Chapter Sixteen
Ava
By the time Violet drifts off, the storm has settled into its midnight rhythm—wind pushing against the cabin walls in long, aching sighs, snow tapping the windows like impatient fingers. The fire crackles low in the stone hearth, casting the room in a soft, amber glow.
I tuck the blanket around Violet one last time and ease out of the bedroom, closing the door with the gentlest click. My shoulders drop as I exhale. Today was long. Soft. Strange. Beautiful in a way that feels almost fragile.
Jax is by the fire, sitting on the floor with one knee bent, arms resting loosely over it. The flames paint him in shifting gold—jaw shadowed, eyes dimmer than usual, hair falling over his forehead in a way that makes him look younger, but also somehow older.
He hears the door shut and glances back.
“You should rest,” I tell him, pulling my sweater tighter.
“I’m fine,” he says automatically.
It’s a lie. The kind he delivers out of habit, not deception.
I sink onto the couch, tucking my feet under me. For a while, neither of us says anything. The fire speaks for us—soft crackles, wood settling, embers shifting. Outside, the storm howls, but in here, the quiet feels… peaceful. Almost sacred.
Eventually, he breaks it.
“I’m sorry if I…” He moves his hand vaguely, searching for a word. “If I startled you earlier.”
The moment he pulled both of us close when the wind hit. His instinct. His fear. His warmth.
“You didn’t,” I say softly.
His jaw tenses anyway.
“I just—storms…” He trails off and stares at the flames like he’s trying to make sense of them. “They get in my head sometimes.”
He rarely offers pieces of himself freely. When he does, they’re splinters—sharp, small, but painfully real.
I sit forward a little. “What happens in your head?”
He exhales through his nose, rough and uneven. “Memories.”
Of course. Everyone in this town has heard the rumors about the reclusive man on the mountain, but I have never once given the stories weight. Seeing him now—quiet, carved by grief—I understand how wrong the rumors were. They weren’t cruel enough. Or gentle enough.
“Jax,” I murmur, “you don’t have to tell me—”
“I lost someone.”
The words are low. Barely audible. But unmistakably true. My breath catches.
He swallows hard, staring past the fire, into some place I can’t see. “A long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” I whisper. “She mattered.”
A small, sharp flicker crosses his face—pain, gratitude, regret, something in between. He doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t deny it.
“I cared about her more than anything,” he says finally, voice like gravel breaking apart. “And then she was gone. Suddenly. Violently. And I couldn’t…” His fingers curl into his knee. “I couldn’t save her.”
The room shifts. Not with sound—but with truth.
I move off the couch, lowering myself to sit beside him on the rug. Close enough that I can feel the heat of the fire on my left side and the quiet heat of him on my right.
“You tried,” I say gently.
“It wasn’t enough.”
“You’re one person,” I murmur. “You’re allowed to be human.”
He goes still. Absolutely still, like he’s afraid if he moves, something inside him will crack open too far.
“I don’t deserve—” He stops. His throat works. “I don’t want anyone close. It’s easier that way.”
“Safer?” I ask.
He lifts his eyes to mine, and something in them looks stripped—bare, haunting, and so deeply tired. “Yes.”
I nod slowly. “I understand.”
Something tender loosens in his expression. Something like disbelief. Or relief.
I don’t touch him first. He touches me.
His hand grazes mine—just barely. Almost like he didn’t mean to. But he doesn’t pull away. And when I turn my hand over, he lets our fingers curl together.
My pulse trembles. His does too. I can feel it.
“Ava,” he whispers, and my name sounds like something new in his mouth—like a confession, like a question, like a beginning.
I lean in—not much. A breath. A heartbeat. Close enough that the fire warms our skin in twin glows, close enough that his breath ghosts my lips.
He hesitates, but I don’t.
I press my lips to his—slow, soft, warm. He freezes for a second, caught between instinct and uncertainty, then exhales against my mouth, shuddering once before he kisses me back.
It’s not urgent. It’s not wild. It’s careful.
Devastatingly careful.
His fingers rise to cup the back of my neck, thumb brushing my skin like he’s terrified I’ll break apart beneath his hand. My hands slide up his chest—heat and muscle and the quiet tremble of a man who has been alone too long.
When he pulls back, foreheads touching, his voice is barely a breath.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Me neither,” I whisper.
“We shouldn’t.”
“Probably not.”
He swallows, eyes closed. “But I want to.”
I don’t answer in words. I just stand, take his hand, and lead him toward his bedroom.
The fire crackles softly behind us. The storm deepens outside.
Inside the tiny cabin, something else begins—quiet, tender, inevitable.
The door closes.