Maeve
I WOKE SLOWLY.
Not all at once, but in pieces. First the weightlessness of sleep slipping away. Then the unfamiliar softness beneath my cheek. Then the faint ache in my shoulder from having slept in one position too long.
I opened my eyes.
The room was empty.
For one horrible second, I didn’t know where I was and my heart lurched.
The cabin.
Right.
Rain whispered against the windows, so soft it sounded almost like static. The room was dim, the only light coming from the thin grey morning pressing through the curtains.
I pushed myself upright.
“Rihaan?”
Nothing.
The silence that followed was so complete that it made my pulse kick harder.
I listened.
No television.
No footsteps.
No voice downstairs.
Nothing except the rain and the quiet mechanical hum of the heating.
I pulled the duvet around myself and stood.
My feet met the wooden floor.
Cold.
I opened the bedroom door.
The cabin stretched ahead of me, all dark timber and enormous windows, the trees outside blurred behind a sheen of rain. In the morning light, everything looked softer than it had the night before.
And strange.
Eerie, almost.
But not frightening.
There was something beautiful about the stillness.
No traffic.
No phones ringing.
No voices drifting through neighbouring flats.
No London sirens slicing through the night.
Just trees.
Rain.
Wood.
Space.
It reminded me of the place I’d dreamed about escaping to.
I walked barefoot into the kitchen, the dim light guiding me as I moved slowly to pour myself a glass of water.
The sound of water filling the glass seemed disproportionately loud in the quiet.
I drank.
Then drank again.
My eyes wandered towards the large windows, from where I stood, even in the dark, the forest looked endless.
I took another sip, my eyes finally drifting to the small lamp that was lit in the corner in the living room.
I frowned, placing the glass on the counter gently. I moved until I was far enough the room to notice him sitting on the edge of the sofa, elbows resting against his knees.
His head was bowed, his hands were clasped loosely between them as he stared at the floor.
“Hey.” I stopped as his eyes met mine slowly.
They were red, not the kind you got from a lack of sleep, but the ones you got from crying.
Something tightened painfully inside my chest. “Rihaan?”
For a second, something defensive flickered across his face, before it vanished.
I took a step closer. “Are you okay?”
He gave a small laugh that didn't sound anything like amusement. “Yeah.”
I frowned. “You look awful.”
That earned the faintest smile. “Thanks.”
I moved closer, my eyes caught on the leather album sitting on the coffee table. Beside it was a thick envelope. Several notebooks lay open around them.
His fingers had dark ink stains along the side of one thumb.
“What’s all this?”
He glanced at the table. “My Mum’s…everything, I guess.”
I looked at him. “What?”
He leaned back, his head dropping on the back of the leather sofa as he stared at the ceiling.
For a second, I thought he would say nothing.
Then he exhaled. “My mum left me letters, and this album full of these memories…that I have no recollection of. Along with the journals that basically store her entire life. Up until the day before she died.”
My stomach tightened, as I slowly made my way next to him. I didn’t sit close enough to touch, but close enough that let him know I was there.
His gaze didn’t flicker from it was settled on the ceiling.
“This place is full of her.”
The words seemed to physically hurt him.
“How long has it been since you’ve been here?”
He looked at me then, like he was about to lift a secret. “It’s the first time since…ever.”
I paused. “You haven’t been here since…?”
“I was four, maybe, five?”
“Rihaan.” His name was a pained whisper. “Why were you planning on doing this alone?”
“I’ve spent years remembering her as the person who left.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I made her the villain because it was easier.”
The honesty of it hit me harder than any dramatic confession could have.
He looked broken.
Not just visibly, but there was a quiet disintegration happening underneath his skin.
“I've spent years being angry at a version of her,” he continued. “And now I'm finding all these pieces that don’t fit.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I reached for his hand.
He looked down at our fingers.
Then turned his palm beneath mine.
His thumb moved once across my knuckles.
“She loved me.”
It sounded like a question.
I squeezed his hand. “It would’ve been easy to.”
His eyes closed as another tear slipped free.
He looked away quickly.
I pretended not to notice the way something it sent a tug through me.
Then he laughed softly. “She probably would’ve hated the person I’ve become.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“You don’t know how she was like…”
“No.” I interrupted his trail of though softly. “But I know what it's like to build an entire relationship with a parent around the things they failed to give you.”
His eyes opened.
I looked towards the rain-streaked windows.
“My mum wasn’t exactly…” I searched for the word. “Available. She wasn’t a terrible person.” I swallowed. “That would almost be easier.”
His expression softened.
“She just wasn’t the mother I needed.” I rubbed my thumb against the side of his hand.
“I spent years thinking if I were easier, quieter, better, maybe she would’ve wanted me more.
But now that she has another daughter, and I see the way she wants her.
I’ve seen her pictures too, when I know none of mine exist. So, I promise you that no matter who you are now, she would’ve loved you.
She left you so many things to make sure you know that. ”
“I’ve treated my siblings horribly.”
“From what I’ve seen, Rihaan, You’ve made a pretty good job showing your love too.”
Then he turned towards me. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For having to earn your place in your mum’s life.”
I shrugged. “It happened.”
“Still. No one should know that feeling. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
I looked at him, almost stunned.
His gaze dropped to our hands, then. “Because from the moment I met you, I haven’t wanted you to leave.”
My breath caught.
“Even when you were infuriating.”
“Rihaan…”
“Yeah?”
“You can’t say things like that.”
“Then stop me,” He whispered. “I’m not asking anything from you, Maeve. But I can’t help how I feel either. Because even when every logical part of me wanted to hate you—I never did. All I could do was try and understand your actions while wanting you around.”
My heart kicked hard enough to hurt.
“Even if you came back into my life in the least ideal circumstances possible.”
I laughed softly. “That's one way of putting it.”
“I still wanted you.”
The words lingered between us.
I looked at his mouth.
He looked at mine.
And before I could rethink it, I leaned forward and closed the gap between us.
Our mouths met, and just like it had done before, the ache in my chest evaporated, and everything in me went quiet. Like whatever wound that had been screaming, finally found an aid that could heal it.
His hand moved as they pulled me onto his lap, as his other hand cupped my face so gently, it was almost startling from the times before.
The kiss deepened naturally, like we’d been circling it for so long that neither of us needed instructions anymore. His hand moved to the back of my neck, holding me gently as I curled my fingers into his shirt.
Heat rushed through me as every nerve seemed to wake at once.
The room disappeared.
The rain disappeared.
Everything except the warmth of his mouth, the roughness of his thumb against my jaw, the way his breath caught when I leaned closer.
It wasn’t like the kiss in Auckland.
That one had been fireworks.
This was the entire sky opening.
It was warmer.
Deeper.
Less frightened.
When I finally pulled back, my forehead rested against his.
We were both breathing harder.
His thumb traced my cheek.
I smiled, and he mirrored me.
And for the first time in what felt like my entire life, I didn’t wonder whether I was wanted.
I knew.
I wasn’t sure what had possessed me. Maybe it was the way he’d looked at me—like I wasn’t something temporary, like I wasn’t something he was trying to figure out how to file away neatly in his life.
Maybe it was the fact that, for once, neither of us was pretending.
Or maybe I was simply tired of spending my entire existence deciding what I was allowed to want.
So I stopped deciding.
I leaned in and kissed him again.
No hesitation.
No regret, like I had the times before.
No careful testing of the moment like I usually did with everything else in my life—like I was afraid even my own impulses might betray me.
I kissed him because I wanted to.
Because the thought of not doing it suddenly felt worse than any consequence I could imagine.
For half a second, he went still.
Completely still.
Like his body had forgotten how to respond.
And my heart dropped—just a fraction—because I thought, this is it, this is where I’ve ruined everything.
Then his hand tightened around my waist.
The softness from before didn’t disappear so much as it was swallowed whole by something deeper, something hotter, something that felt like it had been held back for far too long.
His mouth moved against mine with a kind of urgency that stole the air from my lungs before he pulled back. His forehead resting against mine.
I blinked up at him, disoriented, my pulse still racing like it hadn’t gotten the message that everything had paused.
“What?” I whispered, breathless, confused, already missing the warmth of him even though he was still right there.
His hand stayed at my waist.
Not letting go.
Not moving either.
Just…holding.
“What about your rules?”
For a second, I genuinely thought I’d misheard him. My brain lagged behind my body, still caught in the echo of the kiss, still trying to catch up to the fact that he had stopped.
And then it hit me.
Of all the things he could have said.
That.
I stared at him, slowly, and incredulously. “You’re unbelievable.”
His brow lifted slightly, like he was actually offended by the accusation. “I’m the one who’s unbelievable?”
“Yes,” I said immediately, pushing lightly at his shoulder as I pulled back. “You are. You’re so bad at following rules when it comes to your own health that you nearly destroy your shoulder every other week, but suddenly you’re a fucking expert on mine?”
A laugh escaped him—soft, disbelieving, like he couldn’t help it even though he was clearly still trying to hold onto whatever seriousness he thought this moment required.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I don’t make your rules.”
“I don’t make them either. They just happened to be there as I grew up. They were more for self preservation than anything.”
“You still have them.”
I groaned, moving myself off of him, and dropped my head back against the cushion dramatically, staring up at the ceiling like it had personally betrayed me. “We’re in a cabin in a village far away, cut off from the real world, and you’re worried about my rules.”
He raised a brow, completely unbothered. “I’m worried you’re going to wait twenty minutes and tell me you’ve made another mistake and then I’m going to be stuck with you for days.”
I snapped my head back up to look at him. “That was one time.”
“It was one very memorable time, and if I remember correctly, you wanted just as much as space from me, as I did.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I won’t.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“I promise,” I added, softer this time, because something about the way he was looking at me made my chest tighten in a different way now.
His gaze held mine, like he was trying to decide whether to believe me or protect himself.
“I want this,” I said quietly.
His expression shifted immediately. Something in him went still again—but this time it wasn’t distance. It was attention.
I swallowed. “I want you.”
There it was.
Out in the open.
No hiding it behind frustration or sarcasm or anything else I usually used to survive moments like this.
Just the truth.
Raw and unfiltered.
Something flickered through his eyes, so fast I almost missed it.
Hope.
Fear.
And something deeper than both.
“But?” he asked quietly.
Of course he did.
Of course he knew me well enough to hear the shape of the word before I even said it.
I looked away for half a second. “It has to stay between us.”
The change in him was immediate.
His body went still in a way that felt different from before. He didn’t pull away. But something closed behind his eyes.
“For now,” I added quickly, because I could feel the shift and it scared me more than I wanted to admit.
He stayed silent.
I looked back at him. “My dad can’t know.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“If he finds out, it could ruin this for me. My job. My career. Everything I’ve worked for.” My voice wavered at the edges, and I hated that it did. “I can’t risk that. I told you before, I’ve never had to ask him for anything, and I’m not sure if he’d be happy about me breaking his rule.”
He looked away.
“I don’t want to be a secret,” he said quietly.
The words landed heavier than anything else had.
“I know,” I whispered.
“No,” he said, firmer now, turning back to me. “You don’t.”
He shifted slightly, sitting back just enough that the warmth of him against me disappeared—and I felt it like a loss I hadn’t been prepared for. “Secrets have never done me any good.”
I stayed quiet.
Because I didn’t know what to say to that.
“My whole life has been full of them,” he continued, voice lower now. “Things people hid. Things people lied about. Things everyone knew except me. And I don’t want another one, even if I’m it.”
My chest tightened painfully.
“But as much as I want you.” He looked at me then. “Wanting each other doesn’t mean we should make a decision we’ll regret.”
I swallowed.
He leaned forward then, slowly, and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.
It was gentle.
Careful.
And somehow it hurt more than the kiss that had set everything on fire.
“I think we should stop here,” he said quietly.
I closed my eyes.
Because part of me wanted to argue.
To push.
To tell him that this hurt far more than I could’ve imagined and suddenly consequences were no longer on my mind. But another part of me—quieter, steadier—understood exactly what he was doing.
He wasn’t pushing me away.
He was refusing to let me turn him into something hidden.
Something shameful.
Something temporary.
And somehow, in the middle of that restraint, I wanted him more than I had a right to.