Chapter 14 #3
“When you held your breath right before you said it.” Bryn’s muttered words boomed like a mortar through stone.
“Your lips did this quiver and I didn’t know how I was going to speak my next line.
How I could ever answer something like that.
” Bryn dropped her gaze to Vivian’s mouth.
It was gentle. Almost reverent. Beholding again, not dissecting. Giving, not taking.
Her hand lifted an inch off the lounger—hovered, undecided—then curled back into her palm like she didn’t trust herself with touch.
Vivian’s pulse vibrated in her dry throat. Bryn didn’t close the distance. She just held it. Held Vivian there, trapped in the small, unbearable space between wanting and having.
Vivian’s chest was tight with it. With wanting. With terror.
In a frantic heartbeat, Vivian acknowledged that for once she didn’t want to be safe and alone. That she wanted to know what Bryn’s lips tasted like when they weren’t reciting someone else’s lines.
The question slipped out of her before she could stop it. Small. Bare. A knife held by the blade and pointed at her own carotid.
“Do you want to kiss me?” Vivian asked with Jo’s borrowed bravery.
For a beat, Bryn didn’t move. Her entire body tightened and her gaze darted between Vivian’s eyes and her lips in open disbelief. “Do you?” she asked in a breathy rush.
Vivian grinned. “Don’t start asking silly questions now,” she whispered, seductive tone sliding into place before she could stop it.
Bryn didn’t surge forward. She leaned in slowly as if unsure it was really happening. Moistening her lips, Vivian closed the sliver left between them.
The first touch of Bryn’s lips was so gentle.
She moved carefully, tentatively. A light press like she was testing her footing before going down a mountain.
The tiny sound she made against Vivian’s mouth made her ache to feel all of her at once.
To give in to the long-lost feeling of being consumed.
Maybe Bryn wouldn’t be a wildfire. Maybe she’d be a controlled blaze set to burn away the old and nourish the soil.
When Bryn exhaled, the kiss changed. It deepened on a breath and Vivian was unprepared for the heat that immediately escaped her grasp. Bryn’s mouth grew sure. Each moment a destabilizing confession.
Vivian balled her hands into fists she kept uselessly in her lap. But Bryn wasn’t afraid of touching her. Bryn’s fingertips hovered near Vivian’s jaw, her glancing touch more fuel on the wild flames.
Entire nervous system screaming careful, Vivian knew she should pull away. But she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move.
Then Bryn touched her in earnest. Her palm cupped Vivian’s cheek, warm and solid, thumb skimming the corner of Vivian’s mouth like she was memorizing it. Like Vivian was real. Like Vivian was hers for this small, impossible moment.
Something in Vivian cracked. Opening and closing at the same time.
The intimacy was too much. It was more than a kiss. It was being held. Being steadied. Being treated like something worth gentleness.
Vivian broke the kiss on a sharp inhale.
Bryn froze instantly, hand still on her face, eyes wide. “Sorry. Did I—”
“No,” Vivian said too fast. Her voice sounded wrong, scraped raw. She couldn’t let Bryn apologize. She couldn’t let Bryn think she’d done anything wrong when the wrongness lived entirely inside Vivian. “No, you didn’t.”
Her heart was a fist pounding against a locked door.
Vivian reached up and caught Bryn’s wrist. Not to push. Not to punish. Just to remove the danger with as much care as she could manage. She guided Bryn’s hand away from her face and folded it between both of her own.
She squeezed her hand, offering pressure. Gravity. Relief from the intensity building too fast.
Bryn let her. Her gaze flicked to their hands, then back to Vivian’s eyes like she was trying to read the rules in a language she didn’t speak.
“Thank you,” Vivian said, because it was the only sentence she could find that didn’t beg or bleed. “For… that.”
Bryn blinked. She laughed, but it was a small, nervous gurgle.
“Vivian.” Her cheeks were bright, her lips pink and parted in invitation.
“I think I’m the one who should be thanking you.
” Her smile flickered into something playful.
Something Vivian hated to chase away. “Also,” Bryn added, like she was testing the air, “if you liked that…”
Vivian’s stomach clenched.
Bryn barreled on, not seeing the flinch, only the heat. “Wait until you see what else I’ve got.”
Vivian managed a sound that could have been a laugh if her body wasn’t still shaking. “Dangerous,” she murmured, and meant it in every possible way.
Bryn’s eyes shone. She leaned forward again—hopeful, inevitable—and Vivian felt herself start to go under.
She couldn’t let herself sink, no matter how good it felt. Even cats only have so many lives.
Vivian inhaled and forced herself upright. She let Bryn’s fingers slide from hers before she could cling. She stood because standing was distance, and distance was salvation.
Bryn’s expression changed, confusion replacing the flirty tone. “Hey—”
Vivian cut in before Bryn could reach for the wrong explanation. Before she could reach for Vivian at all.
“You were right,” Vivian said, voice steadier now that she’d put space between them.
“About the booth. About the trust.” It hurt to meet Bryn’s direct gaze, but Vivian didn’t let herself shy away.
“You’re not pretending. You’re not manipulating anyone.
People are going to believe you because you mean every word you say. ”
Bryn stared up at her in open confusion. In disappointment.
Vivian kept going, desperate to free herself without hurting Bryn.
“You’re going to go far,” she said, and hated how much the truth sounded like a platitude.
“And you should stop doubting yourself so much. Get a coach if you need one. Not because you’re lacking, but because even your potential is better than most people’s polish. ”
Bryn swallowed. “Why does this sound like—” She laughed once, uncomfortable and brittle. “Why does this sound so much like goodbye?”
Vivian’s stomach churned.
“It isn’t,” she lied, because the alternative was saying: If I let you in, I won’t survive it. If I let you hold my face, I’ll start needing it.
She softened her voice instead. Provided gentleness when she didn’t have honesty. “It’s me saying I look forward to watching you do great things.”
Bryn held her gaze like she was trying to will Vivian back down onto the lounger. Back into the moment. Back into the version of the world where people could want each other and not have it cost them something.
When Vivian didn’t move, Bryn’s shoulders sank. “Right.” She couldn’t hide her feelings with a smile too thin to mask anything. “Thanks.”
“You can stay the night if you want,” she said. “If you don’t want to drive.”
Instead of being angry at the sudden shift, Bryn nodded like she saw Vivian regret more than she felt her own rejection. “I’m okay,” Bryn said quietly. “But… thank you.”
Vivian nodded once, as if nodding could stop her hands from shaking.
She turned before she could change her mind. Before she could reach back for Bryn’s wrist and drag her into the house and let the night ruin her.
Inside, the door shut too softly. The hermetic silence rushed in, cruel and merciless.
Vivian closed her eyes when she dropped into the armchair in her bedroom, mouth still aching with the imprint of Bryn’s. Still wanting it.
It was worse. So much worse. Knowing how good it could feel to be close to someone. And knowing, with the same cold certainty she’d built her life around, that it was never hers to keep.