Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Noelle
The door clicks shut behind us, sealing in warmth and everything we didn’t say outside.
I don’t know what just happened on that sidewalk.
Scratch that—I do know.
We almost kissed.
And I cracked a joke like a coward.
Now my skin feels too tight. My chest hasn’t quite settled. There’s a low thrum in my bloodstream I can’t shake.
It doesn’t hurt, not exactly. It’s just…alive.
Cal didn’t say anything after that, just opened the door for me so I could come in ahead of him. He lingered outside a few extra seconds—probably to cool off or curse the universe.
Maybe both.
Now, he’s in the bathroom peeling off snow-soaked layers, and I’m standing in his kitchen like I live here.
Like I belong here.
The thought makes something clench behind my ribs.
I press the button on the coffee maker, just for something to do. The hum of the machine cuts through the quiet, grounding me.
I wrap my hands around the edge of the counter, fingers cold from the walk, knuckles still pink. My heart’s not racing, but it hasn’t slowed either.
I should go open my laptop. Check the news. Email someone. Prove to myself I still have a life outside this high-rise cocoon.
Instead, my gaze is drawn toward the window.
The light’s silver this morning, thin and soft through the clouds. Snow drifts in lazy spirals past the glass, blanketing everything below.
The street looks like a postcard. Untouched. Quiet.
Peaceful in a way that makes my spine unspool one vertebra at a time.
I hear Cal reenter the room. His steps are soft but heavy—heavier than they should be, like the weight he carries goes deeper than muscle.
My shoulders tense automatically, like he might bring the outside world back in with him.
He doesn’t.
“You okay?” he asks behind me, voice low, rough from the cold.
“Yeah.” I keep my gaze on the window. “Just needed a second.”
The silence hangs warm between us.
“You wanna watch something?” he offers. “I mean, unless you’re planning to solve a crime ring out the window.”
My smile is small and involuntary, and my chest aches in that bittersweet way it does when someone knows how to make you laugh without trying.
I glance over my shoulder to see he’s ditched the hoodie and is just in a fitted thermal and joggers now. His hair’s damp from the snow, curling a little at the ends. There’s a wet spot on his shirt near the collar, clinging to the muscle there.
My stomach does a slow, traitorous flip.
“I could be persuaded,” I say, a little too lightly. “You have decent taste?”
“Highly debatable,” he murmurs, brushing past me to grab a mug from the cabinet.
My breath snags when his arm brushes mine—just barely—but my skin lights up like it noticed anyway.
And that’s when it hits me.
I could try to leave.
The roads aren’t much better than last night, but I know there are some crazy ass drivers out there driving Uber. I could call a car. Text someone. Make up an excuse.
But I haven’t even looked.
Haven’t opened my phone.
Haven’t checked the forecast.
Haven’t reached for a single escape hatch.
That should bother me.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, this strange warmth unfurls low in my belly, winding through my limbs like honey.
Not the dizzy, headlong kind of want I’ve known before. This is slower. Safer.
More dangerous because of it.
Because the longer I stay here, the more I let myself sink into this feeling…
Into him…
The harder it’s going to be to pretend it didn’t mean anything later.
And I think I’m past pretending.
We settle on the couch with a blanket that smells like his laundry—clean and woodsy, with a hint of something warm I can’t name. I tug it higher on my lap, needing something to do with my hands.
Cal flips through streaming options like he’s stalling. Or testing me.
“You’re one of those true crime people, aren’t you?” he asks, thumb pausing over a documentary about cults and chaos.
I arch a brow. “What gave it away? My general sense of mistrust or the resting bitch face?”
He huffs a laugh, low and amused. “Both, actually.”
There’s a flicker of heat under his grin that I feel all the way down my spine.
I shift, pretending to adjust the blanket. My thighs brush his for half a second, and every nerve in my leg lights up like static under skin.
The proximity’s nothing, really—two people sitting side by side. And there are multiple layers of fabric between us. It’s not like we’re skin on skin.
And doesn’t that take my brain in places it has no business going.
I’m hyper-aware of every inch separating us. And every inch that isn’t.
He settles on a series neither of us has seen before. Something easy and episodic, half action, half narrative. Background noise, basically.
But we don’t move apart.
We just sit there, sharing the blanket. The heat from his body bleeds into mine in slow waves.
I tuck my feet under me. Try to focus on the screen, anything other than focusing on him.
But I can’t.
Because he’s so close.
Because I can hear him breathing.
Because I keep wondering if he’s feeling it too—the weight of the not-touching.
My skin hums like I’ve been kissed by tension, my pulse echoing deep in my belly now, low and persistent.
He shifts, reaching for the remote, and the back of his hand brushes my knee under the blanket.
I go still. So does he.
Neither of us pulls away.
His fingers curl slightly, like maybe he meant to touch me. Like maybe he’s debating whether to do it again.
I bite the inside of my cheek and force a breath through my nose. It comes out too shaky.
“You always this good at storm hospitality?” I ask, voice softer than I meant. “Blankets, coffee, entertainment. I’m impressed.”
He looks at me then—not just glances, looks—and something unspoken passes between us, low and hot and steady.
“I don’t usually have guests,” he says, quiet. “Especially not ones who steal my flannels and sass me before breakfast.”
A smile curves my lips before I can stop it. My chest tightens.
“You’ll survive,” I murmur.
But the way he’s watching me?
It feels like maybe he’s not so sure.
My skin prickles. Not with fear, but with anticipation. With heat.
With the ache of being wanted and the sharp sweetness of restraint.
We turn back to the screen at the same time, like we planned it.
But the air doesn’t settle.
It thickens.
And beneath the blanket, our legs stay exactly where they are.
Touching.
The episode winds down, but neither of us reaches for the remote.
The credits roll. The soft hum of the next auto play trailer fades into the background.
My head rests against the back cushion, my legs curled under me. Cal hasn’t moved much either, but the energy between us has shifted—settled, but not cooled. It simmers low and steady beneath the quiet.
“I used to play this game with my mom,” I say softly. “Whenever we couldn’t sleep. She called it the What-If Game.”
Cal glances over at me. His profile’s all shadows now. Strong, quiet lines, jaw flexing once like he’s already bracing for something heavier than he wants to carry.
Still, he humors me. “How’s it work?”
“You ask a what-if. Then you answer it. That’s it.” I pause. “No follow-up questions. No judgment.”
He lifts a brow. “That sounds suspiciously emotional.”
I smirk. “Maybe.”
He shifts slightly, neither further nor closer to me, but I feel his heat all the way down to my toes.
“If you weren’t a hockey player,” I say, “what would you be?”
He sighs like he’s going to pass. But then:
“Mechanic.”
I blink. “Seriously?”
He shrugs, eyes back on the TV. “When I wasn’t playing hockey, I’d help my uncle fix cars. Engines. Gearboxes.”
“You’d trade packed arenas and adrenaline for grease and busted mufflers?”
“Only if I couldn’t do hockey. I love the sport; it’s really all I’ve ever wanted to do. I’m only a rookie, and I figure I’ve got years to go. But I’m not a fool. One wrong move and I could be out permanently.”
“So, you have a backup plan.”
He glances over at me. “I always have a backup plan.”
Something tugs in my chest. He says it so casually, but I hear the hollow under the words.
The way he talks about success like it doesn’t belong to him. Or like he doesn’t want it to.
His gaze stays on me. “What about you? What would you be if you weren’t charming sponsors at parties you plan?”
Heat rises in my cheeks that he thinks I’m charming. “If I didn’t run events, I’d probably be a wedding planner.”
He narrows his eyes and looks at me like I’ve just confessed something scandalous. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
I snort. “Less beer. More bridezillas.”
He smiles, and I feel it like a warmth under my ribs. I want to keep it there. Want to keep him there, in this softer light where the world isn’t closing in.
We toss a few more back and forth.
What if you could live anywhere?
What if you could have a do-over day?
What if you could stop time for one hour—what would you do?
His answers are short, clipped, always with an edge.
Mine are longer, breezier, half truths wrapped in sarcasm.
But the rhythm returns. We fall into it—laughter, banter, the lightness of two people building something without calling it that.
And then I ask the one I shouldn’t. Not because it’s a bad question. But because it’s his.
“What if you weren’t afraid of being seen?”
It comes out too quiet. Like I already regret it.
And I do. The second his body stills beside me. The second his smile vanishes, slow and final.
The silence stretches.
Too long.
Long enough for me to wish I could take it back.
He doesn’t look at me when he finally answers. Just exhales once, slow and careful.
“Then I wouldn’t be me.”
That’s all.
I don’t push.
I just sit there, eyes on the muted screen, heart thudding soft and stupid under my ribs.
But part of me can’t help it. Can’t help wondering what he’d look like with nothing held back.
No shadows.
No deflection.
No walls.
Just Cal.
All of him.
And the terrifying part?
I don’t think I’d survive it.
He unmutes the TV and nods to it with his chin. “We’re missing how she escaped the cult.”
“Oh.”
I face forward again and try to follow along with how the woman made it out and lived to tell the tale.
We watch in a silence that’s comfortable but charged at the same time until the world has turned blue outside.
That soft, glowy kind of dusk where snow steals all the sound and the sky forgets it’s supposed to be cold.
Streetlights flicker on, one by one, and the TV plays on low—background noise that doesn’t compete with the silence curling between us.
Cal shifts beside me, his broad body sinking lower into the couch. His head tips back against the cushion, one arm slung loosely over his stomach. Long legs stretched out. He’s relaxed in the way that doesn’t come easy—like it cost him something to earn it.
I sit upright with one knee tucked under me, both hands curled around a warm mug of tea I’ve yet to drink. The steam has faded, and the surface has gone tepid, but I can’t bring myself to let go of it.
It’s like I need something to ground me.
I don’t look at him.
Not until I feel it.
The heat of his gaze, low and steady.
When I finally glance over, he’s watching me.
Not in a way that feels invasive. Or even flirty. Just…there. Present. Seeing.
Something catches in my throat.
That fragile, rising thing I can’t name.
I don’t dare ask what he’s thinking.
Don’t want to ruin this by naming it out loud.
So I murmur instead, voice barely above the hush between us:
“You always this quiet?”
His lips curve—just a little—but he doesn’t answer. Not with words.
Just closes his eyes.
Like he trusts me enough to sit beside him and not ask for more than he can give.
And that undoes me more than anything else.
More than the almost-kisses.
More than the way his hoodie still clings to my body heat.
More than the cup I haven’t sipped.
Or the weekend that hasn’t ended.
It’s not the silence that makes me nervous.
It’s how much I like it when he doesn’t try to fill it.