Chapter 28
twenty-eight
WREN
We don’t leave the hotel room all morning. We don’t even think about leaving. Who cares about the rest of the world when you’ve got a king-sized bed, room service, and a morning like this?
It’s a bubble for two, where the only important thing is how close we can be, how many times lips can meet before they go numb, and which limbs can tangle together in the most delicious knot.
It starts with lazy kisses and sleepy bodies meshed together.
My face is tucked into Ryan’s chest while he sleep-mumbles something unintelligible and rolls us over, squeezing me so tight I giggle into his chest.
Then his lips find my neck. His weight presses me into the mattress. I forget how to breathe. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is still happening. I can’t believe time can pass like this, hours slipping away like they belong to someone else.
Eventually, the real world starts to elbow its way back into focus. I finally pull myself out of bed and shuffle toward the bathroom, though I don’t want to be away from Ryan for even a second. My legs feel like Jell-O.
My hair looks like a cautionary tale of what happens when you spend hours tangled up with a man like him. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and see the small dark hickey blooming under my collarbone.
A reminder and a promise that this morning was not some cruel delirium. Giddy and dazed, I splash cold water on my face until I’m sure I’m fully awake, then I stumble back out of the bathroom.
Ryan’s already made himself busy ordering food. He’s still shirtless, sitting cross-legged on the bed like he owns the world, like he owns this moment, his casual confidence almost enough to make me blush all over again.
“I thought you’d be hungry,” he says.
As if breakfast in bed is the most normal thing in the world. As if this whole morning is just another morning for us. As if this is what normal looks like for Ryan and me.
“I’m starving,” I admit. I crawl back under the covers, still wrapped in his hoodie, still soaking up his warmth.
It doesn’t take long for room service to arrive. He uncovers a stack of pancakes with an exaggerated flourish and hands me a fork. “You want syrup on or around?”
“Don’t you dare pour it like a psycho.”
He snorts, eyes alive with teasing. “So demanding.”
I roll my eyes at him, but I can’t help smiling like an idiot.
There’s something so easy and so impossible about sharing breakfast with him like this.
So dangerously close to a world where I’m not just tolerated but chosen.
The way he’s already tossing the syrup my way, already saving the strawberries for me because he knows I’ll want them later.
This is all a strange dream and Ryan is just a figment of my imagination. If I’m in an insane asylum and hallucinating him, that’s fine. I just don’t want to wake up quite yet.
It’s easy.
Dangerously easy. So easy, there are moments I forget this isn’t normal for us.
Later, we make a fire in the small hearth near the bed, the room flickering in warmth and light. We play cards by the warmth of the fire. I beat him at rummy three times in a row before he accuses me of cheating with a wounded sigh.
“Admit it, Haart,” I say, holding up my winning hand. “You’re just mad you lost.”
“There’s no way you aren’t cheating,” he insists, shuffling the cards again. “Nobody’s that good.”
“My dad would beg to differ.”
Ryan glances up, curiosity flickering in his eyes. I look down at the cards, suddenly focused on organizing them by suit. I don’t tell him I learned from years of playing as a kid. That it’s all muscle memory now, ingrained like a reflex. I can’t lose if I try.
But saying any of that would invite questions about childhoods and families. Things I don’t want to talk about. They might break the spell of this perfect day by reminding us of the real world waiting outside the door.
When it starts getting dark, we wrap up in blankets and end up on the patio, the air cool and the world outside finally nudging its way back into our bubble, the one we’ve been floating in all day.
I’m not sure what the time is anymore. I don’t really care.
As long as I’m here with him, none of those numbers matter. None of those numbers are real.
He’s quiet.
I’m not used to quiet Ryan. Not really.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. Ryan is uncharacteristically silent. It makes me nervous, as if saying something out loud could puncture the fragile perfection of this evening and send it crashing into reality.
He shrugs, a small, almost uncertain gesture. “Just… this is nice.” His words hang in the air between us, soft and tentative as if he’s testing them out, not quite sure if he trusts them. It’s nice, but it’s also terrifying.
I bite my lip, afraid of what the answer might be but needing to ask anyway.
“Too nice?”
I don’t mean to sound so vulnerable, but I can’t help it. It’s so delicious and unbearable to be this open with him.
He glances my way, eyes searching mine. “That a trick question?”
“No.” The answer is simple, but the feeling behind it definitely isn’t.
We’re both scared. We both have way too much to lose.
There’s a silence, thick and telling. I know neither of us wants to be the first to say what we’re both thinking, what lurks behind this easy intimacy we’ve been pretending feels so natural.
Ryan looks away first, the movement quick and almost defensive. “Nice is dangerous.”
I get it.
We’re both horrible at good things. At letting things be simple and accepting that something warm and rich can last without turning into a mess. At trusting that this isn’t a dream, that we won’t wake up and find out that everything’s fallen apart once again.
“I know what you mean,” I say.
I really do. I’ve spent weeks now wondering if this is only temporary.
When will Ryan suddenly decide he’s made a mistake and move on like he always has before?
It’s safer to expect that, easier not to give my heart to something that might evaporate or explode without warning.
Safer not to end up like the small, dark bruise on my collarbone.
Impermanent.
But there’s another part of me, a softer and more hopeful part, that thinks maybe this time it’s not just a mistake, not just a passing phase for both of us.
This part of me wants so badly to trust that it’s real, that it’s right, that it’s more than some fragile illusion.
That Ryan won’t leave. That I won’t end up alone, picking pieces of my life off the floor and trying to fit them back together.
He reaches over and tangles our fingers together under the blanket.
Neither of us says anything else.
But we sit like that for a long time, wrapped up in the quiet, the only sounds the occasional hum of traffic from the street and the rustling of leaves in the breeze.
We’re both waiting for it to feel less fragile and more certain, wondering if we’re brave enough to let it.
Wondering what will happen if it gets even better than this.
Wondering what will happen if it doesn’t.
For once, I let myself believe this could be more than pretend.
Later that night, we’re curled up in bed again, the room swathed in shadows that dance over the walls as the fireplace flickers and dies down.
I’m cocooned in his hoodie, swamped in warmth and Ryan’s scent.
He lies bare-chested beside me, careless and content, like he hasn’t a worry in the world. But I know better.
I can feel it. The subtle shift from comfortable silence to something that feels more jagged. He’s retreating somewhere behind his eyes. I’m not sure if I should follow.
Finally, words escape him like an admission, startling in the quiet of the room. “Of course it had to be you.” It’s a confession and a defeat all at once. The implication sends a shiver through me.
I freeze, not sure I heard him right. “What?”
He turns his head just slightly, enough for his eyes to meet mine with a look that’s resigned and almost somber. “I’m probably self-sabotaging. I’ve done it before.”
I sit up on my elbow, something snagging in my chest at this unexpected honesty. “Is that why you’ve…?” I start to ask, but the words stick. I can’t finish without sounding like I’ve been keeping track of his history.
Ryan arches an eyebrow, catching my hesitation. “Why I’ve what? Slept my way across the lower forty-eight?”
I wince, not wanting to be that blunt. “That’s not what I meant.”
But it’s true enough, giving voice to the worry that’s been gnawing at me all day.
That I’m just one on a long list, that this is a temporary stop on his usual route, one that ends with me being nothing more than a footnote.
Not wanting to become vulnerable, the same useless mark I was left with last time.
I try to sound lighthearted, but my voice wobbles.
“I just meant, is that why you never… you know?”
I can’t bring myself to say the word commit, as if saying it out loud will destroy this fragile thing between us.
It’s a terrifying relief, hearing him say he’s falling for me, but more terrifying is the thought that he might not mean it.
That he might be sabotaging both of us without even knowing it.
He shrugs, lazy and unbothered on the surface, like it doesn’t matter, like he doesn’t care. But I can see it. I can see the struggle beneath the calm facade.
“You’re not wrong,” he finally says, his voice almost too casual. “It’s easier when it doesn’t mean anything.” There’s an edge to his words, but I hear it. I hear the truth slipping out.
“But don’t you want something real?” I ask, leaning in closer, trying to make him look at me.
Trying to make him see that I’m here, that I won’t disappear. That I’m not the one he needs to worry about leaving. My voice is soft, tentative. Terrified of what his answer might be.