The door clicks shut behind my mother, and the trailer shrinks to the size of a held breath.
Finn surveys the space, and I watch him register what I already know: the bed against the far wall is barely a full-size mattress, designed for one person who does not mind sleeping with their knees bent.
"You take the bed," he says, gesturing toward the armchair wedged into the corner near the window. "I will manage with the chair."
"Are you sure? That thing is older than I am, and the springs are basically decorative at this point." I shift my weight, acutely aware of the duffel bag at my feet and the absurdity of this entire situation. "I could take the chair instead."
"You are pregnant, Aubrey." He sounds like he has already made his decision. "So, no, you are not sleeping in a broken armchair while I take the bed. And that is the end of this discussion."
I nod because arguing feels like wasted energy, and exhaustion has settled into my bones with the weight of everything this day has demanded.
I dig through my duffel bag until my fingers close around the worn cotton of pajamas—an old set, faded from countless washes, soft in that way only truly ancient clothing manages to achieve.
"Turn around," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I expect.
He turns without comment, facing the window where moonlight is beginning to filter through the thin curtains. I turn too, giving him the same courtesy, and strip off my dress with fingers that feel clumsy against buttons and zippers.
The bra comes off because sleeping in underwire is a torture device I refuse to endure, and I pull the pajama top over my head. The shorts follow, and I take a breath.
"Okay," I say, turning around. "You can—" The word dies in my throat.
Finn has turned around, and his shirt is gone.
The moonlight catches the planes of his chest, the definition of muscle built from years of whatever discipline he maintains, and the sight of him lands somewhere below my sternum with an impact I am not prepared for.
Daniel never looked like this. Daniel's body was a thing I learned to navigate in the dark, familiar but never… this. Never this.
I swallow, and the sound seems impossibly loud in the small space.
His gaze moves over me, and I become suddenly, painfully aware of what I am wearing. The pajamas are thin, the fabric worn translucent in places by years of washing, and I am not wearing a bra anymore, which means he can see…
Oh, he can definitely see my nipples.
"I do not want wrinkles on the shirt in the morning, so…" he explains himself, and his expression carries something knowing that makes my cheeks burn.
"Right." My voice is too high. "That makes sense, of course."
Stop talking. Stop talking RIGHT NOW.
"Goodnight, Finn." I climb into the bed so fast I nearly tangle myself in the sheets, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
He nods once, and his hand finds the light switch. The room plunges into darkness, broken only by the moonlight streaming through the window, and I hear him settle into the armchair with a creak of protest from the ancient springs.
I should close my eyes. I should sleep. I should do anything except what I am currently doing, which is staring at the silhouette of halfnaked Finn Howell in my mother's armchair like I have lost all control of my own attention.
The bright moonlight falls across his torso in a stripe of silver, illuminating the ridges of his abdomen. I watch the slow rise and fall of his breathing and imagine what it would feel like to press my palm against that skin, to trace the lines of muscle with my fingertips…
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
I close my eyes, but the image remains, burned into the backs of my eyelids like a photograph I cannot delete.
The blanket grows heavier, trapping heat against my skin until I want to kick it off entirely. But I cannot do that, not with him sitting three feet away. Not when my pajamas hide nothing and my body has already betrayed me in every conceivable way.
I count breaths instead—his, then mine, then his again. The rhythm should be soothing, but each exhale reminds me that he is here, in this room, close enough to touch if I reach out my hand.
Minutes pass, or maybe hours, and my throat grows drier with each breath until the discomfort becomes unbearable.
I cough.
The sound rips through the quiet, and I clamp my hand over my mouth, but the damage is already done.
"Water?" His voice has changed—rougher at the edges, textured in a way I cannot quite identify.
"Yes, please."
The words escape before I can stop them, and I immediately regret everything about this moment. He rises from the chair, and I watch him cross to the small sink in the corner of the room.
His back is a landscape of shadow and light. The muscles shifting beneath his skin as he fills a glass, and I imagine my nails dragging down that expanse of flesh.
What is wrong with you, Aubrey?
He turns, and my gaze drops to the V-line that disappears beneath the waistband of his pants, and I cough again because my body has apparently decided to betray me in every possible way tonight.
The mattress dips as he sits beside me, and his proximity is a physical force—the warmth of his body radiating across the inches between us.
"Here." He holds out the glass, and I take it with fingers that tremble against the cool surface.
I drink without looking at him, focusing on the sensation of water sliding down my throat, willing my heartbeat to slow. Then his fingers brush my face, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, and my entire body lights up like a circuit completing.
The water goes down wrong.
I choke, gasping, and he takes the glass from my hands. His face is close now, close enough that I can see the concern gathering in his eyes.
"Are you okay?"
The question is soft and careful and I have no words. My lungs are doing that thing where they forget how to function, each breath coming shallow and fast, and I can feel the panic building in my chest like a wave I cannot outrun.
His hand closes around mine, and the contact stops everything. My breath, my thoughts, the spiral of hyperventilation that was building toward something uncontrollable.
Our eyes meet.
He is too close. He is too much. He is everything I have ever wanted and everything I have spent a decade convincing myself I could not have.
"I need air." The words tear out of me, and I am moving before I finish speaking—throwing off the blanket, crossing the room, bursting through the door and into the night without stopping for shoes.
The grass is cool beneath my bare feet, and the May air wraps around me with the promise of relief I desperately need. I walk until the trailer is behind me, until I can breathe without feeling like I am drowning in my own want.
Then I hear his footsteps on the grass.
I stop walking and wrap my arms around myself, holding my own body like I might fall apart if I let go.
"Aubrey…"
"Finn, please don't..." My voice breaks on the words, and I know with absolute certainty that if he does not leave, I will surrender.
"Why not?"
The question hangs in the air between us, simple and devastating.
Why not?
I turn to face him, and the moonlight catches his features—the concern, the want, the patience of a man who has waited ten years and refuses to walk away now.
Really, why the hell not?