Page 49 of The Cuddle Clause
She burst out laughing. Snort-laughing. Doubling over like she couldn’t breathe as I stood there, shirtless and covered in koi water and humiliated chivalry.
“This brunch is cursed,” I muttered.
Maggie just laughed harder.
And God help me, I wanted her even more.
The guest bathroomon this floor had eight gray floor tiles across and twelve down. I knew that because I’d been counting them for ten minutes. Over and over. Maybe if I memorized the layout of the grout lines, I could convince my nervous system to shut up.
I paced back and forth, headphones in, volume on loud. I kept the filtered wind and rain sounds saved on my playlist for emergencies. This counted.
I was officially absolutely overstimulated.
Too many people. Too much movement. Every brush of fabric or handshake had layered static into my skin until I wanted to claw it all off. The collar on the shirt I’d borrowed from Lucien after the fiasco with Seraphina was too tight andfelt like a straitjacket. My jaw ached from clenching, the throb radiating through my molars.
I’d done everything right—made eye contact, smiled at the right moments, shook hands, told the jokes, hit the lines. Played the part down to the last detail. Hell, I even saved Seraphina from the koi pond, for fuck’s sake.
Years of practice had made me damn near surgical in my ability to mask and maneuver through social interaction. I never let my discomfort bleed out far enough to make anyone else uneasy. I’d learned to swallow it, to store the fallout for when I could deal with it alone.
But sometimes, the mask slipped. It didn’t happen often, but enough to remind me I was still human under all the polish.
Tonight, I was just glad I’d gotten out before the cracks showed. Before I made a scene.
Just twenty more minutes, and I could shift and run. Get this suit off, get rid of this fake calm. Twenty minutes and I could drop the mask and breathe.
I stopped pacing and pressed my back to the wall, hands flexing open and closed at my sides. I rubbed my thumb along the grout seam again and again. Counted the tile edges with my eyes. Breathed in for four. Held for seven. Exhaled for four.
It wasn’t working.
The violin music from the main room leaked in through the wall like a taunt. I pressed the volume button twice on my headphones, and it blocked out the world a little better. Still not enough.
The door creaked open. I flinched. The sound hit me wrong—too sharp, too sudden. But then I saw Maggie.
No click of heels. No overly bright expression or worried cooing. Just her calm eyes that didn’t try to dissect me. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask the wrong questions. Didn’t crowd me or flinch or freeze like most people do when they findthe weird shifter hiding in the bathroom having a meltdown mid-event.
She sat down cross-legged on the cold tile and offered me the tiniest smile. Then, barely audible under the static in my headphones, she started humming a low, steady sound that was more like a heartbeat made into music than a melody.
Something about it anchored me. My lungs found a rhythm. The tightness in my chest eased.
I sank down slowly, my back sliding down the wall until I was sitting beside her. She didn’t react. Didn’t fill the silence. Didn’t try to make it anything it wasn’t.
I felt the static lift, bit by bit. It didn’t vanish completely, but it became more manageable.
We sat like that for what could’ve been five minutes or five hours. Time got fuzzy when I wasn’t spinning. Eventually, I let my body relax just enough that my shoulder brushed hers. Maggie shifted slightly so our arms touched.
The relief that bloomed in my chest was like stepping into warmth after hours in the cold.
My voice surprised me when it came out. Low. Rough. Honest in a way that made my ribs ache. “I’m sorry about earlier, Maggie.”
She didn’t even blink. “Neither of us have a guidebook for this, Roman. But we’ll figure it out together.”
That cracked something open. I pressed my forehead to my knees, breathing slowly, deeply.
She didn’t move.
She didn’t leave.
Her presence filled the space without pressing on it. She didn’t fix me. She didn’t have to. Her being next to me was enough.
