Chapter 17
SWEAT-SLICKENED SKIN AND MINGLING brEATH
VIOLET
If your heart were a room, what would it look like?
SilenceInMidnight: A quiet library. One lamp lit. Waiting.
My eyes flutter open, and for one suspended beat, that familiar, unsettling hollowness creeps in. It takes a few seconds of frequent, shallow breaths for me to remember who I am or where I am.
Morning light filters through the half-drawn curtains.
My gaze drifts slowly across Rowan’s guest room, taking in every corner as if the room might disappear if I move too quickly.
The reading nook settles into focus, and then the jeans folded over the arm of the chair.
My lungs forget their rhythm as the night before floods back.
Not gently; it comes all at once, crashing into me with a force that steals the air from my lungs.
I retrace in reverse, my mind unwilling to let go of a single detail.
Rowan leaving my room.
Rowan on his knees in the dark, so close it felt like the world had narrowed down to just the two of us.
My heart pounding so violently I was sure he could hear it, feel it written all over me.
His hand at my waist, brushing bare skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake.
Him standing in my doorway, half shadowed, holding a… letter.
The letter.
Crap. Where is it? I scan the room, my pulse quickening, until I spot it on the dressing table.
How the heck did I forget about this?
But so much happened after he handed it to me—so much feeling, so much closeness, so much Rowan—and my heart has been everywhere ever since. It makes sense that the original reason for his visit at my door slipped through the cracks.
Carefully, I adjust my sling and slide out of bed, padding across the room and returning moments later with the envelope clutched in my hand like it’s something sacred.
To Purple.
My fingers glide over the words, tracing the curves of his flowy handwriting. It’s beautiful, soft yet confident, written with a fountain pen dipped in purple ink.
Purple. Of course.
The smallness of the detail aches something within me. I hadn’t expected such effort and thought, how he managed to turn something simple into something deeply personal. Each choice feels intentional, like he wanted me to feel seen.
And I do. God, I really do.
My heart lifts, buoyed by a feeling that’s quiet, tender, and entirely Rowan.
I slide the letter free.
Question One: What’s your idea of a perfect date?
Answer: No words. No pressure. Just being.
My dear Purple,
I blink. I’m dear to him.
You asked me for the details behind my answers and what I was thinking when I wrote them.
To be honest, I wouldn’t change a single thing about my response, but I want to share what was in my head when I wrote those words. I hope it makes you feel closer to me, and maybe makes your heart race the way your response did to mine months ago.
Oh my.
When I tried to imagine what my first perfect date would look like…
I pause, my fingers brushing over the words first perfect date, and a rush of emotions hits me all at once. The question was a perfect date, not the first. And once again, in those written words, he’s casually given me another secret piece of him. How long has Rowan waited for that moment?
The thought is followed quickly by a sharper ache. What if I’ve already lived my perfect date and lost it to the fog in my head? But if that were true, I wouldn’t have been on FYS. I wouldn’t be here, reading this.
How long are we meant to wait for that one perfect moment?
My gaze drops back to the letter.
I don’t want pressure. I don’t want performance. I don’t want to feel like I have to be anything other than myself when I’m with my soulmate (please read perfect date :-)). And if I do try to perform, I hope she calls me out on it. I don’t want perfection. I want honesty. I want sincerity.
My throat tightens.
I want us to give each other our true selves. When life gets hard—and it will—we won’t love each other for being perfect. We’ll fight for each other because we know what’s underneath.
As someone who struggles with words, I’ve learned that meaningful communication doesn’t require many of them.
I want to sit with her, hold her hands, look into her eyes, and hope that it’s enough for us to know that we understand each other in ways we’ve always waited to be understood.
We love each other the ways we’ve always wanted to be loved.
We care for each other the ways we’ve always wanted to be cared for.
Even when I can’t say all those things out loud.
My chest feels too full as I take him piece by piece, quietly, bravely.
Side note: Please feel free to read you in place of her and she.
A shaky laugh escapes me.
And where does this date take place? I don’t fucking care.
It could be on a busy street, on a train, on a plane, in the back of a car or…
we can be bare, breathless, tangled together in a dark bedroom that smells like us, sweat-slickened and overwhelmed after making the kind of love one never forgets.
This is what was in my head when I imagined my perfect date.
I hope I didn’t scare you, Purple. And that you still want a second letter. If not, you’ll have to let me know.
Yours,
Night
By the time I’ve finished reading, my mouth has gone dry.
My skin hums, awareness buzzing everywhere at once, and I know, with startling clarity, that beneath Rowan’s quiet reserve and beneath Night’s easy charm, there is a deeply sensual man who has been waiting for a long time for someone. For me.
And despite all the missing pieces in my memory, I want to meet him there, wherever he’s been waiting, and finish imagining that perfect date together.
My body is restless, charged, and every inch of my skin feels like there’s tiny electricity zapping through me. I’m sweaty everywhere as I slide out of bed.
I need to see him. I need to look into those soulful eyes that always seem to hear more than I say.
The moment I open the door, the rich and warm scent of coffee greets me, and I follow it, already knowing I’ll find him in the kitchen.
And I do… but not in the way I expect.
Rowan stands with his back to me, focused on the coffee machine, completely unaware of my presence.
He’s bare from the waist up, and the sight of him stops me cold.
Last night, I felt his strength through cotton and dim light, but now…
now I see the broad expanse of his shoulders, the quiet power in the way muscle shifts as he leans forward.
And those tattoos.
Wings stretch wide across him, full, intricate, every feather layered with care, curving from his shoulder blades down to the small of his back.
Right through the center runs a thin line, straight as his spine, almost like a scar, and near the top, just between his shoulders, there’s a small snowflake.
He chose this.
This man, who doesn’t speak, carries an entire language on his back.
Something stirs low within me—attraction, yes, but also surprise. I never imagined Rowan to be marked in such a permanent way.
My fingers itch to trace the lines, to follow the wings downward and the ragged line upward to the snowflake.
My mind drags me back to his words in the letter, to sweat-slickened skin, mingling breaths, darkness filled with heat and honesty.
I must have made a sound, because Rowan turns… and smiles.
And just like that, standing in the doorway of his kitchen, wrapped in his shirt and unraveling under his smile, I feel myself melting completely.