Chapter 4
four
Dani
Morning arrived with sunlight slicing through curtains that weren't mine and the memory of exactly how Luke's hands had felt against my spine.
I stood under the shower longer than necessary, letting the hot water beat against my shoulders like it could wash away the night before. It didn't. My lips still tingled from that mind-blowing kiss and the warmth still lingering low in my belly refused to fade.
I dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and a simple shirt, and walked into the kitchen already rehearsing how to play this.
Luke sat at the table. Fever gone. Color back in his face. Hair still damp from his own shower.
He looked up when I came in. For a second, his eyes widened. Then he exhaled sharply before his fingers found the edge of the table and stayed there.
“Morning, Dani.” His eyes flickered up to mine, then drifted away.
“Morning. How’s your head?”
“Fine. Better than fine.” He paused. “Physically.”
“Good.” I poured tea I didn’t really want. “I’ll check your temp after breakfast. If it holds, you can start light activity today.”
“Dani, last night...”
“Luke, we agreed.” I got it out before he could say whatever was loading behind his eyes. “Last night was the fever. It can’t happen again. I meant that.”
Something flickered across his face. Frustration, maybe. Or just annoyance at being shut down so cleanly.
“I remember enough to know it wasn’t just the fever.” His voice stayed quiet. “For either of us.”
“Luke…”
“I’m not gonna push.” Both hands came up in surrender. “But…” His jaw stayed tight anyway.
Lily saved us both, barreling into the kitchen already mid-sentence.
“Luke, Luke, guess what? I dreamed about a dragon and it had your face and it wasn’t even scary. It was actually really nice.”
“Really? That’s good to hear, princess.” He lifted her into the chair beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Did the dragon also lose the blanket fort game?”
“Dragons don’t play fair.” Her eyes went wide as she stared straight into his. “I let you win last time. Actually.”
“You did not.”
“I did. Ask Auntie Maya.”
Maya arrived right on cue in the doorway with her own mug, both hands up. “Staying out of dragon politics.”
She came around my chair and dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Good morning, guys.”
“Morning, Maya,” I said, forcing a small smile.
“Everyone is on the bright side this morning. And I must say Luke looks really good.” Luke raised his head and held my gaze.
“Yes, it's all thanks to Dani.”
Somehow my mind drifted to last night. Heat flooded my cheeks instantly, and I covered it with a cough and tore my eyes away from him.
Maya glanced between Luke and me, one eyebrow lifting slightly. I knew that look. She had noticed something was off. I looked away before she could ask.
I watched Luke with Lily over the rim of my cup. The patience in how he listened to her rambling. The way he asked her questions like her answers actually mattered. The way she leaned into his side while she ate her oatmeal. Something in my chest twisted.
Part of me wanted to take exactly what I was seeing at face value. Gentle. Patient. Here.
Part of me remembered Steven, Lily’s father, who had been gentle and patient and here for exactly as long as it cost him nothing, and then he wasn’t.
Maya scooped Lily up not long after, murmuring something about the craft room and unfinished glitter. The two of them vanished down the hall in a wave of crayons and giggles, leaving Luke and me alone with the dishes and everything neither of us had said yet.
He carried his bowl to the sink and stood beside me a beat longer than the task required.
“Can I say something?” he asked. “You don’t have to say anything back.”
I kept my eyes on the sponge. “Fine.”
“I’m not used to this.” His hand went to the back of his neck without taking his eyes off me.
“Being shut out. Usually I’m the one keeping things light, keeping people at arm’s length, and it works fine because nobody’s trying that hard to get past it.
” He paused. “You didn’t try to get past anything.
You just were you, from the first night.
I don’t know what to do with how much that’s rattling around in my head. ”
I set the bowl down carefully, like it might break something if I moved too fast.
“And Lily,” he went on, quieter now. “I keep catching myself picturing what it’d be like if this was just… normal. If I got mornings like this one, a morning with purpose instead of the bland ones I've been having for as long as I can remember.”
I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure I trusted my own voice yet.
He must have taken the silence as room to keep going, because he did. “I keep thinking about you, Dani.” A short breath. “I keep wondering if you could let me in.”
I looked at him then. All I saw was raw honesty that made my chest ache in a way I hadn’t planned for that morning.
“Luke.”
“You don’t have to make any decisions right now. I told you I wasn’t gonna push. I just need you to think about it.”
I opened my mouth, and honestly didn’t know what was about to come out of it.
He was watching me with something soft and a little lost, like a man standing at the edge of a decision he hadn’t planned on making today.
I reached past him for the dish towel, and his gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.
I said his name again instead, mostly to get us both off that ledge. “Luke?”
Nothing.
“Luke.”
He blinked, color climbing up his neck. “Sorry, what?”
“You can’t hear me?”
“I heard—” He stopped, then laughed under his breath. “Okay, no. I got distracted.”
“By what?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Luke.”
“Fine. You. Standing there being distractingly attractive.”
Despite all the walls I’d spent the morning rebuilding, they came crumbling down like they always did around him.
“How do you feel now?”
He leaned back against the counter, some of his usual ease sliding back now that the raw part had passed. “Honestly, I feel about ten times better than yesterday. Whatever you did last night, it’s working.”
“That treatment’s not repeating.”
“Shame. I was hoping for an ongoing prescription.”
I threw the dish towel at him. He caught it, laughing so hard I couldn't help but smile. The kitchen felt lighter than it had all morning.
“If you’re feeling that much better, make yourself useful. Dishes. Trash needs to go out.”
“Yes, ma’am.” That same low note under it, and I hated how much I still liked hearing it.
He crossed to the trash can under the sink, and reaching past me for the bag, he brushed his arm against mine. Not quite an accident. Not fully on purpose either.
I felt it everywhere. He felt it too, going by the half-second his breath caught before he tied off the bag and headed for the door without pushing it any further.
The door swung shut behind him. I stood at the sink a while longer, hands braced against the counter, and let out a breath I hadn’t noticed I was holding.
I gave myself the usual talking-to. Rolled my eyes at my own reflection in the dark window over the sink. Ran through every reason this was a bad idea, every prior version of this exact situation that had ended with me blindsided and alone in a kitchen not unlike this one.
None of it touched the inconvenient truth beneath all my carefully constructed defenses.
I wanted more of this morning than I had any right to want.