Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Samuel
Iwoke up freezing.
For a disorienting moment, I didn’t know where I was.
The last thing I remembered was sitting by the fire with Farley, Purrsephone wedged between us, talking about nothing and everything until my eyes started to drift shut.
He’d insisted I take the couch, piled me with blankets, and retreated to his bedroom with a soft “goodnight” that had felt like both a gift and a promise.
Now the fire had died down to embers, barely visible in the darkness, and my breath was fogging in the air.
I sat up, pulling the blankets tighter around my shoulders, and tried to get my bearings.
The storm was still raging outside—I could hear the wind howling—but inside, everything was quiet and cold.
Extremely cold. The type of cold that seeps into your bones and makes you question every life choice that led you to this moment.
The fire. I needed to fix the fire.
I stumbled off the couch, blankets wrapped around me like a cape, and made my way to the fireplace. The embers were still glowing faintly, which was good. I just needed to add wood and stoke them back to life. Easy peasy.
I grabbed a log from the stack beside the hearth and placed it on the embers.
Nothing happened.
I grabbed another log, positioned it differently.
Still nothing.
“Come on,” I muttered, reaching for the poker and trying to stir the embers to life. “Work with me here. I’m Dr. Brock Blaze. I’ve performed brain surgery, delivered triplets and defused a bomb while simultaneously confessing my love to Dr. Vivienne Hart. I can start a fire.”
The embers responded by growing dimmer.
“Okay, that’s not—” I tried a different angle with the poker. Accidentally knocked one of the logs off the pile. Watched, horrified, as a cloud of ash puffed up into my face.
I coughed. The embers gave up entirely and went dark.
“Fantastic,” I said to the dead fireplace. “This is going great.”
From somewhere in the darkness, I heard a judgmental meow.
Purrsephone was perched on the back of an armchair, her mismatched eyes gleaming in what little light came from the windows. She looked unimpressed. She also looked warm, which was deeply unfair.
“Don’t,” I told her. “Just... don’t.”
She meowed again, then hopped down and padded toward the hallway. Toward Farley’s bedroom.
“I’m not waking him up,” I said, even as I shivered violently. “He needs sleep. We both need sleep. I’ll just... add more blankets.”
I returned to the couch and piled every available blanket on top of myself. Curled into a ball. Tried to generate body heat through sheer force of will.
It wasn’t working.
The temperature in the cabin had dropped significantly since the fire went out. I felt it in my fingers and toes, in the tip of my nose, in the way my muscles were tensing against the cold. The blankets were helping, but not enough.
“This is fine,” I whispered to myself. “I’ve been cold before. I’ll survive until morning.”
My teeth started chattering.
“Samuel?”
I looked up. Farley was standing in the hallway entrance, rumpled and sleepy-eyed, his hair sticking up at improbable angles. He was wearing what appeared to be actual matching pajamas—because of course he was—and looked like he’d just rolled out of a J.Crew holiday catalog.
Even half-asleep with bedhead, he was beautiful.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“N-nothing. Just... enjoying the c-couch.”
“Are you shivering?”
“No.”
“You’re literally vibrating.”
“It’s a medical condition. Very common. Not at all related to the temperature.”
Farley looked at the fireplace. Then back at me. Then at the fireplace again. “Did you try to restart the fire?”
“I may have... made it worse.”
“How do you make a fire worse?”
“I have a gift.”
He crossed the room, examined the dead embers, and sighed. “This is going to take at least twenty minutes to restart properly. You’re going to freeze before then.”
“I’ll be f-fine.”
“You’re turning blue.”
“That’s a trick of the light.”
“Samuel.” Farley’s voice had taken on that tone—the one that suggested he was about three seconds away from making a list of all the ways I was being ridiculous. “Come to bed.”
My brain short-circuited.
“I—what?”
“The bedroom has a space heater. Battery-powered. It’s warm in there.” He rubbed his face, clearly still half-asleep. “I’m not proposing anything scandalous. I’m proposing you not die of hypothermia on my couch.”
“I can just... add more blankets.”
“You’re already under every blanket I own.”
“I could wear more clothes.”
“You’re already wearing my clothes. Which, by the way, you look ridiculous in.”
“Farley—”
“It’s not getting in my bed.” He held up his hands. “It’s survival. Basic, practical, body-heat-sharing survival. I promise to stay on my side. There will be a pillow barrier if you want.”
A pillow barrier. Farley Davenport was offering to build a pillow barrier so I could share his bed platonically. This was either the most considerate thing anyone had ever done for me or the most frustrating. Possibly both.
“I don’t need a pillow barrier,” I said.
“Then come to bed.” He turned and walked back toward the hallway. “Before you actually freeze to death and I have to explain to Gladys why there’s a frozen soap opera star on my couch.”
I followed him.
What else was I supposed to do?
Farley’s bedroom was, predictably, warm.
A small space heater hummed quietly in the corner, putting out enough heat to make the room feel almost cozy. The bed was a queen—not huge, but not small—and the covers were already pulled back on one side.
I stood in the doorway, suddenly feeling very aware of what I was about to do.
“It’s just a bed,” Farley said, climbing back under the covers. “It’s not going to bite.”
“I know it’s not going to bite.”
“Then why are you hovering like a vampire waiting for an invitation?”
“I don’t hover.”
“You’re absolutely hovering. Get in bed, Samuel.”
I got in.
The sheets were soft—higher thread count than I’d expected from a rental cabin—and still warm from where Farley had been sleeping. I slid under the covers, staying carefully on my designated side, and stared up at the ceiling.
“This is weird,” I said.
“It’s only weird if you make it weird.”
“You kissed me earlier today. Well, yesterday, technically. I kissed you. There was mutual kissing. And now we’re lying next to each other in the dark.”
“Factually accurate.”
“And you don’t find that weird?”
Farley was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer. “I find it... a lot of things. Weird isn’t at the top of the list.”
“What’s at the top of the list?”
Another pause. “Terrifying. In a good way.”
I turned my head to look at him. In the dim glow from the space heater, I could just make out his profile—the straight line of his nose, the soft curve of his lips, the way his hair was still sticking up from sleep.
“Good terrifying?” I asked.
“Like the first drop on a roller coaster. You know it’s going to be fine, but your stomach doesn’t.”
I smiled. “I’ve never been good at roller coasters.”
“Neither have I. I once threw up on a date at Six Flags.”
“You did not.”
“I absolutely did. Right after the Superman coaster. He never called me again.”
I laughed, and the tension in my body started to uncoil. “Okay, that makes me feel better about all the embarrassing things I’ve done in front of you.”
“The mustache was worse than vomit?”
“The mustache was a creative choice.”
“The mustache was a cry for help.”
“And yet you still kissed me. Well, you kissed me back. After the mustache incident.”
“I have poor judgment,” Farley said, but I heard the smile in his voice.
We lay there in comfortable silence. The storm continued to howl outside, but inside, the space heater hummed, and the bed was warm, and Farley was right there, close enough I could hear him breathing.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“You can ask. I reserve the right not to answer.”
“Fair.” I stared at the ceiling, gathering my thoughts. “What do you actually want? Not what you think you should want, or what’s practical, or what makes sense. What do you want?”
The silence stretched so long I thought he might not answer.
Then: “I want to stop being afraid.”
I turned to look at him again. He was still staring at the ceiling, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
“I want to stop second-guessing every feeling I have,” he continued.
“I want to trust my judgment again. And I want to wake up in the morning and not spend the first ten minutes cataloging all the ways I failed the day before.” He let out a breath.
“I want to read books that make me feel something, find authors who write like their words could change the world, and help them share those words with people who need them.”
“That sounds like more than just editing.”
“It used to be. Before I had to fight for every acquisition that wasn’t a guaranteed bestseller.” His voice had gone bitter. “I used to love my job. Now I just... survive it.”
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I know exactly what that feels like.”
He turned his head, finally looking at me. “Your turn.”
“My turn, what?”
“What do you want? Not what Sabrina wants, not what the network wants. What does Samuel Bennett actually want?”
I’d been asking myself that question for months. Years, maybe. And lying in a dark room with Farley, a storm raging outside and the space heater humming, I finally had an answer.
“I want to matter,” I said. “Not my face or my character or my brand. Me. I want to do work that means something, that challenges me, that makes me feel like I’m using all the parts of my brain instead of just the ones that remember dialogue.
” I swallowed hard. “And I want someone to see me. Really see me. Not Dr. Brock Blaze, not the tabloid version of Samuel Bennett. Just... me.”
Farley reached across the space between us and found my hand in the darkness.
“I see you,” he said simply.
My heart clenched. “Farley—”
“I know. Friends. Time. I’m not trying to start anything.” His thumb traced circles on my palm. “Sam, I’m just telling you the truth. I see you, Samuel, I promise.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I just held his hand, and he held mine, and we lay there in the dark while the storm raged on.
At some point, I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, there was a weight on my chest.
I opened my eyes to find Purrsephone settling herself directly between us, her fluffy body wedged into the narrow space with the determination of a cat who had decided this was her bed now.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled.
She ignored me, turning in three tight circles before curling into a ball.
“Purrsephone,” Farley murmured sleepily from beside me. “She’s apparently decided you’re part of the arrangement now.”
“I’m flattered.”
“She kicks.”
“What?”
As if on cue, Purrsephone stretched out her back legs and pushed against my ribs, somehow taking up twice as much space as her body should physically allow.
“Ow,” I said.
“Told you.”
I tried to shift her gently to one side. She responded by stretching even longer, somehow now touching both me and Farley while maintaining her position in the exact center of the bed.
“This can’t be comfortable for her,” I said.
“She’s a cat. She’s comfortable anywhere she decides to be. It’s us who have to adapt.”
Purrsephone purred smugly, as if confirming this assessment.
I tried to roll onto my side to give her more room. Her paw immediately shot out and caught me on the chin.
“Did she just slap me?”
“She’s correcting your position. You’re not supposed to move without permission.”
“She’s a ten-pound cat.”
“She’s a ten-pound cat with strong opinions.” Farley sounded amused.
I lay very still, trying not to disturb her majesty, and stared at the ceiling. “I think she’s doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?”
“Chaperoning. Making sure we keep our distance.” I turned my head to look at Farley, who was watching me with sleepy amusement. “She’s literally positioned herself as a barrier between us.”
“She’s a matchmaker, not a chastity guardian.”
“Are you sure? Because this feels very intentional.”
Purrsephone chose that moment to stretch again, her front paws pressing against Farley’s chest while her back paws dug into my stomach. She now occupied approximately seventy percent of the available bed space.
“Okay,” Farley admitted. “That seems intentional.”
“It’s a very sophisticated strategy for a cat.” I reached out and stroked her. “She’s been running a two-cabin matchmaking operation since we got here.”
Farley laughed—a soft, sleepy sound that did things to my heart. “Fine. She’s a mastermind. We are merely pawns in her romantic scheming.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
Purrsephone’s purr intensified, as if she was pleased by our acknowledgment of her genius.
We lay there, the three of us, in Farley’s bed in the middle of a blizzard. It should have been uncomfortable. But somehow, with Purrsephone’s warm weight between us and Farley’s breathing evening out into sleep beside me, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
When I woke again, gray light was filtering through the curtains.
The storm had quieted—I could tell by the absence of howling wind—and the space heater was still humming faithfully in the corner. I was warm, and there was a weight pressed against my back that was decidedly not cat-shaped.
I went very, very still.
At some point during the night, Purrsephone had apparently decided her chaperoning duties were complete, because she was now curled up on the pillow above our heads, her fluffy tail draped over Farley’s hair like a bizarre feline crown.
And Farley was pressed against my back, one arm draped over my waist, his face tucked against the nape of my neck. I could feel his breath, slow and even, warm against my skin. His body was curved around mine like we’d been doing this for years instead of one night.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Because if I moved, this would end. He’d wake up and realize what he was doing and pull away, embarrassed and apologetic, and we’d go back to being friends who were trying very hard not to want more.
But right now, on this quiet morning after the storm, I could pretend this was real. That Farley Davenport was holding me because he wanted to, because being close to me was as natural and necessary as breathing.
Right now, I could pretend we’d already figured out all the complicated stuff and arrived at the part where we just belonged to each other.
I’m in so much trouble.