10. Darcy
CHAPTER TEN
darcy
I wake to the type of silence that only comes with storms.
No traffic. No sirens. No bass from some asshole’s car at the corner light.
Just a dense, pressing stillness, and when I open my eyes the bedroom window is completely white— thick curtains of snow drifting past in soft sheets, quieting the street below until the South End looks less like a neighborhood and more like a snow globe someone forgot to shake.
I stay where I am for a moment, listening.
The old building settles around me. The feathery comforter I always kick off at two a.m. is tangled at my feet.
My sketchbook is open on the nightstand, face down, where I abandoned it last night, because apparently the boundary between me and unfinished work does not exist.
I’ve spent the last four days with a low-grade restlessness I can’t seem to outrun—a special kind of agitation that comes from your body quietly switching allegiances without consulting its owner.
Tyler’s laugh keeps showing up in the corner of my mind. The warmth of his hand on my knee. The way he’d looked at me across my couch like I was saying something worth listening to.
And then there’s Mason. Mack. Whatever name he’s currently decided to grace me with.
Thoughts of him have become dangerous in a way I didn’t see coming.
Not because of the staring—which should honestly qualify as a controlled substance at this point—but because every time I think about him in my bathroom doorway looking all too satisfied while I argued circles around both of us, my chest does something I don’t entirely trust.
Which raises several deeply concerning questions, including whether I have unresolved daddy issues.
I groan into my pillow.
I’m twenty-six. I have a career, a lease, a ficus, and a fully developed frontal lobe. I shouldn’t be waking up like this because of a snowstorm and two irritatingly hot men downstairs.
And yet…
My phone vibrates on the nightstand. Bex, of course.
Bex
How bad is it?
I squint toward the white blur swallowing the street.
Darcy
Boston lied. Fake spring was a scam.
Bex
Knew it. That city survives purely on attitude and Dunkin’.
Darcy
And mutual delusion.
Bex
Honestly, that’s just East Coast branding.
I laugh softly and pad into the kitchen, my fuzzy socks whispering over the hardwood.
Darcy
It is kind of pretty, though.
Bex
Of course it is. You’re in your exposed-brick apartment watching snow fall like the lead in an A24 movie.
Bex
Pilates update?
Darcy
Good.
Bex
Just good?
Darcy
My ass hurts. I signed up for three more this week.
Darcy
Weather permitting.
Bex
Please. Boston women do reformer in blizzards and then get iced coffee after.
Darcy
I’m learning the local customs.
Bex
Proud of you. Any friends yet?
My stomach drops a little at the question.
Bex knows what I actually did when I moved. I didn’t just leave Brett. I burned the whole thing down and walked away before anyone could tell me I was overreacting.
What nobody warns you about is how much collateral damage comes with that. The engagement and the apartment were obvious. The friendships weren’t.
People I’d known or met first that somehow became his people after the breakup.
Somewhere between couples’ dinners and engagement parties and everyone’s lives moving in the same direction, the lines had blurred.
The husbands and partners were friends with Brett because of me. Somehow it didn’t matter.
Group chats went quiet. Invitations stopped showing up. Entire friendships and years or memories faded so quickly I thought I had imagined them. It hurt at the time. Now I mostly think it was useful information.
It’s incredible how quickly you find out who was standing beside you because they loved you and who was standing there because your life looked good next to theirs.
Bex wasn’t one of them. Through all of it, she’s stayed exactly where she’d always been, which turns out to be a rare thing.
Maybe that’s why losing everyone else bothers me less now than it used to.
For a while, it felt like proof that I’d blown up my life.
Now it mostly feels like confirmation that Boston was the right choice.
If following my heart was enough to unravel the friendship, then maybe it was never mine to lose in the first place.
Bex, meanwhile, is still applying that same level of vigilance to what she insists is my emotionally inappropriate relationship with a candle.
Darcy
Working on it.
Bex
That counts.
Darcy
I’m not hiding.
Bex
Mhmm.
Darcy
Don’t start.
Bex
I’m not saying anything
I’ve just started typing a reply when the lights flicker.
Once…twice…then nothing.
The apartment drops into darkness so thick it almost rings.
“Noooo,” I tell the walls.
The heat clicks off next, pipes groaning low and unhappy while the sudden silence settles over everything. I wrap my arms around myself and stare at the dark kitchen.
I am not panicking.
I’ve just started mentally inventorying how many blankets I own when three firm knocks land against my door.
Using my phone as a flashlight, I cross the apartment and pull the door open to find Mason standing there with a solar lantern hanging from one hand, its warm glow catching first on the charcoal henley stretched across his chest, then the dark ink disappearing beneath the sleeve, then the snow melting into his hair and catching along the short beard framing his jaw.
Cold air spills in around him, carrying the sharp scent of winter.
He looks like the storm personally delivered him to my doorstep—broad and unfairly good-looking in a way I am not thinking about at eight-thirty in the morning.
For one ridiculous second, all I feel is relief. Of course he would already have a plan for a power outage before I’d finished standing in the dark trying to convince myself I wasn’t concerned.
His green eyed gaze slides over me once, taking in the oversized sleep shirt, bare legs, and fuzzy socks before returning to my face. The inspection lasts all of two seconds, but I don’t miss the way his jaw tightens briefly.
“Interesting,” I say. “So you do knock.”
One dark brow lifts.
“Wouldn’t want to catch you in the shower.”
Warmth immediately burns my cheeks.
Did he just…?
My body has clearly stopped caring what I think.
“Grab what you need.”
His voice is rougher than usual. Morning voice, or cold air, or something I’m not examining before breakfast.
“What?”
“You’re coming downstairs.”
I cross my arms.
“Is that a request?”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“No.”
“Are you always this bossy before coffee?”
“Are you always this stubborn when someone’s trying to help?”
“I appreciate the help. I just don’t remember asking to be rescued.”
His eyebrows knit together.
“You’re not being rescued, Darcy.”
His gaze flicks past me into the dark apartment.
“You don’t have heat. You don’t have power. This place leaks drafts every time the wind blows.”
He lifts the lantern slightly.
“You can freeze up here if you want.”
His eyes come back to mine.
“Or you can come downstairs where there’s food and a generator.”
For a second, I just stare at him.
The power has barely been out ten minutes and he’s already standing at my doorstep holding a lantern telling me where we’re going next and tempting me with snowstorm luxuries.
Something low in my belly does a little somersault.
“Five minutes,” I say.
He nods and holds out the lantern.
“For the stairs.”
The metal handle brushes my fingers as I take it, his hand catching mine for half a second in the exchange. His skin is cold from outside, rough against mine.
It feels like striking a flint.
His eyes flick to mine, lingering just long enough to make me forget what either of us was saying before he steps back.
“I’ll meet you down there.”
I shut the door behind him and lean against it, lantern hanging from my hand, while my pulse proceeds to behave like an absolute idiot.
By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs twenty minutes later, their apartment door is already cracked open. Warmth slips through in a soft wave, carrying the scent of coffee, browned butter, and a sweet scent enough to make my stomach rumble.
I pause at the bottom of the stairs, fingers curled around the strap of the overnight tote hanging from my shoulder.
In a truly impressive display of preparedness, I’ve packed a phone charger, toothbrush, leggings, and enough supplies to survive the harrowing journey one flight down.
I blame Mason MacAllister entirely.
I knock anyway. This is still their space, and crossing that threshold feels bigger than stepping downstairs. Tyler’s voice carries easily from inside.
“Door’s open, Trouble,” he says like he’s been calling me that for years.
I push the door open and step inside.
The heat meets me immediately—the kind that settles into old brick and floorboards and makes my shoulders drop before I realize they’ve been tense.
The apartment opens in one long sweep, light from the fireplace moving up the exposed brick wall in streaks.
An oversized black-and-white photograph hangs above the fireplace, Boston half-lost in snow, the Zakim Bridge disappearing into fog.
The dark wood floors match the ones upstairs, worn smooth with time.
A charcoal leather sectional sofa faces the fire, flanked by two brown leather armchairs.
A thick gray rug stretches beneath all of it, soft enough that my feet sink into it when I step forward.
I turn slowly, taking in the rest.
A massive flatscreen sits against floor-to-ceiling black-framed windows overlooking the back street. Some sports channel flickers silently across the screen, blue and gold flashing against the dark glass. Floating stairs climb toward a loft above, disappearing beside two closed doors.
The kitchen stretches open to the right, bright beneath warm pendant lights. Black cabinets, butcher block counters slightly worn down at the edges, a broad island anchored in the center big enough to fit three stools.