, slow and sure. “It’s not a game. It’s a trust fall in verbal form.”
The way he says it, like he’s inviting me to lean in and catch fire at the same time, makes my skin feel too tight.
Still, I play.
“My first concert was Alanis Morissette. My mom snuck me in when I was eleven and we sang every word as gospel.”
“Jagged Little Pill. Iconic. You peaked early.”
“Debatable.” I chuckle. “What was the first book that made you stay up all night reading?”
No hesitation. “Sabriel. I was obsessed with necromancers for the next three years.”
“That explains your fixation with morally gray magic users.”
He nudges me with his elbow. “Shut up. Your turn.”
I think for a moment. “First book I lost sleep over was The Name of the Wind.”
He nods, accepting the answer.
“What was your first lie?” I ask.
“First lie I ever told…” Soren breathes in, deep and uneven. “Was telling my teacher I didn’t care that my dad missed my eighth grade poetry reading.”
My chest pulls tight. My fingers drift across his knuckles.
“That night,” his voice lowers, “I came home, went out back, and read the whole damn poem to the trees. I knew it by heart. Still do.”