19. The One-Bed Error
The One-Bed Error
SLOANE
The Lakeside Lodge is exactly the kind of place people go to pretend they aren't dying inside from corporate burnout. It smells like cedar, overpriced campfire candles, and the desperate optimism of a thousand trust-building exercises. Outside, the lake is a flat, grey sheet of glass reflecting a sky that looks like it’s about to start weeping, which makes two of us.
"It’s rustic," Cooper says, hauling my oversized suitcase out of the trunk of his SUV as if it weighs nothing at all.
He looks entirely too comfortable in a cream-colored cable knit sweater that makes him look like a very handsome, very sturdy lighthouse.
"Rustic is good for the soul, Sloane. I read that in a journal once. Or maybe it was a Pinterest board."
"Rustic is code for 'no cell service and shared bathrooms,'" I say, clutching my work bag like a shield. My pulse is doing that annoying, erratic skip it always does when I’m around him for more than ten minutes without a microphone between us.
"The soul doesn't need pine needles, Cooper.
It needs high-speed internet and the ability to lock a door. "
He laughs, that low, easy sound that usually makes me want to roll my eyes but currently just makes the hair on my arms stand up.
He’s been like this since he watched Milo for me—softer, steadier, like he’s decided he’s part of the furniture in my life and I just haven't noticed the delivery yet. It’s terrifying.
We walk toward the main lodge, my boots crunching on the gravel in a jagged rhythm that contrasts with his smooth, athletic stride.
The air is sharp enough to sting, a reminder that we’re three hours north of the city and light years away from the controlled environment of Studio B.
Here, there are no soundproof walls to keep the world out.
The retreat coordinator is a woman named Brenda who looks like she’s been living on a diet of granola and pure stress.
She’s standing behind a heavy oak desk, frantically clicking a pen while she stares at a clipboard.
When she sees us, her expression shifts from frantic to apologetic in a way that immediately sets off my internal alarm system.
"Donovan and Ellis," I say, my voice dropping into the 'no-nonsense' register. "We’re here for the NovaWave check-in. Two cabins. Preferably on opposite sides of the lake. Or different continents."
Brenda winces. It’s a small, sharp movement, the kind a person makes right before they tell you your flight has been canceled and the only other option is a bus through a blizzard.
"Ms. Donovan," she starts, and her voice has that high, thin quality of someone who has been coached by Rhea Saye. "There’s been a bit of a... logistical hiccup. A booking error with the lodge's central system. It seems we’re over capacity for the private cabins."
I feel the familiar tightening in my chest, the one that usually precedes me dismantling someone's argument piece by piece. "A logistical hiccup. At a mandatory retreat planned six months in advance by a department that weaponizes logistics for sport. How fascinating."
"I’m so sorry," Brenda says, not looking me in the eye. "But we’ve had to consolidate. Most of the junior producers are in the bunkhouse, and the executive suites are full. The only remaining space is Cabin 14. It’s... well, it’s a shared unit."
Cooper shifts beside me. I can feel the heat radiating off him, a warm front meeting my cold, icy front. "Shared?" he asks, his voice remarkably calm. "As in, two bedrooms?"
Brenda’s pen clicks. Click-click. Click-click. "As in, one bedroom. And a loft with a pull-out sofa. Although, I’ve been told the loft heater is currently being repaired."
Silence falls over the desk, heavy and thick as the lake mist. I can practically see the oily fingerprints of Rhea Saye and Graham Voss all over this 'error.' It’s not a mistake; it’s a controlled demolition of our boundaries.
They want the friction. They want the 'flirtatious rivalry' to stop being a performance and start being a liability they can sell.
They want the 'flirtatious rivalry' to stop being a performance and start being a liability they can sell. They’re putting us in a jar and shaking it to see if we’ll bite.
"One bed," I repeat, my voice flat. "You’re telling me the network is forcing its two lead anchors to sleep in the same room because of a software glitch."
"It’s the only cabin left, Ms. Donovan. Unless you’d like to join the sales team in the yurt? I hear they’ve already started the tequila tasting."
I look at Cooper. He’s staring at the floor, his jaw tight. He doesn't look like he’s enjoying the prospect of my 'grumpy' brand being three feet away from him at 2:00 AM. In fact, he looks remarkably like a man who is trying very hard not to think about what I look like when I’m sleeping.
"I'll take the yurt," I say. "I can handle sales reps. I’ve interviewed cult leaders; the energy is remarkably similar."
"The yurt has a hole in the roof, Sloane," Cooper says quietly, finally looking up. His eyes are dark, focused on me with an intensity that makes my stomach flip. "And it’s going to drop to thirty degrees tonight. Don't be a martyr for the sake of a floor plan. We’re adults. We can handle a cabin."
"It’s not the cabin I’m worried about, Cooper. It’s the fact that Rhea is probably watching us on a hidden trail cam right now, waiting for us to trip and fall into a compromising position."
"Let her watch," he says, taking the key from Brenda’s trembling hand. "I’m tired, I’m cold, and I’m not letting you freeze in a tent just so Graham can feel like he won a round of corporate chess. Let’s go."
Cabin 14 is tucked away at the end of a winding dirt path, isolated by a thick stand of pines that look like they’re whispering secrets about us.
It’s small—dangerously small. Inside, there is a stone fireplace, a tiny kitchenette, and exactly one door leading to a bedroom that I already know is going to be the death of my resolve.
Cooper sets my suitcase down by the sofa. The loft is just a wooden platform with a ladder, looking about as inviting as a shelf in a walk-in freezer. The 'broken' heater is a metal unit in the corner that is currently emitting a soft, mocking hiss of cold air.
"I'll take the sofa," he says immediately, not even looking at the bedroom. "I’m the intruder here. I’ve slept on worse during away games in college. This is basically a luxury suite compared to a Greyhound bus."
"You’re six-foot-three, Cooper. Your legs will be hanging off that thing by a foot. You'll wake up with a permanent kink in your neck and I’ll have to listen to you complain about it on air for the next three years."
"I don't complain," he says, a small, teasing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I provide 'constructive feedback on my physical environment.'"
"Right. And I provide 'unfiltered truth.
' The truth is, this is a disaster." I walk into the bedroom. The bed is massive, a vast continent of down and woolly Hudson’s Bay blankets.
It looks soft. It looks warm. It looks like the kind of place where professional boundaries go to be buried in a shallow grave.
I stand there, staring at the pillows. My mind is a frantic loop of 'don't notice him' and 'he’s right there.
' I can hear him moving in the other room, the sound of his jacket zipping, the heavy thud of his boots as he kicks them off.
Every sound feels amplified, intimate in a way that makes my skin feel too tight for my body.
He appears in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the frame. He’s taken off the sweater, leaving him in a charcoal henley that I have decided should be illegal in all fifty states. It clings to his shoulders, highlighting the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.
"Sloane," he says. Just my name. It sounds different here—less like a professional address and more like a secret.
"If you say 'everything happens for a reason,' Cooper, I will actually throw you into the lake."
"I wasn't going to say that," he says, his voice dropping an octave. He walks toward me, his movements slow and deliberate, like he’s approaching a cornered animal. "I was going to say that you look like you’re waiting for the floor to open up and swallow you. It’s just a room. We’ve spent eighteen hours a day together for weeks. This is just... more of that."
"It isn't," I whisper. He’s standing too close now. I can smell the cold air clinging to him, mixed with that scent that is uniquely Cooper—something like sandalwood and the ink of a new notebook. "In the studio, I have a console. I have a script. I have a role to play. Here, I’m just... me. And you’re just you. And that’s the problem. "
He reaches out, his hand hovering near my arm before he catches himself and pulls back.
The almost-touch is worse than the actual contact would have been; it leaves a vacuum of heat in the air between us.
I watch the way his knuckles tension, the way he looks at my mouth for a split second before his gaze snaps back to my eyes.
"Maybe 'just you' is the part I’ve been trying to get to this whole time," he says. There’s no sunshine in his voice now. It’s raw, honest, and stripped of all the professional polish he uses to charm the world. "Maybe I’m tired of the script too, Sloane."
He turns and walks back to the main room before I can find a way to dismantle that sentence.
I’m left standing in the center of a room I’m supposed to share with a man who just admitted he wants to see behind my mask, while the wind begins to howl against the cabin walls, sounding remarkably like a warning I’m about to ignore.
I sit on the edge of the bed, the wool scratching against my palms. My heart is a trapped bird, frantic and foolish, hammering against the cage of my ribs.
I’m a woman who built a career on spotting the lie, on finding the hidden motive in every gesture.
But as I listen to Cooper humming to himself in the other room—a quiet, steady sound that feels like a tether—I realize the biggest lie I’ve told lately is the one where I said I didn't want him to stay.
The lodge might have made a booking error, but the real mistake is mine.
I thought I could survive this retreat with my defenses intact.
I thought I could keep him at a distance if the walls were made of wood instead of glass.
But as the temperature drops and the silence of the woods settles over us, I realize that distance is the only thing we don't have left.