The cabin hummed. Not loud—just there, the engine's low thrum threading through the pine walls like a second heartbeat. The lamp on the shelf cast its amber glow across the tangled sheets, catching the curve of Maya's shoulder, the damp dark of her hair against the pillow. She was still breathing hard. So was I.

Her fingers moved against mine, lacing tighter, and I felt each one settle into the spaces between my own. Her thumb pressed into my palm. Not tentative. Not asking. Just there, like she'd decided something while I was still trying to find words.

I could feel Christian's presence before I looked at him—a weight in the shadows near the headboard, his breathing slow and deliberate, the way it gets when he's watching something he doesn't want to interrupt. Jade lay on Maya's other side, her hand resting on Maya's arm, her thumb tracing slow circles against the skin. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Maya's face, reading something there I couldn't see.

Maya turned her head. Her eyes found mine in the low light, dark and steady, no hurry in them. She'd been waiting three years for this night. Now that it was here, she wasn't going to rush it.

My phone buzzed against the nightstand. A faint vibration I felt more than heard, the screen lighting up for a second before going dark again. I didn't have to look to know it wasn't Bella. She hadn't answered in four calls. She wasn't going to answer a fifth.

Maya's gaze didn't move. She'd noticed the phone. She'd noticed me noticing it. But she didn't ask, didn't glance at the screen, didn't let the moment fracture. Her fingers just tightened around mine again, pulling my attention back to her like a line drawn through water.

"You don't have to say it." Her voice was low, almost swallowed by the engine hum. She shifted closer, her lips brushing the shell of my ear, her breath warm and unsteady. "Just show me you're here."

The words landed somewhere in my chest, low and heavy. Show me you're here. Not tell me you want me. Not promise me anything. Just show me you're here. It was the smallest ask in the world, and somehow the hardest one I'd heard in years.

I turned my hand under hers, palm to palm, and pressed. Her pulse jumped against my fingers—rapid, alive. She felt it too. I watched her throat move as she swallowed.

Christian shifted on the bed. I caught the movement from the corner of my eye—the lean of his body against the headboard, the way his hand had gone still on the sheet. He was watching us with that quiet, calculating stillness of his, but there was something else in it now. Something softer. Almost like he was holding his breath.

Jade's thumb stopped its tracing. She looked up at Christian, then at me, and a small, knowing smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.

Maya's hand slid from mine, up my wrist, over the inside of my forearm. Her fingers left a trail of heat on skin still damp from the night. She traced the line of muscle, the pulse at my inner elbow, the faint scar on my knuckle I'd forgotten I had. She was learning me. Not the way a woman does when she's trying to impress you. The way she does when she's trying to remember you.

"You've got a lot of miles on you," she murmured, her thumb pressing the scar. "I can feel them."

"Forty-one years' worth."

"That's not what I mean." She looked up at me, her eyes catching the lamplight. "You carry it in your hands. The way you move. Like you're always bracing for something."

I didn't have an answer for that. She wasn't wrong.

Christian let out a slow breath. "She's got your number, mate." His voice was dry, but there was no edge to it. Just tired, maybe. Or something close to it. "Took her one night to see what the rest of us have been dancing around for a decade."

Jade's smile widened. She rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand, looking at Christian with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Maybe that's the difference. I've been watching you two from the audience for years. She's been waiting in the wings."

Maya didn't react to the compliment. She just kept looking at me, her fingers still moving on my skin, slow and deliberate, like she had all the time in the world and none of it was wasted on me.

My phone buzzed again. This time it was louder, the vibration skittering against the wood of the nightstand. I felt the pull to look—the old reflex, the need to know who was reaching for me, what I was missing, who I needed to answer. It was the same reflex that had me texting three women while complaining to Christian that none of them got me. The same reflex that had me calling Bella four times after she'd already told me she needed space.

Maya's hand closed over my wrist. Not hard. Just enough to bring my attention back.

"It can wait," she said. "Whatever it is. It can wait."

The words sat in the air between us. I knew she wasn't just talking about the phone. She was talking about everything I carried into this room—the unanswered calls, the guilt, the restlessness that never quite left me alone. She was telling me that none of it had to follow me here.

I didn't know if that was true. But I wanted it to be.

I shifted, my hand sliding from her hip to the small of her back, pulling her closer. The movement was slow, deliberate, the kind of thing you do when you're not trying to prove anything, just trying to be somewhere. Her body curved into mine like she'd been waiting for the invitation. The heat of her skin against my chest, the soft give of her waist under my palm—she fit. That was the word that kept coming back to me. She fit.

Christian cleared his throat. "I should—" He gestured vaguely toward the cabin door, but he didn't move. His eyes were still on us, caught somewhere between respect and something hungrier.

Jade reached over and put her hand on his knee. The gesture was casual, almost maternal, but it stopped him. "You're not going anywhere," she said. "None of us are. Not yet."

He looked at her hand on his leg, then at her face. Something passed between them—a wordless negotiation I wasn't privy to. He settled back against the headboard, his shoulder brushing hers, and let out a breath that seemed to carry more than air.

Maya's lips found my ear again. "He's not the only one watching," she whispered. "She's been watching you all night. The way you look at me when you think no one's paying attention. The way you hold yourself back."

I turned my head, and her mouth was right there, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her breath on my lips. "I'm not holding back."

"You are." She said it without accusation. Just fact. "You've been holding back since I got on this boat. Not in the way you touch me—you've been generous there. But there's a part of you that's still standing at the door, ready to leave."

The words landed harder than I expected. I opened my mouth to deny it, but nothing came out. Because she wasn't wrong. There was always a part of me standing at the door. There had been for twenty years. Bella had seen it. Lena had seen it. And now this woman I'd known for three years and never once closed the deal with had seen it in a single night.

"I'm not asking you to stay," Maya said, her voice dropping even lower. "I'm not asking you to promise me anything. I'm just asking you to be here. Fully. For the next hour. For however long this lasts. Can you do that?"

I looked at her. Really looked at her. The dark hair tangled on the pillow. The flush still high on her cheeks. The way her eyes held mine without flinching, without asking for more than I could give. She wasn't trying to fix me. She'd said it herself earlier. She came to feel wanted, not to save me from myself.

That was the thing. That was the thing that made it different.

I leaned forward and kissed her. Not the way I'd kissed her before—not hungry or rushed or trying to prove something. Slow. Deep. The kind of kiss that says I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, at least not right now. Her hand came up to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair, and she made a sound against my mouth that I felt in my chest.

When we broke apart, her eyes were bright, her lips parted. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.

Jade shifted on the bed, drawing my attention. She was watching us with an expression I couldn't quite name—not jealousy, not approval, something in between. Her thumb had resumed its slow circles on Maya's knuckles, grounding her even as Maya leaned into me.

Christian's breath caught.

I heard it—the sharp intake, the pause. I looked over at him, and he was staring at us, or maybe at Maya, or maybe at something he couldn't name. His jaw was tight, his hand still on the sheet, and for a moment he looked younger than his forty years. Almost vulnerable. Almost like he was watching something he wanted and didn't know how to reach for.

Jade followed my gaze. She looked at Christian, then back at me, and something passed between us—a recognition, maybe. A shared understanding of what was happening in this room. Four people who'd spent years running from something, all of them suddenly still.

Maya's hand found mine again, her fingers lacing through my own. She squeezed once, a small, deliberate pressure, and I felt the answer move through me before I could think it.

The silence stretched. The engine hummed. The lamp flickered, just once, and settled.

No one spoke. No one moved. The decision hung in the air between us, unvoiced, pressing against the walls of the cabin like something alive.

Her thumb moved against my knuckle, a slow back-and-forth like she was tracing the outline of a question she didn't need to ask out loud. I watched her do it, watched the way her brow furrowed slightly in concentration, the way her lips parted as if she were counting something in her head. Three years of near misses, and here she was, memorizing the geography of my hand like it was the last map she'd ever need.

The scar on her shoulder caught the lamplight. I hadn't noticed it before—a thin, pale line curving over the bone, faded with age, almost invisible against her tan. It sat just below the strap of her top, a seam in skin that had healed clean. I wanted to ask where it came from. I didn't. Some things don't need a story attached to them. Some things just are.

The pine walls creaked, a low sound that rode the engine's hum like a wave. The boat shifted beneath us, a gentle roll that pressed her closer against my side. She didn't resist it. She let the motion carry her, her body settling into mine with an ease that felt almost practiced, except I knew it wasn't. I knew she'd never been here before. I knew she'd never been anywhere with me.

"You're doing it again," she said, her voice soft against my chest.

"Doing what?"

"Thinking." She tilted her head up to look at me. "You get this look when you're thinking. Like you're somewhere else entirely, and I'm just the thing you're going to come back to."

I opened my mouth to deny it, but the words felt hollow before they even formed. She wasn't wrong. I'd spent twenty years perfecting that look—the distant gaze, the half-smile that meant nothing, the way of being present without ever really being there. It was the look that had gotten me through a decade of runway shows and after-parties, a decade of women who wanted something from me that I couldn't name, let alone give.

Her hand moved from my wrist to my chest, her palm flat against my sternum. She pressed, just slightly, like she was checking that I was solid. "You don't have to stay," she said. "But if you're going to be here, be here. Don't leave halfway."

The words landed in the space between us, and I felt something shift in my chest. Not the familiar restlessness, not the itch to reach for my phone or scan the room for an exit. Something else. Something quieter. The feeling of being seen, maybe, and not flinching from it.