Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
That’s the stuff girls go crazy over
SOPHIE
I will never get used to waking up in Micah’s cloud of a bed. Micah’s scent still clings to the pillow. I sit up quickly, blinking around his bedroom, trying to remember how I even got here. The last thing I recall is sitting on the sofa with him, talking, laughing, and then nothing.
I push the blanket aside and pad toward the ensuite bathroom.
I stop dead in the doorway. The bathroom looks completely different than I remember it.
There’s a pink robe hanging neatly on the hook, a whole array of skincare products lined up by the sink—serums, moisturizers, face masks, and things I’ve only ever seen in beauty stores like a gua sha and some kind of device?
There’s a pink hairbrush, pink hair ties, expensive looking floral body wash.
I take the new pink toothbrush and put on some of the new strawberry toothpaste.
I step back out into the bedroom and head toward the kitchen. Micah’s standing by the counter, pouring coffee into two mugs, still in a plain T-shirt and sweatpants, looking entirely too good for this early in the morning.
“Morning,” I say, still a little dazed. “What happened? How did I end up in bed?”
He glances over at me, smiling softly. “You fell asleep on the sofa, so I carried you to bed. You’re a deep sleeper, you know that? You must’ve been exhausted.”
“Where did you sleep?” I ask, walking over to him.
“The guest bedroom.”
I blink at him, tilting my head. “Why didn’t you just sleep with me in your bed?”
He sets the coffee mug down in front of me, his smile turning teasing. “Because I want our first time being domestic like that to actually be memorable for both of us—which means we both should be awake. Especially when I can’t exactly control myself around you. You were completely out.”
My cheeks heat, and I can’t help the giddy little laugh that escapes me. “Oh, sorry.”
“And what’s with all that stuff in the bathroom? The skincare, the robe, and pink everything?” I ask, raising a brow at him.
Micah smirks, leaning casually against the counter. “Do you like it? I heard that’s the kind of stuff girls like.”
“Says who?” I bite my lip to keep from laughing but fail, grinning up at him. “Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate everything. So much. I just haven’t used most of those things before.”
He mutters something under his breath, shaking his head. “Fucking Grant,” he says a little louder this time, looking almost embarrassed. “He told me that’s the stuff girls go crazy over.”
I can’t help laughing again, my cheeks heating from how ridiculously thoughtful it was. He watches me with that soft smile—the one that makes me feel warm all over.
“You look way too happy about this,” he teases.
“I am happy,” I admit.
“Good, that’s all that matters.”
Then, without another word, he leans closer and presses his lips to mine.
It's soft, slow, and tender, and I feel the warmth of it spread through my chest before I even register what's happening.
His hand slides to my waist, pulling me closer, and I let him—easily, without thinking, without the usual voice in my head telling me to be careful.
When he pulls back just slightly, his eyes are more intense and his breathing is heavier. He looks at me like he's asking something without words, and telling me he’s been patient a very long time.
“Are you sure?” he finally asks quietly.
My heart pounds.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I'm sure.”
Something in his expression changes. It softens and steadies at the same time. He takes my hand and leads me toward his bedroom, and I follow—the most deliberate choice I've ever made.
We fall onto the bed together, clumsy and breathless, laughing quietly when I accidentally bump his jaw with my nose. But the laughter fades when his gray eyes meet mine—dark now, and completely still, like he's holding himself in place just to keep looking at me.
“We can stop,” he murmurs. “Anytime. Just say the word.”
“I know,” I say. “I don’t want to stop.”
He reaches over me. I hear the nightstand drawer, then the soft tear of a wrapper. When he looks at me again it's the same question it's always been, and I answer by pulling him back down.
He kisses me slowly, like we have all the time in the world.
His hands move over me carefully, unhurried, pausing each time like he's giving me a chance to say no.
I don't. Every layer he takes away he replaces with warmth—his mouth at my collarbone, his palm flat against my ribs, the slow drag of his fingers that makes me forget to be afraid.
I keep waiting for some old fear to surface.
But it doesn't come.
What comes instead is something I don't have a name for. A warmth that starts low and spreads outward. A feeling like being held even when his hands aren't holding me. At one point I realize my hands are in his hair and that I put them there without thinking about it.
"Hey," he says softly, at some point. He pulls back just enough to look at my face. "Still here?"
"Still here," I say, and mean it.
"Good," he says. Then he kisses me again before moving with me, like he'd wait forever if that's what I needed.
He moves slowly, watching my face, and when I make a sound I don't expect—something small and surprised, but nothing to do with fear—his expression goes soft. He was waiting for me to feel it.
And then he does it again. And again. Until the sound isn't surprised anymore—until it's something I'm reaching for, something climbing in me that I don't try to hold back.
It builds until there's no room left for thinking, only feeling, only him, and when it finally breaks, I hear myself breathlessly say his name.
He holds me through it, forehead dropped to mine, breathing me in like he's been waiting his whole life just to watch me let go.
MICAH
Afterward, she's quiet.
Not closed-off quiet—I know the difference now.
This is something else. She's lying beside me, cheek pressed against my chest, her breathing finally slow and even, and she hasn't moved in a while.
I keep my hand moving in a steady pass along her back because it seems like the right thing to do and I'm not ready to stop touching her.
I've been with other girls. That's just a fact. But this is the first time I've been here—actually present, actually paying attention to another person—and the difference feels enormous. Embarrassingly enormous, honestly. I didn't know what I was missing until now.
She hasn't said anything, and I don't push. I just wait.
After a while, she tilts her head up to look at me. Her eyes are a little glassy, but she's almost smiling. “Hi,” she says softly.
“Hi.”
She lays her cheek back down on my chest. “I didn't know it could be like that.”
The words hit me somewhere I'm not entirely prepared for. I have to look at the ceiling for a second before I trust my face.
“Like what?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
She thinks about it. “Like…good,” she finally says. “And safe.”
I don't say anything. I just hold her tighter, pressing my lips to the top of her head, and she lets me, and for a while that's enough.
I think about everything Nico told me. About what her life looked like before she got here. About all the years she spent surviving something I can barely let myself think about directly.
She trusted me with this. With her. And I don't take that lightly. I don't think I ever could.
“Micah?” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.” Her voice is small. “For being—I don't know, patient. I know that probably sounds—“
“It doesn't sound like anything,” I say. “It sounds exactly right.”
She goes quiet again. I can feel the moment she relaxes completely. It’s a subtle thing—a slow release of tension through her whole body, like she's been carrying something heavy for a very long time and has finally, just for now, put it down.
She relaxes against me, her face pressing into my chest, and I hold her tighter.
I stare at the ceiling and think: I'm never letting this girl go.
Not because she needs someone. She's spent her whole life proving she doesn't.
But because she chose me anyway.