Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
My feet carried me down the stairs like they belonged to someone else, like they were just trying to outrun whatever explosion was building inside me. Every breath came too fast, too shallow, scraping down my throat like I was breathing in broken glass.
The words kept echoing.
I don’t want to fire anyone. But that doesn’t mean I won’t.
Not sure a glowing recommendation can overshadow drama.
You’ve lost the trust of the crew.
I’d worked so hard.
I’d given everything to this job. Every late night, every impossible party theme, every tear I’d cried in a guest cabin while scrubbing a toilet — none of it mattered. I’d erased it all with a stupid, careless surrender to desire.
I felt so… human.
All of it — all the years of effort and sacrifice — were hanging by a thread now and fraying fast.
Because I couldn’t stay away from him, even when I knew this was a possibility.
I nearly laughed at our stupidity. I’ll set an alarm. We can sneak back to our cabins.
And then what?
What did we actually think would happen?
We didn’t think. That was the problem.
“Ember,” Finn said softly behind me.
I kept descending the stairs, not stopping when my feet hit the bottom. Eli was in the mess making himself a quick breakfast. His eyes shot to us before he tore them away, only muttering an, “Excuse me,” as he shuffled past us and up the stairs.
He could barely look at us.
“Em…” Finn said again.
His voice chased me down the hall to my cabin, but my head was roaring. Blood pulsed in my ears like the crashing of waves in a storm, and my heart was beating so hard I thought I might black out. My hands shook at my sides. My eyes burned.
No.
No, no, no.
This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be how it ended — all of it, everything I’d worked for. It wasn’t just the crew or the tip or the next charter. It was my future. It was my name. I could see it already, hear it in the whispers between captains, in the silence from potential employers.
Unprofessional. Unstable. Emotional.
“Ember, stop.”
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I reached my cabin but walked past it, even though I knew I had nowhere to go but the end of the hall. I just hoped if I kept moving, the feelings would lose their grip. But they only got louder.
My father’s voice joined Captain Gary’s in my head. Cold. Clipped. Full of disappointment.
So this is the so-called job you’ve been so adamant about wasting your time on?
This is what you wanted me to take seriously?
This is what I was supposed to see as a valuable, stable, impressive career choice?
“Ember,” Finn said again, more firmly now, catching up, stepping into my path. He blocked the end of the hall like I had anywhere to go even if I did shove past him. “Em, look at me.”
His words nearly broke me.
“I can’t,” I gasped, voice cracking. “I can’t— I can’t fix this. I can’t—”
“Hey. Breathe. Just breathe, alright? You’re having a panic attack.”
Panic attack.
The words made sense as soon as he said them, but my insides still bucked against that truth like it was a death sentence.
Finn stepped closer, slow, hands raised like he was approaching a wild animal.
Because I was. Inside, I was thrashing. Screaming. Splintering in a thousand directions, sharp and spinning and dangerous.
Finn’s voice softened. “Can I just hug you?”
I blinked, like the words were a switch that finally cut through the ringing in my ears.
“Please,” he said. “Just… one hug. One moment.”
I was panting. I was so dizzy I felt like I could topple at any moment.
I think I nodded. I must have, because Finn gently reached for me, pulling me into him and slowly wrapping his arms all the way around me. He held me firmly, but not too tightly. He was supportive without suffocating me.
And as soon as he had me firmly in his grip, the moment I felt the permission to let him hold some of the weight…
I broke.
All the strength I’d been clinging to crumbled.
My arms looped around his neck as I sagged into him, sobs bursting from me before I could stop them.
I cried like I hadn’t in years, cried until I couldn’t see, until I couldn’t breathe, until all I knew was the feel of him — the steady thump of his heart, the warmth of his arms, the way his hand cradled the back of my head like I might fall apart if he let go.
He didn’t say anything. He just held me, rock steady and solid. And I didn’t need a single word.
Because in his arms, I wasn’t the chief stew. I wasn’t the failure. I wasn’t the drama.
I was just me.
And even if it was just for a stolen moment, I felt safe.
He shifted just enough to lean his cheek against my temple, his voice barely a whisper against my skin.
“I know you need a moment,” he said. “I’ll give you that. But please, Firefly…” He pulled back just enough to see my face, his hand sliding up to tuck my hair behind my ear, fingers brushing tenderly along my jaw. “Don’t push me away on this. Not now.”
My eyes fluttered shut, breath shaking, but he kept going.
“I’m not sorry. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret us.” His thumb swiped beneath my eye, catching a tear before it could fall. “It’s just a show. It’s cameras and chaos and carefully edited moments. But what’s between us?” His voice dropped, low and sure. “That’s real.”
I pushed against his chest — reflexively, defensively. The words came out of me before I could stop them, raw and sharp. “We can’t, Finn. This can’t work.” I shook my head even as more tears pooled in my eyes. “They’ll keep coming for us. The crew. The producers. The guests—”
Finn didn’t let me finish.
His arms stayed around me, grounding me, and his words cut through the spiral with a steady conviction.
“I don’t fecking care, Em, and I’ll be right here with you until you don’t care either.
Maybe we didn’t find the right way back to each other,” he said.
“But we found a way. That’s got to mean something.
Hell, maybe it’s the universe yelling at us this time instead of whispering the way it did two years ago. ”
I blinked up at him, lip trembling.
“We wasted so much time,” he croaked, his voice heavy with regret.
“Christ, I hate meself for that. We can’t go back in time and change it, but for some reason, whether it was easy or not, we got our second chance.
Don’t let them tear us apart again. Not when we just found our way back.
Not when it finally feels like we’re home again. ”
My breath caught, chest still tight, but something shifted in it — like the panic didn’t own me anymore. It was like when the downpour turns to a drizzle and then to a drip, like when the sun makes a rainbow before breaking up the clouds altogether
Finn was making space for something softer to grow in its place.
He touched my hair gently, threading his fingers through the strands. “They’ve already made up their minds about us, Firefly. Let ’em. Let them call us the villains. Let them talk. But we know the truth.”
His eyes searched mine, burning with something that made my knees weak all over again. I clung to him instinctively — my lifeline, my home.
“We don’t have to play into their narrative. We don’t have to fight back or prove anything. We just keep our heads down, do our jobs, and be together. Quietly. Steadily. All in.”
He kissed my forehead, soft and reverent.
“Don’t you want that?” he whispered. “Because I swear to God, Em… it’s all I want. You are all I want.”
And somehow, that wrecked me more than the lecture had.
Because I wanted it, too.
I wanted it so badly the thought of not having it was enough pressure to crack a rib.
I nodded, over and over, and when Finn realized I was with him, his eyes shot open wide.
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
And then I kissed him.
My fingers wove into his hair, holding tight as he wrapped me up in his arms and held me to him. Our kisses were frenzied and wild — just like our love.
I didn’t know what came next.
I had no fucking idea how we would survive the next two charters, how we’d keep our teams working together when they all seemed ready to tear each other and the two of us apart.
I couldn’t control what story the production crew would tell, but I had a good feeling whatever was spun wouldn’t reflect me or Finn in a good light.
It seemed impossible to stay afloat, and yet we were. We would. Together.
So, I kissed him with the cameras watching and the whole world judging.
And I buckled in for what I didn’t know would be the wildest charter of my life.