Chapter 10: The Rewrite
The phone clattered onto the duvet, a forgotten, dark slate. Dee’s fingers, which had just deleted a universe of possibility, weren’t trembling now. They were sure as they caught the hem of her own soft t-shirt and guided his palm beneath it. His skin was warm, his fingers tense for a heartbeat before they relaxed against the curve of her hip, his thumb finding the dip of her waist. The touch was an electric brand, a silent, devastating agreement.
“A better script,” Matt repeated, his voice husky. He let her push him back, his shoulders sinking into the lavender-scented pillows. The moonlight from the window caught the silver in his hair and the startling blue of his eyes, fixed on her. “No directors. No audience.”
“Just us.”
She straddled him, the worn cotton of his jeans rough against her thighs. Her own breathing was loud in her ears, a rhythm competing with the low city hum outside. She leaned down, her cascade of curls brushing his cheeks, and kissed him again. This kiss was different. It was not a confession or a collision. It was a conversation. A slow, deepening dialogue of give and take, of teeth and sigh, of a decade of wanting finding its grammar.
His hands came up, sliding under her shirt, tracing the notches of her spine. The calluses on his fingers caught on the delicate fabric of her bra strap. Every sensation was amplified, hyper-real. The weight of him beneath her. The scent of his skin, clean sweat and that faint, expensive cologne, now mixed with her lavender. The sound of his breathing hitching when she rocked against him.
She broke the kiss, sitting back to look at him. His lips were parted, glistening. His chest rose and fell steadily. In the dim light, he looked young and utterly disarmed.
“Your hands,” he said, his voice rough. “In my hair.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a reverent statement of fact. She complied, sinking her fingers into the thick, silken strands at his temples. She scratched lightly, the way she did when shampooing him in her studio chair, and he closed his eyes, a low, pure sound of pleasure vibrating in his throat. The trust was absolute.
Her other hand went to the button of his jeans. Her fingers, usually so deft with scissors and pins, fumbled with the metal. He didn’t help. He just watched her, his gaze heavy, letting her set the pace. The rasp of the zpper was obscenely loud.
“Still with me?” she whispered, pausing.
He opened his eyes. “Dee,” he said, her name a whole sentence. A prayer and an answer. He lifted his hips to help her, and then his hands were on the button of her own jeans, his movements urgent now, a mirror of her need.
Clothes fell away in hushed, frantic increments. A shirt tossed toward the foot of the bed. Jeans tangled at the ankle and kicked free. The cool air of the room hit her skin, raising goosebumps, before the heat of him followed, sealing her against him. Skin to skin. The reality of it was a shock - the solid plane of his chest against her breasts, the lean strength of his thighs.
He rolled them over, reversing their positions with a gentle force that stole her breath. He loomed above her, propped on his elbows, his face shadowed. The moonlight now limned the powerful lines of his shoulders, the tense cords of his arms.
“I need to be sure,” he said, his voice strained. “This isn’t just… the video. The adrenaline.”
She reached up, framing his face with her palms. She could feel the faint stubble, the tension in his jaw. “The video was goodbye to all the bullshit,” she said, her thumbs stroking his cheekbones. “This is hello.”
He searched her eyes for another endless second. Then he bowed his head, his forehead touching hers. “Hello,” he breathed, and kissed her again.
There was no more hesitation. His touch mapped her, learned her. His mouth traveled from her lips to the line of her jaw, to the frantic pulse at her throat, lower. His hands were both possessive and tender, tracing the swell of her hip, the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. He knew her, she realized. Not just her humor or her talent, but her. The way she arched into his touch, the sound she made when he nipped at her collarbone, the flutter of her lashes against his cheek.
When he finally slid into her, it was with a slow, inexorable pressure that made her cry out. It wasn’t pain. It was the sheer, breathtaking fullness of completion. He stilled, buried deep, his body trembling with the effort of restraint.
“Okay?” he gritted out, his face agonized.
She answered by wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling him closer. The motion shattered his control.
What followed was not elegant. It was a beautifully messy negotiation of rhythm and breath. It was the thud of the headboard against the wall in a steady, unplanned time. It was her bitten-off curses and his guttural, broken praises murmured into the sweat-damp hollow of her shoulder. It was the slide of skin, the clutch of sheets, the world narrowing to this bed, this man, this feeling of finally coming home.
She fell apart first, a silent, seismic unraveling that pulled a sob from her chest. He followed moments after, his own release a shuddering collapse, his mouth pressed to her skin as if swallowing her name.
The aftermath was a landscape of quiet. Their breathing slowed, syncing. The city sounds filtered back in. A siren. A distant shout. Normal life, continuing just outside the velvet curtains.
He shifted, rolling to his side and taking her with him, tucking her back against his chest. His arm wrapped around her waist, his hand splayed possessively over her stomach. His lips pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
“So,” he said after a long while, his voice rusty. “My publicist’s aneurysm.”
A laugh jolted out of her, shaking them both. “We deleted the evidence.”
“There’s no deleting that,” he said, his hand gently squeezing her hip. “I’m never going to be able to look at you in a studio again without getting completely distracted.”
“Good.”
They lay in silence again. Her mind, freed from the whirlwind of sensation, began to tick forward. Practicalities. Insecurities. The silk scarf draped over her chair glinted in the moonlight.
“What happens tomorrow?” she whispered, the words leaving her mouth before she could stop them.
He tensed, just slightly, behind her. His fingers stilled their idle tracing on her skin. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding against her back.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his tone carefully measured, “I have a 7 a.m. call with my agent in London. You, presumably, have a bunch of hair to cut.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” He nuzzled her hair. “Tomorrow, we figure it out. Today… right now… we just did the hard part. The part that mattered.”
It was an evasion, but a gentle one. An acknowledgment of the canyon they’d just leapt across, and the unknown terrain on the other side. She accepted it, for now. The weight of him, the solid reality of his body spooning hers, was enough.
The weight of him, the solid reality of his body spooning hers, was enough. For a few stolen minutes, it was the entire answer. Her mind finally quiet, humming only with the aftershocks of feeling, she traced the veins on the back of the hand that rested over her stomach.
His breathing had evened into something deep and slow against her hair. She thought he might be drifting off. The city’s nighttime murmur was a lullaby.
Then his hand tightened, just a fraction. His body went still in a new, alert way. “Dee.” Her name was a quiet explosion in the dark.
“Hmm?”
He didn’t speak for another three heartbeats. The silence grew taut. “This is going to shatter the moment,” he said, his voice tight. “And I hate myself for not thinking of it twenty minutes ago.”
“What?” She started to turn, but his arm held her firmly in place.
He exhaled, a hot rush against her scalp. “Are you on the pill?” The question hung there, stark and utterly mundane, a bucket of cold water on the heated silence. “We just… Christ. We didn’t even think. I didn’t even ask.”
The practicalities came crashing in. The deleted video felt like a childish concern compared to this. She closed her eyes, absorbing the blunt force of the oversight. Their perfect, messy, cinematic confession now had this: a clinical variable.
“Yes,” she said, the word rushing out. “Yes, I am. For years.” She felt his entire body unlock behind her, a tension she hadn’t fully registered melting away. His forehead dropped to her shoulder with a soft thud.
“Thank God.” His relief was palpable, a physical softening. “I’m so sorry. That was so unromantic.”
A laugh, genuine and startled, broke from her. She finally twisted in his arms to face him. In the faint light, his expression was a pained wince. She cupped his cheek. “You asking is the most romantic thing that’s happened to me in a week.”
“Really? My post-coital panic is a highlight?”
“It means you’re here,” she said, her thumb stroking his skin. “It means you’re thinking about me, and consequences, and a future that isn’t just tonight.” She kissed him, a soft, lingering press. “It’s responsible. It’s real.”
He searched her face. “It’s terrifying,” he admitted. “Not the pill part. The ‘future’ part. The part where I want there to be one so badly it feels like a physical risk.” He tucked her hair back, his fingers lingering. “My track record is… not great.”
“Our track record,” she corrected softly, “is seven years of friendship where we were secretly in love. That’s a pretty solid foundation.”
“We’re going to be terrible at this,” he murmured, but he was smiling now, a faint, crooked thing. “I’m going to have to fly to Budapest for six weeks next month. You’re going to be elbows-deep in some celebrity’s highlights.”
“We’ll video chat.” She grinned. “You can show me your tragic on-location haircuts. I’ll critique them mercilessly.”
“And you’ll send me pictures of the studio when it’s too quiet.”
“And you’ll forget to text back for twelve hours.”
“And you’ll overthink it.”
“Yes,” she said, no humor in it now. “I will.”
He pulled her closer, until no space remained between them. “Then I’ll call. Every time. Even if it’s just to hear you sigh and tell me I’m being extra.” His voice dropped, a raw promise in the dark. “The script is ours now, Dee. We get to write the next part. No more hiding.”