Tess
I wake up in a cabinthat’snot mine, on a rugthat’snot mine, against the side of a man who is.
That last settles in before I’m awake enough to censor it.
The fire has burned down tocoals, andthe air is cold against my face. Sullivan’s body is hot against my side, and his arm is around me in a way that makes me suspect hedidn’tput it there willingly while awake.He’sbreathing slow and deep, the breath of a man who has slept hard. Outside, the wind has dropped. The storm is over.
I don’t move.
I want to memorize this.I want to remember the weight of his arm across my ribs, the smell of him this close—pine and woodsmoke and that specific castile soap, with something underneath it that’s just himandwarm, sleeping man. I want to relish the impossible novelty of being held in a cabin, on a rug, by a man who does not, when sleeping, look like he is being haunted.
He stirs, and his arm tightens instinctively, then loosens.
“Hey,” I whisper.
“Hey,” he says roughly into my hair.
“You snored.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You snored a little.”
“That’s slander.”
“I was here for it.”
He laughs. The laugh is in his chest where my cheek is, and itmeltsinto my bones as itgoes through me.
He pulls to look down at me. His eyes are sleepy andunguarded,the pale gray of them soft at the edges.Hisbeard is mussed, and the corner of his mouth is doing the geological thing again, onlythis time, it’swinning.
“Tess.”
“Mm?”
“Are you?—”
“I’m okay.”
“Cabin’ll be a project.”
“It was already a project.”
“Moreof a project.”
I tip my chin up at him.“You were going to dig out my stand mixer personally.”
“I will.”
“Okay.”
We’reboth whispering,and I have no idea why.
Sullivan’sgaze dropstomy mouth,his jaw tight.Hisfingerscurl atmy waist.I feel the secondhe makes the decisionbecause he wasn’t going to and now he is, and something in me has been waiting since the porch step, since the Tupperware, since the first time he said“ma’am”to me likehe was erecting a wall.
I lift my hand to his cheek. His beard is softer than I thought it would be.
“Sullivan,” I whisper.
