Chapter Text
I wake to sunlight pouring through the blinds and Conrad’s hand resting on my bare hip, heavy and warm and completely still.
It’s 8:03 a.m.
We were supposed to be on the road an hour ago. If we leave now, we might beat some of the traffic heading up to Cousins. But if we wait, if I give in to the comfort of this bed and the softness of his body against mine, we’ll be crawling up the coast behind every minivan headed to Cape Cod and every dad driving fifteen under the speed limit.
Still, I don’t move.
He must’ve come in while I was sleeping. I didn’t hear the door or the quiet shuffle of his keys. Didn’t feel him change or slide into bed. He’s careful like that. Thoughtful, especially when he’s working nights and I’m not. Sometimes I wake up and he’s already gone again. But not today.
Today, he’s here.
And today is my birthday.
I shift slightly, just enough to roll onto my back. Conrad sleeps like he’s been fighting something—half-curled, jaw slack, one hand still gripping the sheet like it might float away without him. His stubble has grown in, rough along the line of his jaw, and I like it on him. A lot. It makes him look older, more tired, more real. I trace the shape of him with my eyes. The slope of his nose, the mess of curls pushed off his forehead, the barely-there shadows under his eyes.
He looks beautiful.
And exhausted.
I should let him sleep. He probably got in around four, maybe five. His residency program has been unrelenting this month. Between that and my dissertation defense prep, we’ve barely touched each other all week. Passing like ghosts in the hall. Reaching for the same mug in the cabinet and calling it intimacy.
This weekend is for us. No beepers. No lectures. No schedules. Just the house, the beach, and enough time to remember who we are when it’s quiet.
I brush my fingers gently through his hair. He hums, low and soft, and his eyes crack open, bleary and slow.
“Hey,” he says, voice rough with sleep.
“Hi.”
He blinks at me for a long moment like he’s trying to decide whether this is a dream.
Then he smiles. “Happy birthday, Belly.”
I melt. I always do.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
His hand slides from my hip to my waist. “What time is it?”
“Late.”
“Define late.”
“Past eight.”
He groans and buries his face in my neck. “We missed the traffic window, didn’t we?”
“Yep.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You needed sleep.”
“I need you more.”
My heart does something soft and ridiculous. I roll my eyes. “You’re corny.”
“Still true.”
He kisses the curve of my neck, slow and unhurried. His hand skims under the hem of my shirt—his shirt, technically—and settles low on my stomach. I close my eyes as he kisses me again, this time on my collarbone, then higher. When his mouth finally finds mine, it’s sleepy and warm and familiar.
I kiss him back, and it deepens quickly. His fingers flex against my skin, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us. His mouth opens against mine, tongue slow and teasing. My whole body wakes up all at once.
He shifts over me, one hand cradling my face, the other sliding lower. He kisses me like he’s been starving for it. And maybe he has been. I know I have.
I moan into his mouth, arching into him. His hand slides beneath my underwear, and I gasp as his fingers slip against me, warm and practiced and perfect.
“Quick,” I breathe against his jaw. “We have to be quick.”
He nods, but doesn’t answer, because his mouth is back on mine, and his fingers are moving in slow, devastating circles that make my legs tremble. I grip his wrist, not to stop him but to keep myself anchored.
We don’t talk much when we have sex. Not in the mornings. Not like this.
It’s all touch and breath and heat.
I come quickly—too quickly—biting down on his shoulder to muffle the sound. He groans softly, watching me unravel beneath him, and I know that look in his eyes. He’s not done.
He glances at the clock. “At this rate, we’ll get to Cousins by dinner.”
“I don’t care,” I whisper, tugging him back down to kiss me.
He laughs against my mouth. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He kisses me again, and then he’s shifting on top of me, rolling his hips as I push his boxers down. I feel him hard against my thigh, and my breath catches when I wrap my legs around his waist. His skin is warm, smooth over muscle, and I run my hands down his back, pressing him closer until there’s nothing between us.
His weight settles over me, anchoring and electric all at once. I tilt my hips up instinctively, a silent invitation, and he groans low in his throat as he slides into me. My mouth parts. My eyes flutter shut. Every nerve in my body lights up, hypersensitive from the way he touched me earlier, and now this—this slow, full stretch, this perfect rhythm of him moving inside me.
He buries his face in my neck, breath warm and uneven, and I grip his shoulders, needing something to hold onto. Our bodies fall into the same rhythm they always do—familiar, unhurried, all friction and heat and the kind of quiet intensity that only comes from being with someone who knows you completely.
I arch into him, meeting every thrust, and he moves deeper, steadier, hands braced on either side of my head. My nails press into his back as pleasure coils low in my belly again, sharp and insistent. It’s never just physical with him. It’s always more. Like our bodies are having a conversation without words, and every thrust is another sentence I’ll never forget.
His pace shifts—slower, deeper—and the angle hits something inside me that makes my breath stutter. I cling to him, mouth open against his shoulder, moaning into his skin as another wave builds. I can feel the tension in his back, the control in his arms, the way his hips roll in a way that makes my eyes roll back.
We’re not in a rush. But we’re not dragging it out either. It’s the kind of sex that feels greedy and reverent at the same time. Like we’re making up for all the moments we didn’t have this week. All the late nights apart. All the missed touches, the near-kisses. All the ways we’ve been orbiting around each other and not colliding.
Now we are.
And it’s everything.
I bite my lip, hold his gaze as he lifts his head, and he brushes his thumb across my cheek like he can feel how close I am again. My thighs tighten around him. My back arches off the bed. My whole body locks up with pleasure as I come again, trembling beneath him, clenching around him so tightly I feel his rhythm falter.
He groans—low and broken—and follows a second later, his whole body tensing as he spills into me, burying his face in my neck again, one hand gripping my hip like it’s the only thing tethering him to the earth.
We stay like that for a moment. Breathing each other in.
Our skin damp. His chest heavy against mine. My fingers tangled in the curls at the back of his neck, still catching my breath.
There’s nothing but the hum of the city beyond the window and the sound of our hearts slowing down together.
This—this moment right here—is why we’re always coming back to each other.
Because nothing else feels like this.
By the time he rolls off me, the sheet is twisted around our legs and his hand is still on my waist, fingers draped across the dip of my hip like he’s not ready to let go just yet.
I stay curled into him for a moment, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in sync with his. It’s one of those silences that hums with everything we didn’t say out loud—want, need, you feel like home. There’s no rush. No noise.
Eventually, I slip out from under the covers, press a kiss to his shoulder, and whisper, “My turn.”
He hums something incoherent and flops back onto the pillows, fully spent and grinning like a man who has no regrets about ruining our on-time departure.
The water’s warm, but not hot, and I don’t linger. Just enough to rinse off, smooth some moisturizer over my shoulders, pull my hair up in a loose twist. The air smells like the lemongrass soap we both use, like the beginning of summer and fresh skin and something new.
Back in the bedroom, the sunlight has shifted. Conrad’s out of bed now, probably in the kitchen scrounging for snacks, humming something under his breath while pretending he doesn’t like the playlist I made for the car ride.
I drop my towel and pull on the dress I picked out last night—white cotton, soft and worn-in, with thin straps and a delicate lace trim. The kind of thing that floats around my thighs when I walk. The kind of dress I used to wear just to look pretty, but now I wear because it feels like me.
Conrad likes it. I know because he always reaches for the hem when I’m near him, like he can’t help it. I think he likes the ease of it. Or maybe just the way it slips off at the end of the day.
I pad barefoot across the room, finishing packing my to-go bag—book, sunglasses, a little pouch of jewelry, sunscreen, the lotion he says smells like sunshine—and start looking for my charger. It’s never where I left it. Mostly because he steals it every time his starts acting up and then swears mine was already in his bag.
Typical Conrad.
I move toward his dresser, tug the top drawer open.
There it is. Tangled around his headphones.
And right next to it: a ring box.
Square. Velvet. Navy blue.
My breath catches.
I freeze. The whole world narrows to that one tiny object sitting there like it belongs.
I don’t touch it. I don’t open it. I just stare, my pulse thudding loud in my ears, the air suddenly thinner in the room. It’s not a question. Not a maybe.
It’s a ring.
My charger dangles forgotten from my fingers. I close the drawer gently like I’m afraid the sound might wake the truth inside it.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, heart thudding, hand pressed to my mouth.
He’s going to ask me to marry him.
And I want him to.
I want him to so badly it feels like the air’s been pulled out of the room and replaced with something softer and heavier all at once. I think of his hand on my back in the middle of the night, the way he touches me like I’m precious and real and his. I think of the way he always double-checks that the oven is off, or pulls my feet into his lap on the couch without thinking.
I think of this life we made, four years after coming home from everything. Boston, with its messy kitchens and early alarms and paper coffee cups stacked in the sink. The friends we see too little. The family we call too late. The work we care too much about. All of it. The whole chaotic, beautiful thing.
And Conrad.
Conrad, who still leaves notes in the fridge when he misses me. Conrad, who always smells like cedar and sea salt and something clean and sleepy. Conrad, who calls me “Isabel” under his breath like it’s a prayer he’s not ready to say out loud.
I want to marry him.
God, I want to say yes.
Before I can even catch my breath, I hear the bathroom door creak open.
He walks out, towel slung low on his hips, curls damp and pushed back, cheeks flushed from the steam. There’s a single droplet trailing down from his jaw to his collarbone, and I watch it with laser focus like it’s easier than meeting his eyes.
“Hey,” he says, voice still scratchy. “What’re you doing?”
I swallow the smile that threatens to break across my face. “Looking for my charger.”
He eyes me. “That’s all?”
I nod quickly. “Uh-huh.”
“Not snooping in my drawers or anything?”
I raise my brows, playing it cool. “Should I be?”
He smiles, toweling off his hair. “No reason.”
I try not to stare at the slope of his back as he turns, or the way his abs flex when he reaches for a T-shirt. He ends up in a black knit polo and khaki pants that hit just right at the waist, rolled once at the ankle. He wears them like he doesn’t care about how good he looks. Like it’s just what he pulled on.
This version of him—the clean, coastal, quietly put-together Conrad—is my favorite. Not because it’s polished, but because it feels like he knows who he is now. And because I get to be the one who knows him best.
He glances at me once he’s dressed, tugs the hem of his shirt down, and tilts his head. “You’re still smiling.”
“It’s my birthday.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Maybe I’m just really happy.”
He narrows his eyes, walks over, and kisses my forehead like he can taste whatever secret I’m keeping.
And maybe he can.
Maybe he already knows I know.
Maybe that was the plan all along.
I follow him out to the kitchen, heart still racing, charger in one hand, bag over my shoulder. He’s humming something off-key again, throwing protein bars into the cooler like we’re heading off on a road trip that has no destination.
And maybe we are.
But I know where we’ll end up.
And I can’t wait for forever.