Chapter 31
thirty-one
WREN
The darkness swallows everything whole.
Girls are shrieking. Someone crashes into a table. I hear Heidi yelling about her ankle and JacqLyn demanding to know if this is part of the show. The crew is shouting orders that no one can follow because we can’t see a damn thing.
I can’t tell where the walls end or the voices begin. Someone’s crying. Someone else is shouting orders that don’t make sense. A chair crashes against something hard and metal. For a second, I swear I hear a scream.
That’s when I feel the hand.
I press myself against the wall, heart hammering, trying to get my bearings. The emergency lighting should kick in any second. It has to. This is a professional set, not some backwoods cabin.
A couple of phone flashlights go on, sweeping through the murkiness. A warm hand closes around my wrist in the darkness.
I know that touch immediately. The size of his fingers, the rough calluses on his palm from years of gripping hockey sticks. Ryan.
“Come with me,” he whispers, his breath hot against my ear.
I should pull away. I should tell him to let go, that we can’t keep doing this. But the chaos around us is terrifying and he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s suddenly tilted sideways.
He tugs me toward what I think is the service hallway, away from the panicked voices and stumbling footsteps. I follow blindly, my free hand stretched out in front of me to avoid walking into a wall.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
“Storage room. End of the hall.”
His voice is steady, confident. Like he’s mapped out this entire house in case of emergency. Of course he has. Ryan’s the type who notices exit signs and counts steps without realizing it.
We bump into a door and I hear him fumbling for the handle. It clicks open and he pulls me inside, closing it softly behind us. The sound cuts off most of the chaos from the main room, leaving us in thick, heavy silence.
I can’t see him, but I can feel him. The heat radiating from his body, the whisper of his breathing. We’re standing close, too close, in what feels like a tiny space.
“Your phone,” he says quietly. “Do you have it?”
I pat my pockets and find it, my fingers shaking slightly as I turn on the flashlight. The beam illuminates a small storage closet filled with cleaning supplies and towels. And Ryan, standing right in front of me, his eyes dark and intense in the harsh white light.
“Better?” he asks.
I nod, though I’m not sure anything about this situation is better. We’re alone. Actually alone. No cameras, no microphones, no producers lurking in the shadows. Just me and Ryan and the weight of everything we’ve been pretending doesn’t exist.
This is a mistake. A trap. A moment that doesn’t belong to me. I shouldn’t want this. But his voice pulls me in like gravity and I can’t find a single reason to resist that doesn’t sound like fear.
He takes a step closer and I back up until my shoulders hit the shelves behind me. A stack of towels shifts and tumbles to the floor.
“Wren.”
The way he says my name makes my stomach flip. Soft and rough at the same time, like he’s been holding it in his mouth too long.
I can’t stop thinking about when he told me that love don’t mean anything. Just because they say it, doesn’t mean they stay. His voice went flat, but I could hear the hurt in it. I don’t think he’s ever said that out loud before.
My heart aches for him. I want to be the one to change that for him. To make him whole. I smile and tilt my head, taking him in.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“Someone will notice we’re both missing.”
“I know.”
I flush under Ryan’s gaze. I used to fade into the background. Now people look. I’m not ready… but I’m not hiding, either.
He reaches up and brushes a strand of hair away from my face. His fingers linger against my cheek, and I lean into the touch before I can stop myself.
“I can’t stop thinking about the hotel,” he says quietly.
My breath catches. “Ryan…”
“You’ve been avoiding me all day.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you.”
He raises an eyebrow and I flush, caught in the lie.
“Okay, maybe I have been. But you know why.”
“Actually, I don’t. Everything was perfect and then we came back here and you turned into ice.”
I look away, but there’s nowhere to go in this tiny space. The light from my phone casts strange shadows on the walls, making everything feel surreal.
“It wasn’t real,” I say finally.
“What?”
“The hotel. The weekend. It was like… like playing house. But this is real life, Ryan. This is your job and my job and cameras are everywhere and my brother who would literally murder you if he found out.”
Ryan’s jaw tightens. “So what, we just pretend it never happened?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
The word comes out sharp and I flinch. He immediately softens, stepping even closer until I can smell his cologne mixed with something that’s just him.
“You’re…” I search for the right word. “You’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
“You make me forget things. Important things. Like the fact that this is temporary and you’re Ryan Haart and I’m nobody.”
His expression darkens. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s not.” He cups my face in both hands, forcing me to look at him. “You’re not nobody, Wren. You’re everything.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I want to believe them so badly it hurts. My chest aches like something’s breaking open inside.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“You’ll change your mind. When the show ends and you go back to your real life, you’ll realize this was just…”
“Just what?”
“A distraction.”
He stares at me for a long moment, his thumbs stroking across my cheekbones. I’m trembling and I hope he can’t feel it.
“Is that what you think this is? A distraction?”
I can’t answer. Because if I say yes, I’m lying. And if I say no, I’m admitting something I’m not ready to admit.
“Wren.” His voice is softer now, almost pleading. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m falling for you and it’s terrifying and I don’t know how to stop.”
The confession tumbles out before I can stop it. Ryan goes very still, his hands still framing my face.
“Don’t stop,” he whispers.
“What?”
“Don’t stop falling for me. Because I’m already gone.”
And then he’s kissing me, desperate and hungry like he’s been starving for days. My body answers before my mind can form a protest. There’s no world in which this is smart. But I don’t care. Not when he kisses me like this. Like I’m the only thing he’s ever wanted and the only thing he’s ever lost.
I should push him away. I should remember where we are and what we’re risking. But his mouth is hot and demanding and I melt into him like I always do.
He presses me back against the shelves, his body caging me in. I can feel every hard line of him, the way his chest rises and falls with his breathing. My phone falls from my hand, the light spinning crazily before settling on the floor, casting strange angular shadows across the ceiling.
“I missed you today,” he murmurs against my lips.
“You saw me all day.”
“Not like this. Not touching you.”
His hands slide down my sides, skimming over my ribs, my waist, coming to rest on my hips. I’m wearing a simple black dress and tights, nothing fancy, but the way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m dressed in silk and diamonds.
“We can’t do this here,” I whisper even as I arch into his touch.
“I know.”
But neither of us moves to stop it. If anything, he kisses me harder, one hand tangling in my hair while the other slides around to the small of my back, pulling me flush against him.
I can feel how much he wants me, hard and insistent against my stomach. It sends heat spiraling through my core and I make a soft sound that gets swallowed by his mouth.
“Fuck, Chirp,” he breathes. “The sounds you make.”
He trails kisses down my throat, finding that spot just below my ear that makes me gasp. His stubble scrapes against my skin and I shiver, my hands fisting in his shirt.
“Ryan, we have to stop.”
“I will. In a minute.”
But he doesn’t stop. His mouth works its way down to my collarbone, and I tip my head back to give him better access. One of his hands slides up to cup my breast through the thin fabric of my dress.
His thumb brushes over my nipple and every part of me locks up like a live wire. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t need this. But I feel like I’ve been starved of touch my whole life and suddenly he’s the only thing that feels real.
I bite my lip to keep from crying out, but a whimper escapes anyway. The sound seems to snap something in him because suddenly his mouth is back on mine, more urgent than before.
“I want to take you home,” he says against my lips. “I want to strip you naked and spend hours learning every inch of your body.”
The image his words paint makes my knees weak. “Ryan…”
“I want to make you come so many times you forget your own name.”
“Stop.”
“I want to wake up with you in my arms every morning.”
“Stop,” I say again, but there’s no conviction in it.
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes dark with desire and something deeper. Something that makes my chest tight.
“This isn’t just… I’m not screwing around. Not with you.”
“What is it then?”
He’s quiet for a moment, his forehead resting against mine. “I don’t know. But it’s more.”
The words hang between us, heavy with possibility and terror. Because more means complications. More means risk. More means the possibility of getting my heart shattered into a million pieces.
A loud bang echoes from somewhere in the house, followed by shouting. The emergency lighting must have finally kicked in because I can see a faint glow under the door.
“They’ll be looking for us,” I whisper.
Ryan nods but doesn’t step away. “Probably.”
“We should go back.”
“Probably.”
Neither one of us moves. We just stand there, breathing hard, staring at each other in the dim light from my phone on the floor.
“This is crazy,” I say finally.
“I know.”
“We’re going to get caught.”
“I know.”
“Jay will kill you.”
“I know.”
“And then Elena will kill both of us.”
He smiles at that, the first real smile I’ve seen from him all day. “Worth it.”
“You’re insane.”
“About you? Completely.”
The words send a thrill through me that I try to ignore. I bend down to pick up my phone, grateful for the excuse to break eye contact. When I straighten up, Ryan is watching me with an expression I can’t read.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I’ve never… Christ, I’ve never done anything like this before. Never fallen for someone like you.”
I snort despite myself. “When you put it like that, it does sound pretty stupid.”
“The stupidest.”
But he’s smiling when he says it, and I can’t help smiling back. Even in this tiny storage closet with cleaning supplies and chaos outside, he makes everything feel lighter.
“We really should go back,” I say.
“I know.”
This time he actually steps away, giving me room to breathe. I smooth down my dress and try to finger comb my hair into something that doesn’t scream “I was just making out in a closet.”
“How do I look?” I ask.
His eyes rake over me slowly, lingering on my mouth. “Like I want to kiss you again.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.”
The simple honesty in his voice makes my heart skip. I duck my head, suddenly shy.
“You go first,” I say. “I’ll wait a few minutes.”
He nods and moves toward the door, then stops. “Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“This isn’t over.”