Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Soren
I’m holding a damn sign.
It’s not just a sleek, minimalist placard with Winnifred’s name in tasteful font like a normal person would’ve made. Nope. This one has glitter. It sparkles. It reads:
“Welcome to Boston, Madame Wolfcraft & Emotional Support Ficus.”
Because I am, apparently, trying to get some boyfriend points.
Gretchen called in a favor with someone who was far too enthusiastic about making this happen. Did I arrive a day earlier than expected? Yes. Did I do it because I missed Win more than what’s probably emotionally healthy for a fake boyfriend? Also yes.
In my defense, there’s a nor’easter scheduled to wallop the East Coast tomorrow, and airlines are already panicking. Flights are being canceled faster than I can rationalize this sign. So yeah—I came early. To make sure I’d be the one waiting here. Right at the gate. With glitter.
I texted her an hour ago—something casual like “already here” and included a smiling face with a halo.
Not sure what drove me to add the emoji, but I don’t regret it.
Am I worried that she hasn’t answered? I want to believe that she didn’t connect to the Wi-fi because she was busy creating a mood board for Friendsgiving.
Was I hoping she’d text me the moment she landed and turned on her fun? Yes. That was five minutes ago, and nothing has happened yet. Knowing she’s close or that she’s happy to see me would relieve my nerves.
This place is overwhelming as fuck.
The airport smells like plane fuel, overpriced cinnamon buns, and me—oozing pre-holiday desperation.
A toddler just pointed at me and said, “Clown?” Honestly, fair.
I have glitter all over me. At the airline counter, the customer service rep didn’t even blink when I bought a last-minute ticket just to get past security.
I’m lucky TSA didn’t pull me aside for possession of excessive sparkle.
That’s where I am now in life. Buying plane tickets I won’t use, just for five extra minutes with her. I’m about to cave and get her out of the plane myself when I spot her.
She’s here. I get a flash of her scarf. The worn leather of her carry-on slung over one shoulder. Her cheeks are pink from the cold, lashes clumped a little from sleep. Her walk is all exhaustion and elegance, and even though she looks travel-wrecked, she’s the best thing I’ve seen in weeks.
She scans the crowd spilling out behind her—business travelers marching toward baggage claim, families corralling overtired kids—but at the gate itself, it’s just me and my sparkly sign. Her eyes find mine, and everything else fades.
She stops a couple of times. Then her lips twitch like she’s trying very hard not to smile. She fails miserably.
“You didn’t,” she says, her voice low and raspy from the flight.
I lift the sign higher. “I absolutely did. It was either this or a cardboard cutout of the ficus.”
She keeps walking, each step faster now. “I thought you were kidding when you said you’d win Fake Boyfriend of the Year.”
“This isn’t even me trying,” I say, just as she gets close enough to blur every line we draw between us.
Her hand is on my chest before I know it, warm even through my coat. She smells like recycled air, lavender hand lotion, and every fantasy I’ve tried not to have on lonely nights.
“Well,” she breathes, “you win the Airport Boyfriend Olympics.”
“Fake boyfriend Olympics,” I correct, but it comes out rougher than I meant—like the word fake gets stuck in my throat. It doesn’t fit anymore. Not with her this close. Not with that look in her eyes.
She’s close enough that her bag brushes my leg.
Close enough that I can smell her—lavender and recycled air and something I’ll probably crave for the rest of my life.
Her scarf slips, revealing the curve of her neck.
Her eyes are tired, rimmed in red from travel, and maybe tears.
Beneath the exhaustion, there’s a flicker of something I feel in my chest like an aftershock.
The longing? The time we’ve been apart? It doesn’t really matter. She’s here. Instinctively, I drop the sign. Let it clatter to the floor like it never mattered.
My hand finds her waist. My fingers curl into the fabric, needing something—needing her—just long enough to believe she’s really here. She startles slightly, just a breath of hesitation, but stays.
So I lean in.
My forehead brushes hers first. Just barely. Her breath hitches, her lashes flutter. My other hand slides up, fingertips grazing her cheek, thumb resting just below her jaw like I’m framing something precious.
Then I kiss her.
Slow at first. Like an apology I’ve been carrying for weeks. Like a promise that I won’t fuck up again, even when I don’t know how to keep it but still want to make it.
She exhales into my mouth.
Then she’s kissing me back—full mouth parted lips like she’s just as wrecked as I am. Like the flight, the distance, the pretending—all of it fractured the second our mouths met. There’s nothing careful about it. No play-acting. Just heat, hunger, and something that feels dangerously close to real.
Her hands fist the front of my coat and pull. Her bag drops with a thud against the tile, forgotten. She tilts her head and opens for me, and I fall into her like I’ve been starving.
It’s awkward in the best ways hello kisses always are—too many layers, too much want, zero finesse.
Her scarf’s in my hand, our noses collide, someone coughs like they’re judging us—but I don’t care.
I couldn’t stop if I tried. I’m kissing her like I’ve been waiting my whole life to be allowed this.
The world keeps moving. Boarding announcements drone overhead. A kid shrieks. Somewhere, someone’s wheeling a suitcase with a squeaky wheel that’s probably illegal in all fifty states and a few countries.
But all I feel is her.
Her mouth on mine. Her hands under my coat. Her heart pounding beneath all the layers between us—and maybe, just maybe, answering mine.
I can’t believe she’s right here, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to pretend this doesn’t mean everything. And now that I have her, I’m not sure how I ever let her go in the first place.
By the time she pulls back, her breath hitches. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say, forehead pressed to hers, the airport falling away around us.
My hand is still in hers. Her forehead rests against mine, and for a moment, the airport doesn’t exist. No crowds, no announcements, no missed calls or deadlines.
Just this buzz under my skin and her breathing soft against my cheek.
I want to say something—something reckless or maybe just true—but I can’t get a single thought to line up that’s appropriate, so I say, “Welcome home, Madame Wolfcraft.”
She smiles like she believes it now. I want to be the place she lands when everything else falls apart.
Winnifred’s eyes sparkle. “We need to work on our fake a little more. It doesn’t look like it with this . . . this kind of sign effort.”
“You’re right.” My voice is almost solemn, feigning resignation. “That glitter was emotionally real. I failed”
“It’s okay, I’ll survive.” She winks at me.
I take her bag and start walking toward baggage claims when my phone buzzes. I check my watch and groan when I see it’s Gretchen. Usually, I would ignore it, but she usually texts because there’s something important.
There’s a winter storm warning in effect. Multiple routes into Vermont are shut down, and I-89 is officially closed north of Lebanon until further notice.
I scroll my own phone. It seems like she’s right. All routes north and west are shut down. Flights are grounded. We’re fucked . . . or maybe not.
“Gretchen says we’re stuck,” I tell her, angling my phone so she can see the flashing red banner. “Storm’s eating Vermont alive.”
I don’t wait for Win’s reaction and fire off a text to Gretchen asking about hotel availability.
I knew the storm was going to be bad, but I didn’t think right-this-second bad.
She replies immediately—of course, she does—and by some miracle or dark magic, she’s locked down a suite in Markel. I don’t ask how many beds.
I don’t want to know.
Win, and I can bunk there for the night, the weekend until Vermont thaws out, or we have to head back to Colorado. Whichever happens first.
“I guess we’ll be spending Thanksgiving at a hotel,” I say, like it’s no big deal, like my pulse isn’t suddenly doing laps.
I could offer to try the backroads into Winterberry Cove and spend it with our families.
I could act like that’s still an option.
But if I’m being honest—brutally honest—I just want to be alone with her.
I don’t want to pretend anything, not even that this is temporary.
This storm can be considered a blessing in disguise.
A warning that going to someone else’s town to spend time together is a bad idea. Yes, those might be excuses.
It all comes down to ‘I want nobody else but her.’
“As long as there’s a warm bed, I’m all for it.” She yawns, dragging the words like they’re draped in silk and sin.
My brain short-circuits for a second on the thought of bed. Stop, Thorn. This isn’t the time to be thinking with your dick. But . . . do I have condoms with me?
Since my brain is not cooperating, I have to focus on Winnifred.
“Are you disappointed? We can try to figure out a way to get there tomorrow before dinner.” I offer, watching her through the blur of people and suitcase wheels and post-flight exhaustion.
Wondering if she can see how badly I want her to say no.
She hesitates. Then—deadpan: “Crushed. Obviously.” Any other day, I would take her sarcasm seriously, but today, not so much.
“Win.”
She shrugs with theatrical innocence, lips twitching. “I just hate being snowed in with you and room service and a city full of distractions.”
“Oh, no,” I deadpan back. “We’re trapped in a luxury hotel with five stars and overpriced cocoa. How will we survive?”
“Barely,” she says, mock-serious. “We might have to . . . order appetizers without sharing.”
“Scandalous.” I pause. My gaze narrows. “Win, I need to know. We could still drive to—”
“Don’t say Winterberry Cove.” She cuts me off with a pointed finger and a glint in her eye that kills any delusion I had of being the responsible one here.
I raise my hands in surrender. “Then it’s settled. Let’s grab the rest of your luggage and head to the hotel.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What happened to asking if I wanted to go anywhere else?”
“I was going to give you the option.” I grin, stepping closer. “But then I remembered—I’m very persuasive.”
“Cocky.”
“Confident.”
“Same thing.”
I don’t say anything. Just reach for her hand.
She lets me take it.
Doesn’t joke. Doesn’t pull away. Just laces her fingers through mine like we do this all the time.
Like this isn’t fake.
Like it’s the most normal thing in the world to walk through an airport holding hands with Winnifred Wolfcraft while the entire eastern seaboard shuts down behind us.