Chapter Eleven
First Cuddle
Crew
Emmie’s been in the kitchen for an hour, doing whatever she does with spices and sauces that I can’t pronounce.
The whole apartment smells like garlic, lemon, and something herby that’s probably rosemary.
Under normal circumstances, I’d already be hovering near the stove, waiting for her to shove a wooden spoon in my face and demand that I try something.
Tonight, I’m on the couch, staring at my laptop without actually seeing it.
“Dinner’s ready,” she calls.
I don’t move.
She appears in my peripheral vision, dish towel over her shoulder, that little crease between her eyebrows indicating she’s worried. “Hey. You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You’ve been staring at that screen for forty minutes. You haven’t scrolled once.”
I close the laptop. “I’m not hungry.” I release a long, slow breath.
I don’t know why I ever thought this would work.
My idea of a good time is lifting heavy things for ninety minutes to quiet my brain.
Now Emmie is here with her scented candles and her cheerful energy and her constant cooking and chattering and cuddling requests and I just …
can’t. The very idea of it fills me with panic.
“Crew.” She says my name like it’s an argument. “You’re not surviving on those protein drinks.”
“I said I’m not—”
“Nope.” She grabs my laptop and sets it on the coffee table, then takes my hand and pulls. She’s surprisingly strong for someone her size. “Kitchen. Now. You’re eating.”
I could resist. I’m twice her weight and trained in hand-to-hand combat. But she’s looking at me with those hazel eyes, stubborn yet soft at the same time, and I find myself standing, following her to the kitchen, and sitting down at the table like a trained dog.
She plates the chicken—perfectly golden, sitting on a bed of roasted vegetables—and sets it in front of me. Then she sits across from me, chin in her hand, watching.
“Eat.”
I pick up my fork, slice a piece of chicken and take a bite.
It’s good. Really good. The lemon and butter blend with something that melts on my tongue. My stomach reminds me that I am, in fact, starving.
“See?” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’ve said maybe ten words since you got home. You didn’t even complain when I left my mug on the counter.” She tilts her head. “Something’s wrong.”
Interesting that she knows me so well after such a short time…She’d make a great federal agent.
I chew slowly, buying time. The truth is sitting in my chest like a stone, and I don’t know how to get it out. I’m not good at this—at talking, at explaining the mess inside my head.
“The gala is in a few days,” I finally say.
“I know.”
“I told you we’d practice, uh, stuff every day until Saturday.” I set down my fork. “And I haven’t. I’ve been avoiding it.”
“Okay.” She says it carefully, like she’s not sure where this is going. “We can start tonight. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is, though.” I push back from the table, needing to move.
“I told Daniels I had a girlfriend. I told him we were serious. And now I have to walk into a room full of people who know me, who’ve worked with me for years, and convince them I’m in a relationship.
” I scrub a hand over my face. “And I don’t know how to do this. ”
“Do what? We’re just going to a party together. We’ll hold hands, smile, make small talk—”
“No. This.” I gesture between us. “The boyfriend thing. I don’t know how to do it.” I flinch when she touches me, and the idea of pretending with her gives me anxiety. I’ll probably break out in hives at the gala. Fuck.
She’s quiet for a moment, watching me pace. “You’re panicking.”
“I’m being realistic.” I stop by the window, staring out at nothing. “Maybe I should just accept the promotion and go to Alaska. There’s nothing holding me here anyway.”
When I turn around, Emmie’s smile has vanished. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah, but what does it matter if I can’t pull this off?” I shake my head. “I have three days to learn how to be someone’s boyfriend, and I can’t even—”
“What makes you think you’re so bad at boyfriend things?” She stands and moves toward me. “You’ve never even tried.”
I let out a harsh laugh. “That’s the point. If you asked me to, I could take you to bed and have you screaming my name in ten minutes. But holding your hand? Pretending to be in love?” I meet her eyes, and something in my chest cracks. “Sorry. That’s not me.”
She doesn’t flinch or look away. “Then let me show you,” she says.
I go still. “What?”
“Let me show you.” She takes a step closer. “How to do the boyfriend stuff. We’ll practice.”
“Emmie—”
“I’m serious. I’ve had boyfriends. I can show you the things you’re supposed to do.” She reaches out, her fingers wrapping around mine. I tense before I can stop it—but she doesn’t let go. Warm. Gentle. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“We’re going to cuddle.”
I stare at her, slight panic rising inside me. “Now?”
“I was planning to build up to it, but I think we both need this.” She tugs my hand, pulling me toward the hallway. “Trust me.”
I don’t trust anyone. That’s the problem. But I’m following her anyway, past the kitchen, past my bedroom door, to the room at the end of the hall.
Her room.
I’ve seen it from the doorway—the fairy lights, the explosion of throw pillows, the quilt that looks like it’s been loved for decades. But I’ve never been inside. It feels like crossing a line I can’t uncross.
She pulls me through anyway.
“Okay.” She surveys the bed, then starts rearranging pillows. “Shoes off. Lie down.”
“Emmie—”
“Shoes. Off.”
I toe off my shoes and stand there like an idiot while she fluffs pillows, adjusts blankets, and creates what looks like a nest in the middle of her bed. A nest. For us. To lie in. Together.
This is fine. I’m fine. I’ve cleared buildings with active shooters inside. I can handle a bed with too many throw pillows.
“Okay. Lie down. On your back.”
I lower myself onto the mattress, stiff as a board. The pillows are soft. The quilt smells like her—vanilla and something floral. My heart is pounding like I’m about to breach a door, not lie on a bed surrounded by throw pillows with embroidered sayings.
But breaching doors, I’m trained for. Lying on a bed while a beautiful woman arranges herself next to me? Not in any manual I’ve ever read.
Emmie climbs up next to me. “Scoot over. Give me room.”
I scoot. She settles against my side, and then—
“Put your arm around me.”
I lift my arm. The movement feels jerky, unpracticed. Because it is. When’s the last time I held someone like this? Have I ever?
She tucks herself underneath it, her head finding the curve of my shoulder like it was made to fit there. Like this is easy. Like people do this all the time.
Maybe they do. Maybe this is normal for everyone else.
“Hand here.” She guides my palm to rest on her hip. Her skin is warm through the thin fabric of her leggings, and my brain short-circuits for a second. Just—complete loss of signal, try again later.
“And relax your shoulders. You’re tense.”
“I’m always tense.”
“I know. That’s why we’re doing this.” She shifts to get comfortable, and her hair brushes my chin. It’s soft and smells like coconut. I want to bury my face in it.
I don’t. Obviously.
But the wanting—that’s new. Or not new, exactly. Just usually easier to ignore. Usually not pressed against my side, warm and real and here, treating me like I’m someone worth being gentle with.
I don’t know what to do with that.
“Now, this is cuddling. See? Not so scary.”
I don’t know what to do with my other hand. I’m unsure where to look. I’m hyperaware of everywhere we’re touching—her head on my chest, her palm flat against my stomach, her leg tangled with mine.
“You’re still tense,” she murmurs.
“Give me a minute.”
She chuckles, soft and warm, and I feel it vibrate through me, through my ribs, through my sternum, straight into whatever’s left of my composure.
I should say something. Make a joke. Deflect. Ease this tension. But my throat is tight and my eyes are burning and if I open my mouth right now I honestly don’t know what will come out.
“Take your time,” she whispers. “We’ve got all night.”
Not all night. We agreed on twenty minutes.
“Is this okay?” she asks. “The position?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it feel good?”
I consider the question. Her weight against me is grounding, somehow. Like an anchor. Like something I didn’t know I was missing.
“Yeah,” I admit. “It does.”
She makes a small sound of contentment, and we lie there in silence for a while. The fairy lights cast a warm glow over everything. Her breathing is slow and even against my chest. I focus on matching it, letting my lungs fill and empty in rhythm with hers.
“Tell me something,” she says eventually. “About when you were a kid.”
The question catches me off guard. “Like what?”
“Anything. A memory.” She tilts her head to look up at me. “I want to know you.”
No one’s ever said that to me before. I want to know you. Like I’m something worth discovering, not a puzzle to be solved or a problem to be managed.
“There was this foster home,” I hear myself say. “Number six. I was maybe eleven. They had a dog—this fluffy apricot-colored thing named Pickles.”
“Pickles,” she repeats, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
“He was ancient. Barely moved. But every night, he’d climb onto my bed and sleep at my feet.” I stare at the ceiling, remembering. “I wasn’t supposed to let him. The foster parents had rules about animals in bedrooms. But Pickles didn’t care about rules, and I wasn’t going to rat him out.”
“Did you get in trouble?”
“Once. They found him there in the morning and said I was breaking their trust.” My jaw tightens. “I got moved two weeks later.”
Emmie’s quiet. Her hand finds mine, fingers intertwining.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That’s awful.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t make it less awful.” She squeezes my hand. “You deserved better.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing. I just hold her hand and let her warmth seep into me.
“Your turn,” I manage after a minute. “Tell me something.”
“Okay, um.” She thinks. “When I was eight, I decided I was going to run away and join the circus.”
“The circus.”
“I was very serious about it. I packed a bag—snacks, my stuffed elephant, and one sock. I don’t know why just one sock, but apparently that was essential.”
I feel my mouth twitch. “How far did you get?”
“The end of the driveway. Then my mom came out with cookies and asked if the circus could wait until after lunch.” She laughs. “I said yes. And then I forgot about the whole thing because the cookies were really good.”
“You were bribed with baked goods.”
“A lifelong weakness.” She props her chin on my chest to look at me. “My mom always knew how to handle me, even when I was being dramatic.”
“Were you dramatic often?”
“I was eight. Everything was dramatic.” Her eyes crinkle. “One time, I cried for an hour because Gavin ate the last popsicle. I wrote a formal complaint letter and slid it under my parents’ door.”
“A formal complaint letter? At eight?”
“I was very advanced.” She grins. “It said, ‘Dear Mom and Dad, Gavin is the worst brother ever. Please send him back. Love, Emmie. P.S. We need more popsicles.’”
Something rumbles in my chest. It takes me a second to realize I’m laughing—actually laughing, not the half-smirk I usually manage, but real laughter that shakes my ribs and makes my eyes crinkle.
Emmie’s staring at me, lips parted.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just.” She shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “You should do that more often.”
“Do what?”
“Laugh.” She settles back against my chest, ear pressed to my heartbeat. “It looks good on you.”
We lie there as the minutes stretch. She places her head back on my shoulder and tells me about the time she set the kitchen on fire trying to make crème br?lée at fifteen, about her dad teaching her to ride a bike and refusing to let go even when she begged him to, and about Sunday dinners at the Marshall house—loud, chaotic, and full of love.
I don’t have stories like that. My childhood is a patchwork of temporary rooms, forgotten faces, and learning not to get attached.
But I tell her anyway.
About the group home where I taught myself to read because no one else bothered, about the foster father who let me help him fix cars in the garage—the only adult who ever treated me like I was capable of something, and about the military, which gave me structure, purpose, and a whole new set of nightmares.
She listens to all of it, doesn’t try to fix it or minimize it, just holds my hand and lets me talk.
“Crew?” she says eventually, her voice sleepy.
“Yeah?”
“This is what boyfriends do, you know.” She yawns against my chest. “They show up. They share things. They let someone in.”
I think about that, about all the walls I’ve built, about how easy it would be to keep her out, to go back to my routines, my control, and my perfectly organized life.
“I’m not very good at letting people in,” I admit.
“You’re doing pretty well right now.”
Am I?
I look down at her—this woman who crashed into my life with cookies and chaos and refused to be scared off by my seventeen-page contract. She’s half-asleep on my chest, fingers splayed across my ribs, completely at ease in a way I’ve never felt with anyone before.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe this is what it feels like to let someone in. And maybe—just maybe—that doesn’t have to be terrifying.
“Emmie?”
“Mm?”
“Thank you.”
She smiles without opening her eyes. “For what?”
For the cuddling. For the stories. For not running away when I showed her who I really am.
“For showing me,” I say.
She squeezes my hand.
And for the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t want to be anywhere else.