Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Max
The guitar feels strange in my hands, unfamiliar after months of neglect. I run my fingers over the strings, producing a discordant jangle that makes me wince. Out of tune, like most things in my life lately. The melody's been stuck in my head for days—a new composition trying to work its way out after years of creative silence. Lena's doing, though she doesn't know it. Since our weekend at the cabin two weeks ago, since she asked me to play for her "sometime," the music that's been dormant inside me has started stirring again. It's terrifying and exhilarating, like most things that involve Lena. I set the guitar aside as my phone chimes with a text from her:
On my way. Bringing takeout and zero photographic evidence of my sweatpants. x
The message makes me smile despite the knot of guilt that's taken up permanent residence in my chest. That guilt has only grown since my conversation with Ryan and Drew, since making the decision to tell Lena about the bet. But the timing never seems right. Every moment I spend with her feels too precious to potentially destroy with a confession that could shatter her trust in me.
Tomorrow. I'll tell her tomorrow, after the Luminous Beauty event. That's the promise I keep making to myself, even as each 'tomorrow' becomes 'the next day' becomes 'soon.'
I quickly tune the guitar and return it to its stand, straightening the already-tidy apartment. It's a habit I've developed since Lena started spending more time here—not because she cares if there are dishes in the sink or books stacked haphazardly, but because somehow her presence makes me want to offer the best version of everything, including my living space.
The buzzer sounds fifteen minutes later. When I open the door, she's exactly as promised—sweatpants, one of my old band t-shirts she's claimed as her own, hair piled in a messy bun, no makeup. She's also juggling two bags of takeout and a bottle of wine, her expression comically strained with the effort.
"A little help here, Donovan," she grunts as the wine bottle starts to slip.
I relieve her of her burden, stealing a quick kiss in the process. "You know, for someone who coordinates outfits with her morning coffee for Instagram, you make surprisingly unsexy entrances in real life."
"Excuse you," she retorts, following me inside. "This is peak comfort chic. The internet would explode if I revealed my true loungewear aesthetic."
"Their loss." I set the food on the coffee table, enjoying the easy way she makes herself at home—kicking off her shoes, grabbing plates from the kitchen like she belongs here. In many ways, she does. Over the past months, she's colonized my space bit by bit—a toothbrush in the bathroom, her preferred tea in the cabinet, a drawer with emergency clothes for unplanned sleepovers.
"Productive day?" she asks, unpacking containers of Thai food that smell amazing.
"Bar inventory. Thrilling stuff." I pour the wine, not mentioning the hour I spent with the guitar before she arrived. "You?"
"Content planning with Tori for post-campaign season." She accepts a glass, curling into the corner of my couch with practiced ease. "We're thinking of pivoting to more 'authentic lifestyle' content. Apparently my engagement numbers have never been higher since I started showing more 'real life' moments."
The irony isn't lost on either of us. "So your carefully curated authenticity is outperforming your carefully curated perfection?"
"The algorithm works in mysterious ways." She raises her glass in mock toast. "Though to be fair, some of those 'authentic moments' actually are authentic. Like that photo you took of me laughing at the park last week. I didn't even edit that one."
"Revolutionary," I tease, settling beside her with my own plate. "Next you'll be posting without filters."
"Baby steps, Donovan." She nudges my shoulder with hers. "Rome wasn't unfiltered in a day."
We eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the easy domesticity of the moment striking me anew. When this all began, I couldn't have imagined Lena Carter—poised, perfect, Instagram royalty—sitting cross-legged on my couch in sweatpants, eating pad thai straight from the container, completely at ease.
"I saw the guitar was out," she says casually, though I catch the hopeful undertone. "Were you playing?"
"Attempting to." I focus on my food, suddenly self-conscious. "Just noodling around."
"That's progress, right? From not touching it at all?"
I glance up, finding her watching me with genuine interest, no pressure or judgment. "Maybe. There's a melody I can't get out of my head."
"Will you play it for me sometime?" she asks, the echo of her request at the cabin hanging between us.
"It's not ready," I hedge. "But…maybe. When it is."
She beams, clearly counting this as a win. "I'll hold you to that."
After dinner, we settle deeper into the couch, her legs draped over mine as we half-watch a documentary about deep-sea creatures. Lena's fascinated, occasionally sharing marine biology facts that surprise me.
"You really did want to study dolphins," I observe during a segment about whale communication.
"Told you." She takes a sip of wine, eyes still on the screen. "Little Lena had very specific career goals before Instagram corrupted her soul."
"I don't think your soul is corrupted," I say, more seriously than intended. "Just…compartmentalized."
She turns to me, expression thoughtful. "That's a diplomatic way of saying I lead a double life."
"Don't we all?" I trace patterns on her ankle, exposed where her sweatpants have ridden up. "Public self, private self. Yours just has higher production values."
"True." She tilts her head, studying me. "But the gap is getting smaller, I think. Since you."
The simple acknowledgment sends warmth spreading through my chest, followed immediately by the cold prickle of guilt. Here she is, opening up, being more authentic, while I'm hiding something fundamental about how our relationship began.
"You've changed how I see things," she continues, unaware of my internal conflict. "Made me remember there's value in moments that aren't curated for public consumption."
"Like deep-sea documentary date night?" I gesture to our thoroughly unglamorous setup.
"Exactly like that." She shifts, sitting up to face me more directly. "Do you know how revolutionary it is for me to be somewhere and not immediately assess the lighting for a potential photo op? To just…exist? To be present without performing?"
The earnestness in her eyes makes my guilt spike higher. Tell her, a voice urges in my head. Tell her now.
"I'm glad," I say instead, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "You deserve to exist without an audience sometimes."
"That's just it." She leans into my touch, her expression softening. "You make me feel like I'm enough, even when no one's watching. Even when there's nothing to gain."
The words are like a knife to my conscience. If she knew about the bet—about what I potentially had to gain when this all started—would she still feel that way?
"About that," I begin, heart hammering. "Lena, there's something I should?—"
She cuts me off with a kiss, soft and sweet and full of emotion that makes the words die in my throat. "Thank you," she murmurs against my lips. "For seeing me. The real me."
The moment to confess slips away as her kisses grow more insistent, her body shifting until she's straddling me on the couch. My hands find her waist automatically, guilt temporarily submerged beneath a wave of desire that never seems to diminish no matter how many times we're together.
"I thought we were watching the documentary," I murmur as her lips trail along my jaw.
"Multitasking," she replies, her smile mischievous against my skin. "Besides, we know how it ends. Circle of life, fragile ecosystems, humans are destroying everything."
"So bleak," I laugh, my hands sliding beneath her borrowed t-shirt to find warm skin.
"I prefer to focus on more immediate concerns." She grinds down slightly, making her intentions unmistakable. "Like the fact that we have this whole apartment to ourselves and no campaign photographers documenting our every move."
The reminder of our strange dual existence—the public performance and private reality—sends a surge of possessiveness through me. Here, now, she's just Lena and I'm just Max. No audience, no expectations, no carefully choreographed moments for maximum engagement.
"No photographers," I agree, pulling her closer. "Just us."
Her smile turns softer, more vulnerable. "Just us."
There's something different about tonight—a new layer of intimacy that transcends the physical. As we undress each other with unhurried movements, as we make our way from the couch to my bedroom leaving a trail of discarded clothing, there's a deliberate quality to each touch, each kiss. Not the desperate passion of our early encounters, but something deeper, more mindful.
When I lay her on my bed, when I take my time exploring her body with lips and hands, it feels like worship. She responds in kind, her touch reverent as she maps the contours of my shoulders, my chest, the sensitive spot at the base of my spine that makes me shiver.
"I love your hands," she murmurs as my fingers trace patterns along her inner thigh. "Musician's hands. I knew from the first time I saw you at the bar, the way you mixed drinks, that your hands would feel like this."
"Like what?" I ask, watching her eyes flutter closed as I touch her more intimately.
"Perfect," she breathes, arching into the contact. "Like they were made for me."
The simple declaration undoes me. I capture her mouth in a kiss that tries to convey everything I'm feeling—desire, yes, but also tenderness, gratitude, and the emotion I haven't yet named aloud though it's been growing for weeks.
When I finally enter her, when our bodies join with practiced ease that somehow still feels new and extraordinary, her eyes meet mine with such open vulnerability that it steals my breath. This isn't performance. This isn't pretense. This is as real as anything I've ever experienced.
"Stay with me," she whispers, echoing the words I spoke to her at the cabin. "I want to see you."
The request lays me bare, exposing not just my body but everything I am, everything I feel. I hold her gaze as we move together, as pleasure builds between us, as the connection deepens beyond the physical into something that touches my long-dormant soul.
When release claims her, it's with my name on her lips and tears glistening in her eyes—not from sadness but from the overwhelming intimacy of the moment. I follow soon after, unable to maintain control in the face of such complete vulnerability, such perfect trust.
Afterward, as our breathing slows and our heartbeats gradually return to normal, she curls against my side, her head fitting perfectly in the hollow of my shoulder. My fingers trace lazy patterns along her arm, neither of us speaking for long minutes.
"I never expected this," she says finally, her voice soft in the dim room. "When I walked into your bar that night with my ridiculous fake relationship proposal. I never thought..."
"That it would become real?" I finish when she trails off.
"That I would become real," she corrects gently. "With you. That I would stop performing, stop calculating, just…be."
The confession lances through me, beautiful and painful in equal measure. The guilt I've been fighting resurfaces with renewed force. I need to tell her about the bet. Now. Before this goes any further. Before I hurt her more.
"Lena," I begin, my voice rougher than intended. "There's something I need to tell you. About the beginning, when we first met?—"
"I was so guarded," she continues, apparently not registering my attempt to confess. "So convinced that everyone wanted something from me, that every interaction was transactional."
I swallow hard. "Wasn't our arrangement exactly that? Transactional?"
"On the surface." She props herself up on one elbow to look at me, her expression earnest. "But even then, there was something different about you. You saw through the performance. You made me laugh—really laugh, not my camera-ready laugh."
The knife of guilt twists deeper. "Lena?—"
"I'm trying to tell you that I'm falling in love with you, Max," she says quietly, the words hanging in the air between us. "Probably have been since that first night in the rain. And it terrifies me, but also…I've never felt more real than I do with you."
All my prepared confessions evaporate. How can I tell her now, after this declaration? How can I risk destroying the trust she's just laid bare?
"You don't have to say it back," she adds quickly, misinterpreting my silence. "I know it's complicated, with the contract and the public aspect of everything. I just…wanted you to know."
I pull her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead to hide the conflict raging in my eyes. "It's not that," I assure her. "You just…surprised me."
"Good surprised or 'oh god what have I done' surprised?" A hint of her usual humor returns, though I can feel the tension in her body.
"Good surprised," I promise, meaning it despite my inner turmoil. "The best kind."
She relaxes against me, apparently satisfied. "Like I said, no pressure. I just couldn't keep pretending it wasn't true, not when we're here like this."
The irony of her words—her refusal to pretend while I'm doing exactly that—isn't lost on me. I tighten my arms around her, as if I could somehow protect her from the hurt I may cause.
"I feel the same," I whisper into her hair, the admission easier than I expected. "I've been fighting it because of how this all started, but…I'm in love with you too, Lena. The real you."
She makes a small sound against my chest—relief, joy, I'm not sure which—and presses closer. "So where does that leave us? Fake-engaged but really in love?"
"It's very postmodern," I quip, grateful for the slight lightening of the mood.
"Very on-brand for my authentic lifestyle pivot," she agrees with a small laugh.
We lie in comfortable silence, the weight of our declarations settling around us like a blanket. Tomorrow, I promise myself with new resolve. After the Luminous Beauty event. I'll tell her everything—about the bet, about my cowardice in not confessing sooner. She deserves the whole truth, especially now.
For tonight, though, I hold her close, memorizing the feel of her in my arms, the scent of her hair, the rhythm of her breathing as she drifts toward sleep. Whatever happens after my confession, I want to remember this moment—this perfect, honest connection that grew from the most artificial of beginnings.
"Max?" she murmurs, already half-asleep.
"Hmm?"
"Play for me tomorrow?" The request is soft, vulnerable. "That melody you're working on. I want to hear it."
"Okay," I agree, surprising myself with how right it feels. "Tomorrow."
As her breathing deepens into sleep, I stare at the ceiling, cradling the woman I love while preparing to risk losing her. The melody that's been haunting me takes clearer shape in my mind—a song about pretense falling away, about finding truth in unexpected places, about the courage to be seen.
Tomorrow, I'll play it for her. And then I'll tell her everything, whatever the cost.