“That was the worst possible time for it, yes.”
He picked up his phone and set it face down. “We don’t need the list.”
“Bring the bakery idea, though. That part was good.”
“Bakery stays.” The corner of his mouth moved. “We could’ve just said that part.”
“I know.” I squeezed his hand. “We’re getting better at this.”
“Faster every time.”
We finished the dishes. The kitchen smelled like rice and a thing that almost went sideways and didn’t.
Thursday, movie night with The Inner Circle. Ellis was actually there. He folded into the group like he’d always been part of it, sitting on the floor with his back against my legs, laughing at Calliope’s running commentary during the horror movie, passing the popcorn bowl to Ravenwithout being asked. Lauren asked him about his houseplant collection, and they talked soil pH for twenty minutes while the rest of us pretended to understand perlite.
At one point, Sierra caught my eye from across the room. She raised her eyebrows. I knew what she was asking.
I nodded. Saturday. We were doing this.
She nodded back. That was all we needed.
Friday night, Ellis slept at my place. We lay in the dark, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing absent patterns on my shoulder.
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
“Terrified.”
“You don’t sound terrified.”
“I’m doing my quiet panic thing, seem totally calm, but internally I’m running through every possible scenario including your mother chasing me down the block with a chancleta.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“She wouldn’t chase you. She’d… look at you. And trust me, the look is worse.”
“I’ve met your look. I survived.”
“My look is nothing compared to hers. I inherited maybe thirty percent of her disapproval face. She operates at full capacity.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Whatever happens tomorrow, I’m glad we’re doing this. Together.”
“Together,” I repeated. The word tasted different now. Heavier. More real.
I barely slept. But Ellis radiated warmth, his heartbeat stayed steady under my ear, and sometimes that carried you through the night.
Around three in the morning, I came fully awake. The city hummed outside. Ellis hadn’t moved, still warm, still even. Everything exactly right.
And the thought arrived, unbidden:what if this is as good as it gets?
Not as a threat. Just a quiet, animal fear. The kind that showed up when things were too good and your body, trained on years of loss, started scanning for the catch. He was going to wake up and realize he’d made a mistake. Or my mom was going to open that door and say something that couldn’t be unsaid. Or we’d make it through all of it and find something smaller waiting on the other side, something ordinary and corrosive the big dramatic stuff had been covering up this whole time.
Ellis shifted in his sleep. His arm tightened around me, automatic, like even unconscious he knew I was in my head.
I pressed my face into his shoulder. Breathed. Cedar, sleep, and the warmth of someone who had stayed.
The fear didn’t go away. It just got smaller, held against something real. Small enough that I could put it in my pocket and carry it instead of letting it carry me.
I closed my eyes and finally drifted back to sleep.
