Chapter 25 Juliette
JULIETTE
The plane descends and my stomach drops with it.
Not from the altitude change. It’s the countdown ticking in my head: twenty minutes until wheels-down in Seattle, and I still have no script for whatever comes after “The End” rolls on our Toronto movie.
Romeo’s hand is wrapped around mine. He’s barely let go since we boarded in Toronto. His thumb traces lazy circles on the back of my hand and I wonder if he realizes he’s doing it. If it’s conscious or if touching me has just become automatic.
I look out the window at Seattle spreading below us. Gray sky, gray water, the Space Needle small and distant. Home. Except it doesn’t feel like home right now. It feels like the place where this fantasy ends and reality begins.
“You okay over there?” he murmurs, low enough that only I can hear.
I turn. He’s watching me with that soft, steady look that makes me feel seen in places I usually keep locked.
“Just realizing I left my crystal ball in Toronto,” I say. “No idea what happens next.”
His fingers tighten. “Whatever we want to happen.”
“That’s… terrifyingly vague, Romeo. I’m just thinking.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking about then. List them out and I’ll tell you why you don’t need to worry about any of them.”
I’m thinking about how a week ago I was terrified to go to Toronto. About how now I’m terrified to leave. About how six nights ago we were fake dating and now I don’t know what we are but I know it’s not fake.
“About how everything has changed,” I say instead.
His hand tightens on mine. “It’s not over, JuJu. It’s just different.”
“Different how?”
“Better. Real.” He lifts our joined hands and kisses my knuckles. “No more performing. No more fake dating. Just us figuring out what we are.”
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We have to figure it out. We have to define this thing and put labels on it and deal with the reality of our lives intersecting in ways that are complicated and messy.
The plane touches down and I feel it in my bones. Toronto is over. This is now.
We don’t talk much during the drive to my apartment.
Romeo knows the way without asking. Of course he does. He’s driven me home a dozen times. But that was before. When I was just the girl he was pursuing. Now I’m the girl who spent six nights in his bed and I don’t know how to go back to my tiny studio and pretend that didn’t change everything.
Romeo pulls up in front of my building and puts the car in park but neither of us moves.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I echo, and I hate how awkward this feels.
“I can help you bring your stuff up. If you want.”
He hops out before I can stop him, grabs both suitcases from the trunk like they weigh nothing and I follow him inside, up the elevator to my third floor. Down the hall that suddenly feels narrower than I remember.
I unlock my door. He sets the bags inside, then shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels: Romeo, unsure for maybe the first time ever.
I actually hate it.
“I should let you crash,” he says. “Long day.”
“Yeah. Long day.”
Neither of us moves.
This is it. This is where he leaves and I unpack and we figure out what happens next.
Except I don’t want him to leave.
But I don’t know how to ask him to stay and neither of us moves.
The silence stretches between us. This isn’t how we were in Toronto. In Toronto we couldn’t stop touching each other. Now we’re standing three feet apart and I hate it.
“I’ll text you?” he says. “Later?”
“Yeah. Text me.”
He steps in for a kiss. It’s careful, polite, nothing like the greedy, laughing, can’t-get-enough kisses from this morning. It feels like the credits rolling.
“Night, JuJu.”
“Night.”
The door clicks shut behind him and I stand there counting his footsteps, the ding of the elevator, the soft whoosh as it carries him away.
My apartment is exactly as I left it: tidy, quiet, lonely as hell.
It feels so wrong.
I unpack on autopilot.
Dirty clothes in the hamper. Toiletries back in their spots. The bridesmaid dress hung in the closet. My hands move through the motions but my brain is stuck on the sound of Romeo’s footsteps walking away.
My phone buzzes and I grab it too fast.
Romeo
Home safe.
We saw each other twenty minutes ago. This is insane.
But I miss him too.
Good. Sleep well.
Romeo
You too. See you tomorrow at the rink?
Right. Tomorrow we both go back to work. Back to the facility where I intern and teach and he practices and we’ll be in the same building but not together and—
Yeah. See you tomorrow.
I finish unpacking. Take a shower in my tiny bathroom with the water that never quite gets hot enough. Put on my usual pajamas. Go through all my routines in the awful quiet. For six nights he was in my space and now the lack of him is a void that I don’t know how to fill.
I lie down and stare at the ceiling. The apartment is so quiet. The couple upstairs walking around. A car alarm. The hum of my refrigerator.
In Toronto I fell asleep to the sound of Romeo’s heartbeat. To his breathing. To the weight of his arms around me.
This is stupid. I’m being ridiculous.
I reach for my phone. Put it down. Reach for it again.
It’s past 11. Too late to text. He has practice at six.
But my fingers are already moving.
Are you awake?
Romeo
Yeah. Can’t sleep. My bed is too big and empty.
Mine feels wrong
Romeo
Wrong how
Too quiet. No hockey-player snores. Zero chance of snuggles
Romeo
I do NOT snore. Also, come over.
I stare at my phone. We spent one week together. Six nights. That’s nothing. People date for months before they feel like this.
But I feel it anyway.
It’s almost midnight.
Romeo
I have warm blankets and a complete lack of shame. Bring pajamas or don’t. I’m flexible.
I sit up. This is too fast. Too much. We just got back. We should have space to figure out what this is before we—
But the thought of lying here alone makes me feel almost sick.
Romeo
Please? I know it’s late but I just want you here. Even if we just sleep.
Give me twenty.
Romeo
Door’s unlocked. Hurry.
I throw clothes into my bag. Not just for tomorrow. For multiple days. Work clothes. Casual clothes. Toothbrush. Face wash. My laptop.
My next month’s packet of birth control pills.
I grab them from the bathroom cabinet and stare at the little pink compact. We used condoms in Toronto. But I’ve been on birth control since I was eighteen and we talked about it this morning. About what it would mean to not use condoms anymore.
I put them in my bag.
The drive is both heaven and hell. At every red light I use the time to question everything. This is too fast. We just got back. I should give us space. Every green light feels like the universe is giving me permission for this to happen.
I text him from the lobby.
I’m here.
Romeo
Tenth floor. Run.
The elevator is too slow. When the doors slide open he’s already there, leaning against the wall in low-slung sweats and that faded Puckaneers tee, hair a disaster, eyes bright like I just handed him the Stanley Cup.
“You came,” he says, soft, like he wasn’t sure I would.
“You asked,” I reply, like it’s that simple. Like all he has to do is tell me to come and I will.
He pulls me inside, kicks the door shut, and just… holds me. Arms tight around my shoulders, face buried in my hair, breathing me in like he’s been underwater for hours.
I press my face into his chest.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says against my hair. “Kept reaching for you and you weren’t there.”
“Me too. My apartment echoed.”
“Because you’re supposed to be here. With me.”
He’s right. I am. And I feel relief, happiness, and something else. Something bigger.
“That’s not an overnight bag, JuJu,” he says.
“It’s a few nights bag,” I correct, cheeks hot. “If you’re… cool with that.”
“I’m cool with that for approximately the next fifty years. Give or take.” He kisses my forehead. “Stay as long as you want.”
We leave my bag by the door and he leads me to his bedroom.
“What side do you usually sleep on?”
“Whichever side you’re not on.”
I roll my eyes but I’m smiling. “That’s cheesy.”
“You like it.”
I choose the left side and he slides in after me, pulling me against him.
“Better?” he murmurs against the nape of my neck.
The exhale I let out feels like the first real breath I’ve taken since the plane wheels touched down. “So much better.”
“JuJu?” he says after a while.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for coming over.”
“Thank you for asking.” I twist just enough to brush my lips over the inside of his wrist. “You know you basically love-bombed me into moving in on night one, right?”
“I would’ve shown up at your door with a boom box if you’d said no,” he admits, nuzzling into my hair. “Full John Cusack. Zero shame.”
“That’s really creepy.”
“I know. But I couldn’t spend another night without you.” His hand runs through my hair. “Is it insane that one week with you wrecked every other bed I’ve ever slept in?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “But same.”
He makes a low, happy sound and pulls me tighter, like he’s trying to fuse us together. Sleep drags us under still tangled, limbs heavy, hearts loud in the quiet.
“We need to leave in twenty minutes.”
Romeo’s voice pulls me out of sleep. Wrong bed. Wrong room.
Then I remember. I showed up at 11 PM because I couldn’t sleep without him.
“JuJu?” He’s in the doorway, already dressed. “You awake?”
“Unfortunately.”
“You don’t have to come with me,” he says. “You could stay here, sleep in—”
“I have work at ten. With Marnie.” I force myself to sit up. The sheet pools and Romeo’s eyes track the movement. I’m wearing his t-shirt and nothing else. “I should probably drive separately.”
“Or you could just come with me. Save gas.”
“Romeo—”
“We’re both going to the same place.”
He says it like it’s simple. Like we’re not about to announce to his entire team that we’re together.
“What if people notice?”
“Let them notice.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. “What are you worried about?”
Everything.