Chapter Six | Quiet Moments (His Perspective)
I didn’t mean to hug her.
Not really. Not like that.
It just happened—like some kind of muscle memory I didn’t even know I had. Like something inside me took over for a second and whispered, Here. Now. Do it.
And the second she folded into me—rested her head against my chest, gripped the back of my shirt like she’d been holding onto that moment for years—I almost regretted it.
Because it made everything real.
Too real.
And I’m not good at real.
Now I was sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, pretending to scroll through my phone while watching her in the corner of my vision. She was wiping at her face discreetly, tucking herself back into that version of her that smiled too much and made everything sound like it didn’t hurt.
God, what am I doing?
I didn’t know. Not really. I hadn’t planned any of this—not showing up, not hugging her, not sitting in this weird, suspended space where we kept pretending we were just friends while carrying all this heat under our skin.
But the truth is, I think I always knew it would come to this.
She made a joke. Something about being my Uber driver. I laughed—kind of. It came out like a sigh more than anything. My chest still felt too full. My pulse hadn’t slowed since the airport.
“Dude, I’m hungry,” I said. Easy. Safe. Automatic.
She cracked something back about going to Target and going down on her, and I gave her the look—the one that always made her roll her eyes and blush like she hated it but secretly didn’t.
She was so effortless. Just… her. And that’s what killed me.
I’ve met a lot of people. Been in a lot of rooms. But no one else made silence feel like something to hold on to. No one else made me want to take off the mask. She cracked through my quiet.
She took me to some little burger place. Random. Slightly grimy. No frills. She didn’t even try to sell it as something special—and weirdly, that made me like it more. She wasn’t trying to impress me. She never had to try.
Across the table, I watched her watching me when she thought I wasn’t looking. Chin in her palm, lips twitching like she was trying not to laugh or confess something or maybe both.
She didn’t realize how loud she was, even when she wasn’t saying a word.
Back in the car, she kept up the jokes. That was her thing—humor as a shield. I saw right through it, even when I laughed with her.
“Where to now, sir?” she said, still playing the part.
I looked over at her. And it hit me—right in the center of my chest.
This wasn’t just a drive.
This wasn’t just a stopover.
This was the edge.
“The hotel,” I said, and I heard it come out weird. Like I didn’t want to say it. Like I was waiting for her to tell me not to go. Like maybe I was hoping she would.
She didn’t flinch. Just raised an eyebrow and turned toward the road, tossing another joke out to cover the crack.
“I expect a big tip.”
I almost told her right then.
Told her I shouldn’t be here. That it was reckless. That she was the only person who made me feel like there was another version of me buried underneath all the shit—one I might actually like.
But I didn’t.
Of course I didn’t.
Because if I said that… then what?
We’d both tried so damn hard to be good. To stay in our lanes. To respect the boundaries, the other people, the routines. To live fully in the separate lives we were supposed to be content with.
But she was the chapter I kept rereading.
She was home and danger at the same time.
I turned my head to the window, leaned it against the glass, and let my eyes close for a second. I wasn’t tired in the way sleep fixes. I was tired of not knowing what to do with everything that lived between us.
She was so close. Inches away. Driving me to a hotel like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t just unraveled me with one look—and that damn hug.
I opened my eyes.
She was focused on the road. Hands steady. Calm. But her mouth was twitching at the corners, like she was trying to hold something back.
And I knew.
Whatever she was hiding, I was hiding it too.
This wasn’t just tension.
It was timing.
And timing had never been on our side.
I wanted to reach over and say something. Anything. Break the spell. Name it. Call it what it was.
But I didn’t.
Because if I did—if I really said what I was thinking—I don’t know if either of us would be able to come back from it.
And the scariest part?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
