Chapter 18 Borrowed Time （Kieran）
BORROWED TIME (KIERAN)
Steam thickens as the night wears on. Someone splashes. Someone yawns. One by one, people peel off—Erin first, then Eden and Nate, then Jessica dragging Finn with her.
Dmitri hauls himself out. “Sleep.”
“We’re heading out tomorrow evening,” Liam adds, grabbing towels. “Take your time. Place is yours through Monday.”
Sophie pauses at the door. “You two coming?”
“In a minute,” I say.
They disappear inside, and suddenly it’s just Wren and me. Steam rising. Stars overhead. Silence so heavy I can hear my pulse.
She leans back against the edge, eyes half lidded. The curve of her neck catches the light, pale and exposed, and my brain supplies a hundred ways my mouth could follow it. Every breath feels like restraint.
“This was nice,” she says softly. “Your brother’s crew. They’re fun.”
“Yeah.” My voice is rough. “They are.”
“Sophie’s studying to be a doctor?”
“Second-year med.” I glance at her. “She’s brilliant.”
“I can tell.” She turns her head, studying me now. “They love you. Your brother and sister. Their friends.”
“I know.”
She doesn’t look convinced. “You act like you’re always proving something.”
That lands. Clean. Accurate.
“That obvious?”
“To me.” She holds my gaze. “You’re enough, Kieran.”
Something tight loosens in my chest. Something dangerous.
“I don’t know about that.”
“Well, I do.” She says it like it’s settled. “You’re smart. Talented. Kind when you think no one’s watching.”
Heat crawls up my spine. I want to kiss her just to shut her up. Or maybe because she’s looking at me like that—unwavering, too close.
Her shoulder brushes mine under the water. Then her calf. Light. Accidental. Not accidental at all.
The space between us shrinks without either of us moving.
She sighs, sleepy. “I should probably get out before I turn into a prune.”
But she doesn’t.
Her fingers trail through the water instead. Her knee drifts closer. She’s watching the surface like it might give her instructions.
My hand flexes on the edge of the tub.
I could touch her. Pull her in. Find out what she sounds like when she wants.
Every instinct I have says yes.
Then—just for a second—I see her from earlier. Pink-cheeked. Honest. Saying she’s never been on a date.
That’s the only thing that stops me.
“Probably wise,” I manage, because if I don’t speak, I’m going to act.
She nods and finally stands, water sliding off her skin. My brain shorts out completely. I tilt my head back and study the stars like they’re a lifeline while she grabs her towel.
“You coming?” she asks, voice a little rough.
“In a minute,” I barely manage to rasp. “Need to cool down.”
She smiles, soft. Heads for the door. Then pauses.
“Kieran?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For inviting me. For…this.”
“Anytime, Rules.”
She disappears inside.
I sink deeper into the water, letting the heat burn, pulse still racing.
I’m completely fucked.
By the time I finally drag myself inside, the cabin is quiet. Lights are off except for the glow from the dying fire. Everyone’s gone to bed.
After a quick shower, I crash on the couch and stare at the ceiling. The cushion dips wrong. No position feels comfortable. Every time I close my eyes, she’s there: dark eyes, quiet smile, bare skin, a calm voice saying she’s never been on a date.
It shouldn’t hit this hard. But it does.
I’ve kissed girls, dated a few, slept with more than I should’ve. None of them ever made me feel this way: half strung, half sane, completely wrecked by the idea of being her first anything.
A soft creak from upstairs. Then light footsteps on wood.
She appears at the edge of the room, wrapped in a hoodie that swallows her whole, dark hair loose and cascading over her shoulders. She stops when she sees me half propped on the couch.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Too warm. And your friends snore.”
“Liam’s the worst.”
A corner of her mouth lifts. She crosses to the kitchen and opens the fridge. Light spills across the floor, tracing her bare legs and the curve of her neck.
I look. I don’t even pretend not to.
She comes back with a bottle of water and perches on the arm of the couch—close enough that I can feel her heat but not touching. She takes a slow sip.
“You’re awake too,” she says.
“Yeah.” I drag a hand through my hair. “Head won’t shut off.”
“Thinking about the project?”
“Something like that.”
She sets the bottle down, fingers lingering on the glass. “What’s really wrong?”
Everything.
The bet. Isabelle. The lie humming between us. The fact that you’re standing here, trusting me with this quiet version of yourself.
The words stack up behind my teeth. I should tell her. I should stop this now.
But all I can see is her leaving.
So I don’t.
“You said you’ve never been on a date,” I say instead, my voice rougher than it should be. “That won’t leave me alone.”
Her brows lift slightly. “You make it sound tragic.”
“It kind of is.” Firelight flickers gold across her skin. “You’re beautiful. I can’t imagine no one’s noticed. Theo is a terrible fool, if you ask me.”
“You think I’m beautiful?” Her voice wavers on the last word.
Instead of answering, I sit up fully. The blanket slides into my lap.
“If I ever took you out—if you let me—it wouldn’t be anything flashy,” I say.
“Just a quiet dinner. Real food. Real conversation.” I glance at her hands folded in the sleeves of her hoodie.
“Then maybe a walk somewhere dark enough to see the stars.”
She doesn’t interrupt.
“I’d want to hear you,” I continue. “All of you. Your synesthesia. Your parents. What makes you light up when you think no one’s watching.” My voice lowers. “And your favorite piece of music. The one you always come back to.”
Her breath catches, small and fragile. “‘Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.” Debussy.” She swallows. “It opens with a flute solo. My mother played it constantly when I was growing up.”
Recognition twists in my chest.
“Erin practiced that piece from the time she was sixteen,” I say quietly. “I heard it through her bedroom door so often I could hum the opening bars in my sleep.”
Wren stills. “Erin’s a musician?”
“Cellist,” I say.
“That’s what my mother was like.” Her voice thins. “Hours of the same bar until it was perfect.”
“Musicians,” I murmur. “They are relentless.”
“They are.”
A beat.
“She was.”
The past tense lands wrong. Too sharp for the quiet room.
The fire pops, settling into embers. Outside, wind brushes the cabin walls. Inside, everything feels suddenly fragile.
“Wren—” I start, then stop. Try again. “There’s something I need to tell you. You deserve to know before—”
“Before what?” Her eyes search mine, open and unguarded.
Before I touch you.
Before I let this go any further.
The truth crowds my throat.
“About why I—” My voice stalls. Every word piles up behind my teeth. I can’t force it out. Not when she’s looking at me like this. “About us,” I manage. “About how this started.”
“The fake dating?” She lets out a soft, self-conscious laugh. “It was stupid anyway. We don’t have to keep it up. It’s not really working. And I…” She hesitates, color rising along her throat. “I don’t think I’m interested in Theo anymore.”
My heart stumbles hard.
The thought hits fast and reckless: Is that because of me?
I don’t let myself finish it. Don’t let it turn into hope or entitlement or the kind of assumption that ruins everything.
But she’s sitting there with that shy flush, knees drawn to her chest, fingers worrying the hem of her hoodie like she’s bracing for something she wants and doesn’t quite trust.
I can’t pretend I don’t feel the pull. The way the air between us tightens, waiting to see what I’ll do.
I lean forward before I mean to. Just enough to feel the space between us thin, charged, magnetic. My body already knows where this is going; my head is the only thing lagging behind.
Tell her.
Tell her now.
The warning flickers and then gets drowned out by the way her breath catches when I move closer.
My hand lifts. Slow. Careful. I give her every chance to stop me.
My fingers brush the cotton at her waist.
She leans in that fraction of an inch that tells me everything.
My restraint snaps.
“Wren,” I breathe. “C’mere.”
Her gaze catches mine and holds. The air thickens, charged and close. Every muscle in me pulls toward her.
Slowly, she slides down from the arm of the couch and settles beside me. Our knees touch, as if the contact had its own pulse. We both stare at the point where we meet, neither of us moving.
“Closer, baby,” I murmur, my voice gravel.
The endearment slips out before I can stop it. For a heartbeat, I brace for her to laugh, to call me arrogant, to remind me we’re nothing to each other.
Instead, “Wait…what? Why?”
I raise an eyebrow, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Just come.”
Slowly, I reach for her waist. She could push me away, leave, and I’d deserve it. But she doesn’t. My hands find the curve of her hips, guiding her onto my thigh until she’s sitting across me, her legs draped over mine.
Her weight settles against me—warm, tentative, impossibly right. For a second, neither of us breathes. I lower my head to her neck, feeling the beat beneath her skin, and inhale the faint scent of soap and lavender.
“New lotion?” I murmur against her throat, my hand gliding along the inside seam of her thigh.
She nods.
Her pulse flutters beneath my mouth. She swallows and shifts subtly, as if she can’t help drawing her knees closer.
“Is me touching you here okay?”
Another nod.
“I need words, Rules.”
“Yes.” Barely there. “It’s…good.”
“I can feel that it’s good,” I say, a breath of a laugh. My palm climbs a few inches higher, slow and deliberate. “If you want me to stop, say so, and I stop.”
“Oh…okay. But…don’t stop.”
I rest my forehead against her temple and breathe, reining myself in. Every part of me wants to pull her fully onto me, to drag that hoodie up, to keep kissing until thought dissolves.
But this girl hasn’t dated. No one has touched her this way.
“Wren.” Her name comes out rough. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while.”
She stills in my arms. “You have?”
“Yeah.” I ease back enough to see her eyes. “Tell me you want me to.” Her eyes search mine—wide, uncertain, trusting in a way that aches in my chest.
“I’ve never—” she starts, then swallows.
“I guessed as much.” My thumb traces the line of her jaw. “I want to kiss you, sweetheart.”
I press my mouth to hers carefully, asking rather than taking. Her lips are soft and tentative. I slow the rhythm, let her find me, guide her with gentle pressure and patience.
She answers with a quiet sound at the back of her throat, fingers sliding to my jaw.
I deepen the kiss by degrees—unhurried, matching her pace, letting her set the distance and then following.
Coaxing, not pushing. Heat climbs rung by rung.
When I tug lightly at her hair, she breathes my name and leans in. My restraint thins.
Her first kiss.
With me.
Guilt surges even as I hold her, even as she is warm and open in my arms, even as this feels more real than anything has in years.
She drags her nails through my hair and pulls me closer—closer to her, closer to the edge I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist—and I go willingly.
The kiss turns urgent. I part her lips with my tongue and taste her, a low sound breaking loose from my chest. She answers with a breathy whimper and shifts against me, the pressure sparking through every muscle I’m trying to control.
I tear my mouth from hers, dragging air into my lungs. She stays where she is—eyes wide, lips parted—firelight throwing small gold flickers across her face.
“That was—” she whispers.
“Yeah.” My voice is in shreds. “It was. Perfect.”
We don’t move right away. The fire ticks behind us. Her breath evens out against my chest.
“There was something you said earlier,” I murmur.
She tilts her head. “Earlier?”
“At dinner.” I hesitate, then go on. “About your mom. Transylvania.”
Her shoulders soften, not guarded, not tense. Just…quiet.
“I don’t usually bring it up,” she says.
“I noticed.” I swallow. “I wasn’t prying. I just…”
I trail off, because ‘I want to know you’ feels like too much to say out loud.
She studies my face for a moment. “Romania was home,” she says finally. “Until it wasn’t anymore.”
I nod, even though I don’t really understand. Not the way she does.
“I’d like to hear it sometime,” I say. “If you ever want to tell me.”
Her mouth curves into a small, surprised smile. “Another time,” she says softly. “Not tonight.”
“Okay.”
We stay like that—quiet, breathing the same inches of air—until she eases off my lap. Her palm rests over my sternum for a heartbeat, the warmth sinking through cotton.
“Are you sure about the couch?” she asks, voice low. “The bed’s big enough for both of us.”
I let my answer carry the warning and the want. “Only if you’re not planning to sleep.”
Color rises high on her cheeks. The corner of her mouth tips. “Goodnight, Starboy.”
“Night, Rules.”
She climbs the stairs.
I lean back and stare at the ceiling, a stupid grin still tugging at my mouth while the fire pops and settles. For the first time all weekend, my head is quiet.
It doesn’t last.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table.
I already know who it is.
ISABELLE
Time’s running out. Hope you’re making progress. I’m getting impatient.
My jaw locks. Heat flares—panic tangled with anger.
What am I doing, letting her exist in this space at all?
I type.
KIERAN
Fuck off. Get a life
My thumb hovers.
If she pushes this, if she dumps screenshots, names, context into the wrong hands, it’s over.
Not messy. Not dramatic. Just done.
The Defenders’ GM hears.
The handshake disappears.
Liam’s word doesn’t mean shit anymore.
I’m not signed. I’m not protected. I’m a risk no one needs.
The story writes itself: idiot kid, ego too big, judgment too small. Targeted the quiet girl for a laugh. Thought he was untouchable.
I picture the locker room going quiet.
The looks changing.
The door closing.
And Wren finding out like that. Public. Humiliating. Reduced to a cautionary tale she never agreed to be part of.
My stomach turns.
I don’t have a clean way out of this. I don’t have leverage. I don’t have a version of the truth that doesn’t cost me something I can’t afford to lose.
The phone vibrates again.
MIT Admissions— Your Decision Is Available in the Portal
I stare at the screen.
Don’t open it.
Don’t touch it.
Whatever’s in there feels…distant. Hypothetical. Like a life that belongs to someone else.
Right now, everything real is upstairs.
Everything I stand to lose is right here.
I delete the message draft. Lock the screen. Let the room go dark.
Tomorrow, I tell myself.
Not because I know how.
Not because I’m ready.
Just because I can’t face it tonight.