Chapter 33 #2
Mid-conversation with Felicity, not missing a beat, she’d slid her untouched meal in front of me and taken my ruined one for herself. I’d sat there staring at her, at the plate, at her, for so long that Liam had to kick me under the table to get me to move.
I’d spent the rest of that meal trying to decide if proposing right there in the middle of the restaurant would have been an overreaction.
I wondered if she knew what she was doing.
It felt deliberate. Like she was trying to bewitch me, undo me, keep me off-balance. Make sure I never stopped falling.
She didn’t need to.
She just needed to breathe, and I’d be at her feet.
But she did it anyway.
She kept doing the small things, the quiet things, the things that said I see you without ever having to speak.
She did them for me.
And every time, I melted a little more.
“So,” she said, leaning back against the couch, “you are one of those people who doesn’t like dessert.”
“No.” My voice came out rougher than I intended. I cleared my throat. “I just don’t like it when it’s too sweet. As little sugar as possible.”
She tilted her head, considering me. “A not-so-sweet dessert.” A smile tugged at her lips. “You really are something, Cassian.”
I looked down at my hands, then back at her. “I wanted to share it with you. I just can’t.”
She waved her spoon, dismissive. “You shouldn’t force yourself to do something you’re not comfortable with.” Her eyes flicked to the remaining cupcake, then back to me, bright with mischief. “Besides. No complaints from me.” She winked. “More for me.”
She smiled.
My eyes stayed on her mouth, on the curve of her lips, on the way she looked when she was happy without trying to hide it.
She wasn’t trying to bewitch me.
She was trying to kill me.
That was the only explanation.
The smiles, the winks, the way she existed in a room like she was the only source of light. She wanted me dead at her feet.
I couldn’t even complain.
If this was how I was supposed to go, I was dying a happy man.
She finished the cake, licked the last of the frosting from her spoon, and stood. My eyes followed her to the desk, watched her shuffle through a few papers, watched her pick something up.
When she came back, she settled onto the couch beside me—closer than before, her knee almost brushing mine.
She was quiet for a moment.
Thinking.
Her fingers tapped against her thigh, once, twice.
Then she said something that doused me like a bucket of cold water.
“I have your father’s number.”
The words didn’t make sense.
They didn’t feel real.
They barely registered as anything at all. Just sounds. Letters arranged in an order that should have meant something, but instead meant nothing at all.
She looked at me like she understood. Like she knew exactly what it cost to hear a name you’d buried come back into the light.
She placed a folded piece of paper in my hand, the crease soft from being held for a while.
Numbers.
A door that could open or stay closed forever.
She told me everything. How she got it. Why she had it. Where he was. What he wanted. Her voice was steady, factual, the same voice she used for timelines and press releases and damage control.
But underneath it, there was something softer.
I kept staring at the numbers. They blurred. Resolved. Blurred again. They felt like living things, crawling across the page, laughing at me, mocking the boy who had once waited by the window for a father who never came back.
A hand touched my arm.
Warm. Solid. Here.
“Cassian.” Her voice pulled me out of the spiral.
I followed it, followed her. “You don’t have to do anything right now.
Not if you don’t want to.” Her thumb traced a slow circle on my sleeve.
“You can keep this. Put it somewhere and decide later. Or you can put it somewhere you never have to look at it. Or you can call him.” She paused. “You can do whatever you want.”
Her voice was soft.
So fucking soothing.
I wanted to take it with me everywhere. I wanted to live inside it, build a room around it, stay there forever where nothing could touch me and everything she said was the only thing I ever had to hear.
I looked back at the paper.
The numbers hadn’t changed.
They were still there, still waiting, still watching.
“Do you have a lighter?”
She scowled. “Why would I have a lighter? I don’t smoke.”
“Right.” I let out a breath. “That was a stupid question. I don’t have one either.” I stared at the paper. “Should I tear it into pieces, then?”
“Harder to clean.”
I considered. “What do I do, then?”
She pointed at the trash can across the room. “Fold it into a ball. Throw it.”
I looked at the can.
At the paper.
At her.
“Good idea.”
I folded the note—once, twice, three times—until it was small and tight and nothing like a phone number anymore. I threw it. It sailed in a clean arc, hit the rim, and dropped inside.
My hands dropped to my lap.
“Huh.” I stared at the bin, at the paper I could no longer see. “That was very anticlimactic.”
“Yeah.” She leaned back beside me, her shoulder almost touching mine. “These things only look cool in movies.”
I hummed, low in my chest, and let my head fall back against the couch.
Closed my eyes.
I would be lying if I said I never wondered about him. Where he went. What he was doing. If he ever thought about me.
But now that I knew—now that the answer was sitting in a trash can across the room—I understood that I didn’t want to meet him. I didn’t want to hear his voice. I just wanted to know he was alive.
That he existed somewhere in the world, even if he wasn’t here.
And now I knew.
Years ago, he made his choice. He left. He disappeared. He became a name I carried and a face I couldn’t quite remember.
And now I’d made mine.
“Are you planning to sleep here or something?” She tried to sound annoyed, but it didn’t land. Her voice was too soft, too warm, too close. It made me want to sleep. It made me want to sink into the couch and let her voice pull me under.
“No.” My own voice was thick, slow. “Just resting my eyes.”
I meant it.
I just wanted to rest for a minute. Let the day settle. Then I’d open my eyes and talk to her some more. Hear her voice. See her face. Be with her, just a little longer.
But the couch was warm.
And the room was quiet.
And her presence, even with my eyes closed, was the most peaceful thing I’d ever felt.
I didn’t know how long it was.
Minutes.
Hours.
Time didn’t exist in the space between her heartbeat and mine. Then someone was running fingers through my hair.
So light I almost missed it. A whisper of touch, barely there, tracing the hair away from my forehead with the kind of care you give something fragile. Something you’re not sure you’re allowed to touch but can’t stop yourself from reaching for.
I became aware of things slowly.
I wasn’t sitting anymore.
I was lying on the couch, stretched out, my head resting on something soft. Alessia was somewhere beside me. Her scent was close. Her warmth was close.
I didn’t open my eyes.
Couldn’t.
There was a high chance this was a dream—the kind I’d had a hundred times before, the kind that evaporated the moment I reached for her.
I couldn’t risk it.
I couldn’t lose this.
Her hand lifted. The warmth of her fingers left my skin, and before I could stop myself, my hand shot out and found her.
“Please don’t go.”
My eyes stayed closed. If this was a dream, I wanted to stay in it as long as I could. If it was real, I didn’t want to see the look on her face when she told me I was asking for too much.
“I was just going to get a blanket.” Her voice was close.
So close.
“Be my blanket.”
I pulled her toward me.
She yelped and landed on top of me, her hands catching against my chest. My body went rigid. I’d moved without thinking, reached without hoping, and now she was here, solid and warm and real in a way she had never been in any dream.
She was going to push me away.
She was going to tell me I was crossing a line.
She was going to leave, and I was going to lose this moment, this impossible, fragile thing I’d been reaching for for months.
Her hands spread on my chest.
Her head found the crook of my neck.
She sighed.
And relaxed against me.
I breathed so slowly I barely breathed at all. Every inhale was measured, careful, designed not to move her. Every exhale was a prayer.
Please don’t leave.
Please don’t push me away.
Please let me have this.
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
I couldn’t tell.
Her breathing slowed. Her body softened, her weight settling against me, her fingers curling against my shirt.
She was sleeping.
I let myself breathe.
My arms, finally, finally, wrapped around her. I pulled her closer, just a fraction, just enough to feel her heartbeat against my chest, her breath against my neck.
A smile stretched across my face.
I wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
How could I?
She was here. She was in my arms, warm and real and staying. I was going to lie awake for every second of it, memorize the weight of her, the rhythm of her breathing, the impossible fact that she had chosen to stay.
I would sleep tomorrow.
Or the day after.
Or never.
It didn’t matter.
She was here.
And I wasn’t letting go.