Page 57 of Depths of Desire
I looked up.
“Tell me you didn’t.”
His grin was boyish and proud. “I did. Right after you said their pancakes were the best you’d ever had. I figured, you know…might be cool to go back when we’re not stranded.”
I didn’t speak right away. My heart was doing that thing again—flipping over itself, getting ahead of the beat. I stared at the paper, at the bold black text and the little confirmation number at the bottom, and I didn’t know what to do with the fact that someone had thought this far ahead. That he had.
“I figured we could go after finals,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know you’ll be fried. I will, too. I thought…maybe we could unwind. Not think. Just be. Be before we have to get back into it. You have to train hard after. I have to visit family. It won’t be a pretty summer. But we can have this.”
He wasn’t asking for anything with it. Not commitment. Not promises.
Just time.
Just me.
I stepped forward and kissed him before I could think twice. Soft, slow, with my hands on either side of his face and something in my chest so swollen it nearly split me.
When we pulled apart, he laughed against my cheek. A low, breathless sound that made my skin tighten in the best way. “So I’m guessing that’s a yes?”
I didn’t let go. Just pressed my forehead to his and closed my eyes for a second, like that contact could steady the thrum in my chest. “It’s more than a yes,” I murmured.
Because it wasn’t just a lodge.
It wasn’t just nine nights.
It wasn’t just a scenic break from the weight of deadlines or drills.
It was him remembering every word, every detail, the exact curve of the moment that changed everything between us.
It was him wanting not a flash of affection, not a convenient stopgap for lust or loneliness, but something real, something longer than just now.
It was him saying, without saying, this mattered to me too.
And somehow, that landed harder than any love confession ever could.
He didn’t need to wrap it in poetry. He didn’t need to say it out loud. It was right there in his eyes, in his grin, in the envelope clutched between my fingers.
And yeah, I fell for him a little more that night.
Maybe more than a little.
Definitely more than a little.
SIXTEEN
LENNOX
Finals were creeping closer,the way shadows stretch longer in the late afternoon. You could feel it in everything: the air in the dorms, the edge in people’s voices, the tension hiding in hunched shoulders and heavy bags slung over backs. Even the vending machines started to look like they were bracing for impact. Energy drinks sold out by noon. Laptops ran hotter. Nobody smiled quite as easily.
But none of that touched me. Not really.
Because I was floating through life.
Not in the unbothered, detached way. Not like I didn’t care.
In the absurdly content, stupidly in-love way.
I’d never understood it before. How people could just float. How they could go through the hell of stress, deadlines, pressure, and still hum under their breath or grin at nothing. It used to annoy the hell out of me.
