28. King of Hearts
King of Hearts
Asher
I wake up hot with the smell of cinnamon surrounding me.
For a second I don’t remember where I am.
There’s just a heavy arm banded across my waist, a thigh hooked over mine, breath ghosting the back of my neck.
The room is mostly dark, but there’s a dark blue glow creeping in through the window, casting the room in moody, pre-dawn light.
The fire has been reduced down to embers, and despite the frozen tundra outside, I’m sweating.
The details slowly click into place as I eye the flannel sheets. The soft rasp of breathing against my back. The scrape of trimmed stubble on every exhale. The steady thump of his pulse where his wrist rests low on my stomach.
King.
My body goes loose before my brain catches up.
It’s like some traitor switch flips, and suddenly I feel too cozy to move.
My muscles unclench, my breath syncs with his, and I relax into the comfortable, memory foam mattress.
I don’t know how long I lie there just… letting it happen.
Letting him hold me like I’ve been cuddling with men my entire life.
It’s nice. Too nice.
And that’s the problem.
Something in me starts to rattle, a familiar metal-grating panic that says, Wake up, Harrison . The weight of him feels like safety, and my nervous system is begging for more. More touches, more bickering that leads to sexual favors, more making him laugh and making him proud of me.
My head, on the other hand, is already sprinting ahead to next week, when we won’t be fake dating, and I’ll be back to reality.
Because… this isn’t real. I’m not that guy. I don’t do this. I’m not… this.
Bisexual…?
The word lands like a stone in my gut. It’s not that I hate it.
In fact, I’ve been quietly donating a lot of money to an LGBTQIA+ rights organization for years.
It just feels bigger than I know what to do with.
It’s… new. It’s easy to forget what the word implies at night, sure, but in broad daylight?
In my real life? That requires confessions and declarations and…
I don’t have those. I have numbers and plans and controlled outcomes.
I’m forty-seven fucking years old.
If I tell Maddox and Ari—if I tell my parents —they’ll be supportive, sure. But who in their right mind waits until they’re middle-aged to come out?
This—King’s arm, his breath, the way our legs tangle like we’ve done this a hundred times—doesn’t slot into any plan I’ve ever made for my life.
Something shifted when he hurt himself skiing.
When his body hit the snow and my heart stopped for a second too long.
When I carried him and hated how scared I was, because scared means attached and attached means breakable.
After that, it was like I’d stepped off a ledge, and now I’m waiting to land and there is no ground, just air and the sound of my own breathing and his hand finding the back of my neck in a way that I’ve come to crave, and?—
Nope. Abort.
Carefully, I slip my fingers under his wrist and lift. He murmurs something against my skin, his voice raspy from sleep, and I freeze. He settles again. I hold my breath until his evens out again, then I slide out from under him inch by inch. The mattress dips, but he doesn’t wake up.
What kind of person does it make me that relief and disappointment hit me at the same time?
I drag on clean boxers, then shove my legs into my sweats, the room still dark. My shirt from last night still smells like him. I stare at it for two seconds too long, then grab a clean one from my suitcase. Socks. Boots. The jacket I’d slung over an armchair.
I glance back once on my way out. King is sprawled on his stomach now, face half buried in the pillow, hair a wreck, the line of his muscular back long and tantalizing.
It looks ordinary. Like we could do it again tomorrow. Like I could maybe envision him in my California king bed back in the city, twisted in my dark gray sheets, waking up with his arm around my waist.
I close the door before that thought can grow bigger.
The air outside feels like a knife to the chest, the kind of cold that makes every nerve ending wake up.
The sky is just starting to pale over the ridgeline of the trees, and there are still a few scattered stars above me.
I shove my hands in my pockets and head toward the main lodge, boots crunching hard enough to drown out the echo of my own heartbeat.
Inside, the lobby is all crackling fire and expensive throw blankets.
Someone’s got coffee going; the scent cuts through the air, energizing me and making me walk faster.
There are only a few early risers—two women in matching fleece sweaters holding hands on the couch, a guy with a laptop, who clearly didn’t do the digital detox, and a staffer adjusting a bowl of tangerines.
I help myself to a triple espresso and sit down on an empty couch just outside the restaurant. Just as I take a sip of the coffee, someone says my name.
“Asher.”
I don’t have to turn to know it’s Ava. Her voice has that soft quality, kind and just a tad too quiet.
She’s in leggings and a thick hoodie, hair in a messy bun, cheeks pink from the cold.
She’s wearing running shoes and a puffer vest. Spencer is a shadow near the fireplace, arms folded, eyes sweeping the room like he’s memorizing threats.
Because I’m sure there are so many threats at this remote, five-star resort.
And yet, his cheeks are flushed too, and when my eyes wander to his shoes, I see that he’s wearing running shoes as well.
I nearly chuckle at the thought of him following her on runs. Then again, he’s built like a machine, so maybe he likes it.
“You’re up early,” she says, sliding onto the cushion beside me.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I lie. I slept like the dead. Or rather, I was dead and resurrected by a man’s mouth, but we don’t need to go there.
Her eyes do one of those slow scans—face, shoulders, hands.
It’s disconcerting how much of Ari I see in her in moments like this.
Not the face, exactly. Where Ari is all sharp angles, a honed weapon built to bite back, Ava is softer—quieter.
The classic middle child, born between two rambunctious, wild women.
So, not the face, per se. But the way she calibrates and senses things. The way her eyes take in micro-shifts and emotional dodges.
Their father really did a number on them.
“You look… different today.”
“Older?” I joke. But it doesn’t land the way I want it to.
“Softer,” she says, not unkind. “Less… stressed?”
I stare into my cup. “Must be the cold.”
She lets that sit. She’s good at silence. I know the tactic—stay quiet, and people will fill the space with truth.
Not me.
I drink instead.
“Spencer said the ropes course was a win yesterday,” she offers. “He watched you two for a minute on the ridge. Said you moved like you’d practiced it together. I guess a lot of the other couples bickered and fought, but the two of you did really well.”
My mouth quirks. “Is he also a romance critic now?”
“He’s an observer,” she says, then bumps my shoulder with hers. “So am I. And from my vantage point, your whole fake relationship is starting to look real.”
My chest tightens and my hands won’t stop flexing around the cup, and I need to say… something. Anything .
“It’s not real.” I pick at the edge of the lid. “We’re still pretending for Walter. For different reasons now, because of the acquisition, but yeah.”
“And when you’re not pretending? Like the way you paced the doctor’s room when he got hurt? Or the way your eyes never left his, never stopped asking questions like an attentive and caring partner?”
I picture his arm heavy across my waist earlier. The way he said “Good boy” like a confession. The way my body answered to his voice before my brain could come up with a reason why.
I swallow. “I don’t know what we are when we’re not pretending.”
“Do you need to know right now?”
Yes. No. Maybe. “I need to not—” My hands make a useless shape in the air. “—feel like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like if I let go, I’ll fall and never stop.”
She’s quiet for a beat. The fire snaps behind us, making it sound and smell like Christmastime. Somewhere in the restaurant, someone begins stacking plates.
“Sometimes, safety can feel like falling when you’re used to living on the edge. Sometimes, safety feels scary and unpredictable. Especially when you’ve trained your body to live on ledges,” she says. “Stillness can be scarier than chaos.”
I stare at her. “Did they teach you that in yoga school?”
She grins. “No. In life. But also, yes. You’d be surprised at the amount of people who are downright terrified of yoga and meditation, because it causes them to be still.”
I snort despite myself. The coffee is starting to work through my veins, and the edges of my awareness don’t feel as dull.
The words from therapy a few days ago float through my mind. Marina had made a good point: “You don’t have to be completely unarmed to be vulnerable. You can still carry the sword. You just have to choose connection over being right—over raising your sword first.”
“It’s not just… the feelings aspect,” I say. “He’s acquiring my firm. My whole life’s work. I can’t—this can’t—” I break off, suddenly aware of how close I am to saying something I can’t take back. “It’s complicated.”
“It always is, with the good ones,” she says lightly. “I know it’s painful to bring it up, but look at Ari and Maddox. Look at how they found each other, and the ruin they left in their wake.”
“It’s not painful,” I tell her quickly. “Hearing about them or remembering how it all happened. I do get angry sometimes, but it doesn’t necessarily hurt. Truth be told, I’m not sure I can feel deep enough to hurt.”
She gives me a pitying look. “That’s so sad, Asher.”
I shrug. “It’s true.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” she replies quickly.
“I’ve watched you with Ambrose this week.
Whatever label you want to give yourselves can wait, but the effect of the two of you connecting—the way you both look rested and satisfied—your nervous system doesn't lie. You look… safe. Even if your head isn’t there yet. ”
The word safe lands in my chest with a thud. Safe . I don’t know what to do with that. I’m usually the safety. I’m the steady paycheck and the plan and the contingency. I’m not the one people wrap themselves around at five a.m. like a human weighted blanket.
I’m the one people leave, in order to find someone more exciting.
“I should prep for… something,” I say, standing too fast. “I can’t remember. The… uh, schedule.”
“Therapy at ten,” she reminds me gently.
My mouth flattens. “Maybe.”
Her head tilts. “Avoidance works… until it doesn’t.”
I force a smile that feels like it cracks somewhere deep. “Thanks, Dr. Ava.”
She squeezes my forearm as I pass. Warm palm, light pressure.
“Breathe today,” she says. “Even if it’s the only thing you manage.”
I nod and walk out before I answer the part of me that wants to stay and talk and ask how the hell people do this. How they let their bodies decide before their brains sign the contract. How they let go of what they thought their life was going to be, for something completely different.
Outside, the cold hits harder. I head toward the trail that loops the resort, because motion is easier than thinking. The sun’s up now, turning the ice on the branches into a chandelier. It’s stunning. It also makes my teeth hurt and my lungs burn with every breath.
By the time I circle back toward the cabins, my wrist twitches where my watch should be.
I’m not used to being so checked out—so disconnected.
I’m not used to not knowing the time, or my heart rate, or any important emails.
I’m not ready to go back inside. I’m not ready to see him looking rumpled and smug, and worse— safe .
Therapy is at ten. The couples yoga session is after lunch.
I could show up for both, or I could show up for none.
The thought of sitting on that couch and telling Marina that the man I’m sleeping with is buying my company makes my stomach turn.
The thought of lying next to him in a dark room with oil and low music and pretending it’s all for Walter makes my head spin.
My feet decide for me. They take me not to our door, but past it, toward the main building again. I’ll get another coffee. I’ll demand my personal phone back and I’ll find something to do that keeps my hands busy and my heart quiet.
I’ll… run.
Because maybe if I run fast enough, the ground will reappear under my feet.