Chapter 62 Girl Disappears Mid Rom-com
GIRL DISAPPEARS MID ROM-COM
Holly
“I wasn’t snooping. I was… emotionally temperature-checking his wardrobe.”
When Nate got back, they didn’t immediately speak about his mom, but she could tell he clocked the shift in her.
They sat across from each other over lukewarm coffee and Danish pastries in the courtyard of their charming hotel, a place with wrought-iron chairs and café chatter that made everything feel scenic but not always comfortable.
Nate’s voice was low when he brought it up, measured and careful as though not to break the fragile happiness they’d built the day before. “I’m sorry she ambushed us like that,” he said, eyes tracking the steam from his mug.
Holly didn’t let the bitterness show on her face. She’d mastered polite smile while dying inside years ago. It was practically a life skill at this point. “It’s okay,” she murmured, but her mind was already racing.
POV: me trying to live my blossoming love story but trauma keeps popping up like an unskippable ad.
As much as she tried to let it go, a tick of worry burrowed itself into her chest, where it settled with a disturbingly permanent vibe.
Nate reached out then, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead in a gesture that was both tender and utterly disarming. “We don’t have to talk about it today,” he said, voice soft like a promise and heavy like something unspoken.
She nodded, and for a few glittering seconds it felt like they were just two regular people in a pretty European café. Not a dancer with trust issues and a man with a family townhouse picketed with No-Dancers-Allowed signs.
Later, when he stepped into the shower, Holly was folding the silly scarf she’d bought him and thinking how absurdly alive and domestic and real it had felt to see him wear it.
She draped it over a chair like a token, proof that joy wasn’t always temporary.
That maybe love wasn’t just a bright flash you blinked and lost.
But then she saw his toiletries bag, unzipped on the bench. And wickedly tempting curiosity nudged her closer.
She told herself she was just looking for his toothpaste so she could borrow it, rummaging through the bag with a quiet, lazy intent. Then something small caught her eye, tucked into the corner of the bag as if it was trying to hide.
A box.
A small, pale blue box.
Her breath hitched before her brain caught up.
The box opened like a trapdoor in her chest to reveal a ring.
Simple, elegant, but positively loaded with implication.
Her vision narrowed, focus crystallizing on that circlet of metal like it was the only thing in the room. And all the air went out of her.
Not fear exactly. Something heavier. No. Not this.
She’d seen this scene before, to the point that her nervous system had the PTSD downloaded with automatic subtitles:
happy → hope → something that looks like forever → collapse
She’d danced her way through the streets of Copenhagen once before. She’d made headlines and risked her heart. It’d ended with inertia and abandonment, and a bench in Tivoli that still smelled vaguely of chestnuts and regret. Now this. A ring wasn’t just a promise.
She didn’t wait for him to step out of the shower and explain.
To say he wanted to build the future around her like a house made of chance and hope.
Fear had much better reflexes than hope, so she grabbed her hoodie and the scarf she’d bought him, and swathed herself in both before she vanished into the chilly Danish late afternoon.