Chapter 13
OLLIE
The next morning feels unreal in the quiet, practical way big life changes often do. There’s no dramatic music. No sense of destiny. Just coffee, schedules, and the low hum of a city that doesn’t care that my entire world tipped sideways forty-eight hours ago.
Rafe walks me to the car, but we don’t leave together.
It’s his idea. “Your family doesn’t need to get swallowed into this,” he says, voice firm but not unkind. “We travel separately. Less attention.”
I know he’s right. I hate that he’s right.
There are already photographers outside the gate when we pull out—lenses pointed, bodies leaning forward like they might catch more if they try hard enough. The flash of cameras bounces off the windshield even in daylight.
I keep my eyes forward. Beside me, my driver mutters under his breath, something about vultures. Rafe’s car leaves a few minutes after mine, a different route, a different direction. We’ll meet at the loft.
The drive into the city feels like stepping back into a version of my life I barely recognize. My phone buzzes constantly—texts from teammates, old friends, numbers I haven’t saved. Most of them are simple: You good? Proud of you. Call me.
I don’t answer yet. My head is already full.
The building rises into view, all steel and glass and urban ambition. It felt huge when I bought it. Now it feels like a transition space. A midpoint between who I was and who I’m trying to become.
There are no photographers here, thank God, but I keep my face neutral as I step out, head down just enough to avoid giving anyone lurking a shot they’ll love too much.
Inside, the air smells like fresh drywall and sawdust.
My place is looking a lot less like a construction site than when I was last here. The floors are in. The kitchen cabinetry is installed. The big windows frame the city like artwork.
Carol, who flew in this morning, waves from the far end, tape measure around her neck. “You made it!”
I grin. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
She launches into updates immediately, walking me through paint samples, furniture layouts, light fixtures. I fall into the conversation easily, grateful for something tangible.
Rafe arrives ten minutes later. I feel him before I see him. My breath quickens, my shoulders straightening unconsciously. I turn, and there he is in the doorway, sunglasses on, hands in his jacket pockets like he’s bracing himself.
This is my world now. And he’s in it.
“Hey,” I say, unable to stop smiling.
“Hey,” he replies, and his gaze moves slowly around the space. “It’s… nice.”
“Yeah?”
He nods. “Yeah, definitely.”
Carol gives him a quick hello, then tactfully disappears toward the kitchen area, wanting to talk to Phil before she heads out, leaving us standing in the middle of the open floor.
“This is where the couch goes,” I say, gesturing. “And the dining table there. Bedroom’s through there.”
Rafe listens, really listens, nodding as I talk through choices. He asks questions. Not polite ones—real ones. About storage. Light. Where I’ll work. It shouldn’t feel this intimate. But it does.
Later, we meet Lindy and Phil for lunch at a café down the block.
It’s off the beaten track, though Vinny and Seth remain on high alert, ensuring we have privacy.
Amelia insists on sitting between us and interrogates Rafe about guitars, which he handles with a seriousness that makes her beam.
Watching them together does something complicated to my chest.
After lunch, we walk back to the loft, Vinny and Seth close by, and then Lindy and Phil head off to pick up more supplies, taking Amelia with them.
The door closes, the loft turning quiet, and it’s just me and him. The space feels different now—smaller, charged.
Rafe walks to the window, hands in his pockets, looking out over the city. “You really are building something here.”
“Yeah.”
“For you.”
“And maybe,” I add carefully, “for us.” I know he has his house that’s secluded and on the outskirts of the city, but this could also be ours.
His shoulders tense just slightly. I don’t think it’s rejection or even retreat. It seems like recognition and the weight of the possibility.
I step closer. Not touching, just… near enough that I can feel the warmth of him, the quiet gravity he carries, the way my body remembers him. “I meant what I said,” I tell him quietly. “About not rushing.”
“I know.” His voice is rougher now. Lower. It lands somewhere deep in my chest.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t—” I stop, the words snagging somewhere between fear and hunger, between apology and truth.
His gaze lifts fully to mine, dark and steady, like he’s bracing for impact and leaning into it at the same time. “Don’t what?”
My hand twitches at my side. I want to reach for him, to smooth my thumb over the familiar line of his jaw, to prove to both of us that he’s real and solid and here. The restraint burns.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want you,” I say finally.
The truth of it settles heavy and electric between us. Not lust alone. Not even nostalgia. It’s something deeper and more dangerous—want threaded through with history, regret, and devotion.
Silence thickens, each moment charged.
His jaw flexes. I see the pulse jump in his throat. He’s fighting something. Instinct, possibly. Or memory. The part of him that knows exactly how we used to fit.
“Ollie.” It’s not a warning. It’s a plea wrapped in my name.
“I know,” I say quickly, breath thinner now. “I know. Boundaries. Dating. Slow.”
But we’re standing too close. The air between us is heavy and familiar, full of the echoes of everything we were and everything we almost lost. My skin feels too tight, like my body is trying to move toward him on instinct while my mind scrambles to keep pace with the rules we just set.
Every nerve in me is awake. And still, I stay right where I am.
His hand lifts like he’s going to push me back, then drops.
I take a breath that doesn’t feel big enough and step into his space. He doesn’t move away, which surprises me. After everything, after the lines we just drew in careful, shaking words, he’s still here.
The distance between us disappears quietly, like it was never meant to exist. I can feel the heat of him now, the subtle rise and fall of his chest, the faint scent of his cologne mixed with coffee and the air of this room.
My body reacts before my brain can catch up—a low, aching pull that has nothing to do with impulse and everything to do with recognition.
Home. He smells like home. That’s the dangerous part.
The kiss isn’t like the one at the gala. There’s no shock, no witnesses, no adrenaline drowning everything else out. This one is slow as I press my lips against his. Careful. The kind of kiss that remembers instead of discovers.
His mouth fits mine with a familiarity that almost hurts, like a song I used to know by heart playing after years of silence.
I recognize him immediately—the soft press of his lips, the warm exhale that brushes my cheek, the way his breath hitches just slightly before he settles into it. There’s no rush, no claiming. Just the quiet slide of his mouth against mine, testing, relearning.
My hands hover for a second, unsure where they’re allowed to land. Then one settles lightly at his side, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. He’s solid under my touch. Real. The warmth of his body seeps through cotton and skin, grounding me in a way nothing else has in years.
He tilts his head, deepening the contact just enough to change the angle, to let the kiss linger. While it’s not urgent, it’s 100 percent intentional. I feel the slow brush of his breath, the gentle pull as he draws me closer by fractions, like he’s afraid of startling me if he moves too fast.
My breathing turns shallow. Every nerve in me wakes up—not with heat alone, but with recognition. This is the way we used to kiss when the world fell away. When it was just us and the quiet between heartbeats.
I taste coffee, mint, and something unmistakably him.
The years apart don’t vanish, but they fold inward, like pages pressed between our mouths. Every small shift—the pressure of his lips, the slide of his hand along my waist, the way his thumb stills there—is layered with memory. We’re not figuring each other out. We’re remembering.
For a second, I forget why we ever stopped.
The kiss deepens. Heat building low and quiet, coiling through my chest and down my spine, through every place in me that remembers him and what we were. My hand twitches against him. He groans, the sound zapping through me like a live wire.
Something breaks loose between us—years of restraint, of almosts, of words swallowed and nights spent staring at opposite ceilings. My hand, which had been resting at his side like I was afraid to claim space, tightens. Fists fabric. Pulls.
Rafe makes a sound low in his throat, rough and unguarded, and it shoots straight through me.
Heat spikes fast now, no longer a slow burn but a flare.
My pulse is everywhere—neck, wrists, chest. My other hand moves without permission, sliding down his torso, feeling the solid line of him under my palm, the tension coiled there.
He doesn’t stop me. That’s what undoes me.
I pull back just enough to look at him, breath uneven, mouth still close enough to feel his exhale. His eyes are blown wide, dark, searching mine like he’s standing on the same edge.
My fingers hook into his belt, not tugging yet—just holding. Asking.
Waiting.
This is the moment he could end it. Say slow. Say not yet. Say Ollie, don’t.
I’d stop. I would. We both know that.
His chest rises hard under my hand. His jaw flexes. But he doesn’t move away. Doesn’t take my hands off him. Doesn’t break eye contact.
Permission doesn’t always sound like words.
My heart is pounding so loud I’m sure he can feel it between us. “Tell me to stop,” I whisper. Not a challenge—a vow.
He swallows. Shakes his head once. Barely.
That’s all it takes. I drop to my knees.