Chapter 20
Twenty
Rain blurred the hallway window into a smear of city lights.
Water ran off the awning and still found the back of Jamie’s neck, cold as a warning.
Her jacket had given up pretending it was waterproof.
She knocked anyway, light at first, then harder because the quiet felt like it might swallow her whole.
“Erin?” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “It’s me.”
For a long breath nothing happened. Jamie pressed her palm to the wood and felt only the thud of her own pulse. She heard a soft skitter of nails on the other side, then stillness. When the deadbolt finally slid, her breath caught like she’d been running.
The door opened four inches, then six. Erin stood there with her hand on the edge, hoodie strings loose, Leo tucked to her calf like he was holding her up.
She looked tired in the way that doesn’t show until you’re very close.
Eyes rimmed. Shoulders curled in. Jamie felt guilt climb straight up her throat.
“Hey,” she said. “I’ve been calling.”
Erin didn’t answer. Her gaze traveled over Jamie, taking in the wet hair, the jacket that wasn’t doing its job, the way Jamie couldn’t keep from shaking. She stepped aside a fraction. It was enough. Jamie crossed the threshold and nudged the door shut with her heel.
Leo padded over, nails clicking against the hardwood, and pressed his nose to Jamie’s shin. She blinked, then crouched right down in the doorway, rain dripping off her jacket onto the mat.
“So you’re Leo,” she whispered, holding out a hand. He sniffed once, then leaned in with a happy thump of his tail. Jamie smiled, small and aching, as she scratched behind his ears. “I’ve heard about you.”
When she looked up, Erin was staring, caught between surprise and something Jamie couldn’t name. Jamie slid her dripping jacket off and left it on the chair by the door. Her fingers felt slow and clumsy.
“I shouldn’t have just shown up,” Jamie said. “But the silence was worse. I kept replaying Friday until I wanted to crawl out of my skin. If I waited one more day we were both going to decide it was easier to pretend it didn’t happen.”
Erin’s face flickered small, then shuttered. “It didn’t happen,” she said fast, like a cut. “It was nothing. I’m sorry I made it a thing. I shouldn’t have. I know why you can’t. I get it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Jamie took an automatic step, then stopped when Erin jolted back like she’d been shocked. That flinch landed like a bruise over a bruise.
“I’m not here to push you,” Jamie said, palms up. “I just need to talk.”
Erin’s mouth opened, but what came out wasn’t an answer. It was the apology again, spilling over itself. “I know why you can’t. We work together. You’re a reporter, I’m supposed to keep things clean. I shouldn’t have reached for you. I knew better. I’m sorry.”
“Erin…”
“I’m sorry,” she said, softer now, words fraying on the edges. “I know why you can’t.”
It was like watching someone sink and keep apologizing for the water. Jamie felt something in her chest go tight and dangerous. If she let Erin keep talking, this would calcify into a version they’d never escape.
“Stop,” Jamie said, and when Erin didn’t, Jamie moved.
Two steps. Her fingers caught the front of Erin’s hoodie and bunched it tight in both hands. Erin gasped, startled, a tiny sound against the blank quiet of the room. Jamie didn’t give the retreat time to settle. She pulled her in and kissed her.
It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t neat. Rain still clung to Jamie’s hair and slid down her temple.
Her mouth landed on Erin’s and the world narrowed to heat and breath and the way Erin’s lips were cool, then warmer.
For a heartbeat Erin was very still. The bottom fell out of Jamie’s stomach.
Then she felt Erin inhale against her and not pull away.
Jamie loosened just enough to angle closer.
The kiss shifted, found a slow, hungry rhythm that felt like relief and a plea at the same time.
She could taste a hint of sugar, maybe the Monday cannoli, and something that was just Erin.
Her hands loosened in the cotton, then tightened again because she needed the anchor.
Erin’s fingers rose like surfacing. One closed around Jamie’s wrist, light and unsure. The other hovered, then traced a cautious line up the side of Jamie’s neck to the curve of her jaw. The touch set off a quiet spark that ran through Jamie’s shoulders.
Jamie made a sound she didn’t plan and let the kiss deepen.
Not wild. Not rough. Just open and honest in a way that felt like stepping over a line she’d stared at too long.
Erin answered, tentative at first, then with a press that said she was done apologizing for wanting.
Jamie’s whole body lit with it. She moved them without thinking, easing Erin back until her calves bumped the edge of the couch.
Erin’s hand slid into Jamie’s hair and held there, careful and sure.
Jamie pulled back for air by inches, mouths still close enough that each breath brushed the other’s lips.
“I didn’t pull away because I didn’t want you,” she said. The words shook. She didn’t try to hide it. “I pulled away because I do. I panicked. I told myself if I kissed you and it went wrong I’d lose you, so I chose the version that hurt and called it safe. I’ve been sick over it ever since.”
Erin’s eyes were glossy and bright, hurt and heat in the same look. Her fingers tightened on Jamie’s wrist. “You grabbed me,” she said, like she needed to hear it out loud.
“I did,” Jamie said. “If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop.”
Erin glanced down at Jamie’s hands fisted in her hoodie. She swallowed. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
“Me either,” Jamie said. “We can figure it out slow. Or we can decide not to. But I needed you to hear this from me, not from the space where I was too scared to show up.”
Erin blinked hard, then let out a small sound that wasn’t a laugh. “You say slow and then you kiss me like that.”
Jamie’s mouth tilted. “You were drowning in sorry and I couldn’t watch it. I had to cut through.”
Erin’s gaze dropped to Jamie’s mouth and held there. “You did.”
They were still standing very close. Jamie could feel the short hitch of Erin’s breaths against her own chest. The urge to lean in and take more tugged at her like a tide. She stayed where she was, close but not stealing, and let Erin choose.
Erin closed the space herself. She kissed Jamie again, deeper now, no hesitation.
It went from warm to hot in a breath. Erin’s mouth parted and Jamie met her, a quiet slide that made both of them exhale.
Jamie chased her, lips coaxing, tongue brushing just enough to ask for more.
Erin gave it. The room tilted. Jamie’s hand slipped from the hoodie to Erin’s waist, fingers finding the edge of soft cotton and the heat beneath.
Erin shivered hard and pulled Jamie closer by the hair at the nape of her neck.
Leo gave a single quiet huff, as if to file an official note, then settled again.
They broke for air and didn’t go far. Foreheads nearly touched. Erin’s chest rose against Jamie’s and it felt like the only steady thing in the world.
“I keep hearing you say you can’t,” Erin whispered. “It’s the only thing that’s been in my head.”
“When I said it,” Jamie said, “I meant I couldn’t do casual. I couldn’t risk wrecking us for a moment. I did a horrible job saying that.”
Erin’s mouth tipped at one corner, the smallest sign of relief. “Yes.”
“I’m better on second drafts,” Jamie said. “Usually.”
Erin searched her face like she was checking the truth of it. Her thumb brushed Jamie’s jaw once, a soft stroke that made Jamie’s knees feel unreliable.
“I need slow,” Erin said. “I need to keep my job and my head. I can’t be a secret you use and then shrug off in the daylight.”
“You won’t be,” Jamie said. “No disappearing. No pretending you’re a stranger when it’s convenient.
If work gets in the way, we name it and navigate it.
If you need pause, you say it. If I need to step back for an hour to file a story, I say that too.
I can’t promise perfection. I can promise honesty. ”
Erin nodded once, like she was locking that in place. Her hand slid from Jamie’s jaw to the open collar of her shirt, lingering where damp hair met warm skin. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m standing very close to you,” Jamie said. “And I’m terrified and happy and wet and freezing.”
Erin let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “Come here.”
She tugged Jamie forward by the front of her shirt and kissed her again, a little rougher now, like she’d made up her mind.
Jamie opened to it, answered with a low sound she didn’t know she could make.
Erin angled them sideways and they edged onto the couch, still tangled.
The kiss went hot and unhurried at the same time, a pull that said yes without pretending there weren’t a hundred reasons to be careful.
Jamie’s hand slipped under the hem of Erin’s hoodie to the warm skin at her waist. Erin sucked in a breath and pressed closer.
Jamie’s thumb traced a slow line there, a question.
Erin’s fingers tightened in Jamie’s hair.
She answered by deepening the kiss, mouth coaxing, tongue teasing, a patient heat that made Jamie feel both grounded and undone.
She tasted sugar on Erin’s lip and chased it, smiling into the kiss when Erin did too.
When Jamie finally forced herself to breathe, she didn’t go far.
She dropped a line of soft kisses along Erin’s jaw and down to the curve where throat met collarbone.
Erin’s pulse jumped under her mouth. She lingered there, open-mouthed for a second, feeling the thrum against her lower lip, then pulled back before the moment tipped into a place they couldn’t control.
Erin’s eyes were dark and blown wide. She looked at Jamie like the room had shifted. Maybe it had.
“Hi,” Jamie whispered, a little dazed.
“Hi,” Erin said, the word coming out warm and wrecked.
They stayed close, breathing the same air, until their heartbeats came down. Leo climbed onto the cushion beside them and pressed in like a polite chaperone. It forced a small gap between their hips. That was probably good. Slow had to mean something.
Jamie brushed a damp strand of hair back from Erin’s forehead. “I saw the cannoli box,” she said. “How was it?”
“I didn’t taste it,” Erin said. “That’s a first. Mondays are usually sacred.”
“We can fix next Monday,” Jamie said.
Erin’s mouth softened. “And this Monday?”
“This Monday I’d like to sit here with you and not pretend this isn’t happening,” Jamie said. “I’d like to be honest and a little stupid about you. I’d like to keep kissing you, but I’ll follow your lead.”
Erin swallowed and nodded. “Stay. Just for a while.”
“Okay.”
Jamie slid back enough to toe off her socks and tuck her feet under her. Erin folded one leg beneath her too. Leo sighed, heavy and satisfied, and dropped his chin on Jamie’s thigh like he’d assigned himself guard duty.
They didn’t fix anything in the next few minutes. They didn’t try to. The apartment hummed soft. Rain tapped at the window. Somewhere in the building a neighbor laughed, then a cabinet closed. It all felt very far away.
Erin reached for the bakery box and closed the lid, like saving something for later. She set her palm back on Jamie’s chest, right over her heart, a question without words. Jamie covered it with her own and held there.
“I meant what I said,” Jamie murmured. “I’m scared. I want you anyway.”
Erin’s fingers curled under Jamie’s. “I’m scared too.”
“Okay,” Jamie said. “Then we’re even.”
They looked at each other, steady now. Jamie leaned in and caught Erin’s mouth again, a slow kiss that tasted like a promise kept small on purpose, so it had room to grow.
Erin met her there and let it deepen, warm and sure.
Jamie felt the tremor in her own body smooth out under Erin’s hands, felt the heat rise and settle, felt the rightness of being here, finally, without pretending she didn’t want it.
When they broke apart, Erin rested her forehead lightly against Jamie’s for a breath. “Next Monday,” she said.
“Next Monday,” Jamie echoed.
Leo snored. The rain kept going. Inside the small pool of light in Erin’s living room, they stayed where they were and let the night slow its heartbeat to match theirs.