Chapter Twenty-Two
Vanessa
Control
Zoe Wees
The next few weeks feel too good to be real. That should probably concern me more than it does. Most nights, Hayden is waiting outside the museum by the time I leave work.
Sometimes leaning against his car in a dark wool coat with his hands shoved into his pockets. Sometimes standing beneath the glow of the streetlights holding coffee for me because the temperature in Chicago has dropped sharply enough that winter feels close now.
Always making my stomach feel like one thousand butterflies have taken flight.
The first time it happened, I thought maybe it was a coincidence. By the tenth, I realized Hayden had quietly built me into the rhythm of his life. And somehow, without noticing when it happened, I’d done the same thing.
My apartment barely feels like mine anymore. His records have started appearing beside my turntable because he believes my music collection lacks “structure.” Expensive whiskey now dominates an entire corner on my kitchen counter.
Half his clothes lie draped over the chair in my bedroom because even though Hayden somehow manages to remove articles of clothing in every room he enters, he still makes sure they all land in one place.
Even Vinny has betrayed me. The cat waits for Hayden at the door every night like an emotionally compromised little traitor.
“I rescued you,” I mutter one evening while Vinny sprawls shamelessly across Hayden’s lap instead of mine.
Hayden doesn’t even glance up from the newspaper he’s reading on my couch. “Animals recognize quality.”
“You’re reading a physical newspaper in my apartment.”
“It’s called journalism.”
“It’s called being eighty-seven.”
One corner of his mouth lifts without him looking away from the page. “You still like the glasses.”
My entire face heats because he isn’t wrong. The bastard laughs under his breath. And honestly? That might be my favorite thing about these weeks. Not the sex. Not the intensity. Not even the way Hayden still manages to unravel me with a single look.
It’s this. The quiet moments. Him cooking in my kitchen at midnight because we came home and couldn’t keep our hands off each other instead of eating dinner.
My head in his lap while he works through bass lines on his laptop.
The way he reaches for me without thought in his sleep now.
The way he touches me without thinking; gentle and careful.
Like he’s still aware of the line between loving me and overwhelming me.
He’s trying. I see it in a hundred tiny moments every day. And maybe that’s why this feels so dangerous. Because I’m falling for him all over again. Not the memory of him. Not the version I carried around for ten years.
This Hayden is so much better. He’s quieter, softer, but still carries an edge that I know borders on aggressive if a situation requires it.
He’s the man who buys me sunflowers just because he passed a flower stand and thought of me.
The man who brings Vinny expensive cat treats and pretends he didn’t go out of his way to stop to buy them.
The man who still likes control but no longer grips it hard enough to suffocate everything around him.
It would be easier if things were bad. Easier if he’d already slipped back into old patterns.
Easier if I could point to something concrete and say: there, that’s the problem.
Instead, we’ve somehow created this strange little magic bubble where everything feels warm and safe and suspended outside reality.
And I love it enough to be terrified of it. Because bubbles pop eventually. Especially beautiful ones.
By the third week of November, Chicago is all sharp wind and bare trees. Hayden spends more nights at my apartment than his own now because of Vinny, though he still claims the cat only likes him because he’s “disciplined.”
“Disciplined people don’t feed animals smoked salmon.”
“He has sophisticated taste.”
“He licks his own ass, Hayden.”
“That’s unrelated.”
I laugh hard enough that I almost spit out my wine, and Hayden looks up from the stove with that soft expression he gets sometimes now when he catches me genuinely happy.
Like the sound matters to him. Like I matter to him.
God. That thought alone feels dangerous.
Especially because there’s one thing we still haven’t touched.
Thanksgiving.
The realization creeps in over the next several days before it finally settles hard enough to become impossible to ignore. We haven’t talked about it. Not really. And the closer it gets, the more I start noticing what else we haven’t done.
I still haven’t met his friends. Not properly.
I know Luc. Technically speaking. We’ve crossed paths a few times over the years because of the museum and charity events and the general orbit of Chicago society.
But never as Hayden’s girlfriend. The word catches me off guard every time it pops into my own head.
Because what exactly are we? The answer feels obvious most nights. Less obvious during the daylight hours.
Hayden mentions the band a lot now. Stories about studio sessions.
Mikey breaking through a set of drumheads when he tried to stand up on them.
Dean getting banned from ordering takeout at one specific restaurant after an argument about truffle oil.
But Luc, Luc comes up the most. How happy he is with Lily and Larkin.
The wedding planning, and how Dean is obsessing over what has to be the most epic bachelor party ever.
And events at their house. Like Thanksgiving…
“Luc usually hosts everyone for Friendsgiving on Thanksgiving Day,” Hayden says one night while drying dishes beside me. “The whole band ends up there at some point.”
I wait. Patient on the surface. Restless underneath. Just enough that my heartbeat shifts. Hayden keeps talking.
“He’s afraid Lily’s going to go completely overboard since it’s her first Thanksgiving at home with him. He said she’s already made enough food to feed half of Chicago.”
“That sounds kind of nice.” I muse out loud, wondering and waiting.
“It will be chaos.”
“But good chaos?”
A small smile touches his mouth. “Yeah.”
I wait again. The invitation never comes.
And suddenly the kitchen feels strangely quiet despite the music still playing behind us.
It shouldn’t matter. Not yet. We are still new, but yet, we aren’t at the same time.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m reading too much into something that isn’t actually there.
Because Hayden doesn’t really care about holidays. He never did.
But later that night, lying awake beside Hayden while he sleeps heavily with one arm wrapped around my waist, I stare at the ceiling and try not to think about the fact that I still only exist inside the private parts of his life.
His apartment. His bed. His hands. His shadows. Not in his world. And maybe that’s unfair. Maybe I’m rushing things. Maybe Hayden just doesn’t realize this matters. Maybe I’m looking for fractures because part of me still doesn’t trust happiness enough to let it exist untouched.
But the thought settles anyway. And it’s quiet and sharp in that impossible way to fully shake. And the question I’m afraid to say out loud keeps circling in my brain; what if this beautiful thing between us only survives as long as it stays hidden?