Chapter 9: The Morning After
Sleep was a fractured, shallow thing. Dee drifted in the space between memory and sensation—the crushing pressure of his mouth in the rain, the soft sanctuary of the towel, the stark vulnerability in his eyes when he’d said Now I’ve annotated that. The digital clock on her childhood nightstand bled red numbers into the dark: 3:17 AM. 4:42. 5:59.
Each time she woke, the reality reassembled itself with a different texture. Sometimes it was pure, electric joy. Sometimes it was a cold, sluicing fear. She’d kissed Matt Bomer. He’d kissed her back. Not a friendly peck, not a drunk mistake. A series of declarations made without words.
The faded floral wallpaper seemed to witness her turmoil. The Polaroid on the bookshelf—two younger, smiling faces, blissfully unaware of the years of longing ahead—felt like a artifact from a different life.
When the first true grey light of morning filtered through the lavender-scented curtains, she gave up. She pulled on soft, worn pajama pants and a threadbare Smiths t-shirt, and padded barefoot down the creaking stairs.
The smell hit her first. Coffee. And bacon. And the low, rich sound of a man’s laughter, followed by her sister’s higher, conspiratorial giggle.
She stopped in the shadowed hallway, her hand on the cool wall. The sounds from the kitchen were so domestic, so alien in the context of her last seven years. Matt’s laugh in a kitchen. Not on a set, not at a premiere party. In Claire’s kitchen, with its chipped tile and clutter.
She took a breath and turned the corner.
Claire was at the stove, flipping pancakes. Matt, leaning against the counter beside her with a steaming mug in his hands, was wearing the same jeans from last night and a fresh, heather-grey t-shirt that clung to his shoulders. He must have had a go-bag in the car. His hair was still damp from a shower, casually styled but not perfect. He looked… relaxed. Rested. Incredibly, definitively present.
Claire saw her first. “Look what the cat dragged in. And by cat, I mean a six-foot-two movie star who raided my coffee supply.”
Matt turned.
His eyes found hers, and everything else—the sizzle of bacon, the drip of the coffee machine, the distant wail of a Brooklyn garbage truck—fell away. His smile wasn’t the dazzling, camera-ready one. It was slower. Smaller. A private, shy curve of his lips that reached his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. It was a smile that held the entire, overwhelming weight of the night before. A smile that said I remember. And I’m still here.
“Morning,” he said. His voice was a little rough with sleep.
“Morning.” Her own voice came out a whisper. She felt exposed in her old pajamas, no makeup, her hair a mess. But his gaze didn’t flicker with assessment or disappointment. It warmed.
“I made coffee,” Claire announced, as if she’d single-handedly discovered the crop. “And Matt made a grocery run at some ungodly hour. He claimed he felt guilty for consuming all our wine. I think he just wanted to prove he knows how to use a credit card at a bodega.”
“I know how to cook,” Matt said, feigning offense. “I’m a functional adult.”
“You grilled me about where the spatula was,” Claire deadpanned.
“Spatula logistics are complex!”
Dee moved into the room, drawn by the normalcy of the banter, by the magnetic pull of him. He watched her approach, his blue eyes tracking her. He didn’t look away.
“Sleep okay?” he asked, quieter now.
“Not really.”
“Me either.”
A silent understanding passed between them. The night had been too big for sleep.
Claire slid a plate of pancakes and bacon onto the island. “Sustenance. For the emotionally beleaguered.” She grabbed her own plate. “I’m taking this to my desk. I have a nine-thirty call with a client who thinks ‘whimsical’ means ‘clip art of dragons.’ You two… talk. Or don’t talk. Just don’t burn my kitchen down.” She winked at Dee and vanished up the stairs, leaving a ringing quiet in her wake.
Dee slid onto a stool. Matt brought his coffee mug and leaned on the island across from her, his posture loose.
“This is weird, right?” she said, picking up a fork. “Not bad weird. Just…”
“Reality-weird,” he finished. “I know. Last night felt like… some other dimension. This feels like the morning after you cross a border. Everything looks similar, but the rules are all different.”
She nodded, cutting into a pancake. It was fluffy and perfect. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I wanted to.” He took a sip of coffee. “I woke up at dawn in that sterile hotel room. All I could think about was you, one neighborhood over, in this house that smells like lavender. It felt… wrong to be there. So I came here. Claire let me in. She threatened me with a fireplace poker initially, but then she saw the bacon.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “She’s protective.”
“She should be.” His expression grew serious. “Dee… about last night. About the double date. I am so sorry. That was a monumentally stupid, dickish thing to orchestrate. Putting you in that position. Using Natalie. It was pathetic.”
She put her fork down. “It was. But I agreed to it. I was trying to move on, or prove I could, or… I don’t even know. It was a mess.”
“Julian said it was like watching two magnets fighting not to click together. He said he felt like an extra in a play where we were the only actors who’d read the script.” Matt ran a hand over his jaw. “I was so blind. For so long. I told myself our thing was special because it was safe. Because you were my best friend. Because I couldn’t risk it.”
“And now?” The question hung in the air between them, fragile as the steam rising from their mugs.
“Now I think ‘safe’ is the riskiest thing I’ve ever done.” He reached across the island, not for her hand, but to gently straighten the fork beside her plate. A nervous, tender gesture. “I have to fly to Vancouver this afternoon. Three weeks of reshoots.”
The words landed like a physical blow. Three weeks. The real world, his world, reasserting itself with brutal efficiency.
“Oh,” was all she could manage.
“I know. The timing is… comic.” He sounded frustrated. “But here’s what I want. I want to take you to dinner. A real one. No fake dates, no audiences. Just you and me. The day I get back. I’ll have Trey clear my schedule. Please.”
It wasn’t a line. It wasn’t a Hollywood promise. It was a direct, earnest request from a man who looked genuinely afraid she might say no.
“Yes,” she said, the word leaving her in a rush. “Yes, of course.”
The relief that washed over his face was profound. His smile returned, brighter now. “Okay. Good. Okay.”
They lapsed into silence, but it was comfortable. She ate. He drank his coffee. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air between them. It was a peaceful, suspended moment.
His phone, charging on the counter, buzzed with a sequenced, insistent vibration. A work call. He glanced at it, his brow furrowing. “That’s my assistant, Trey. The flight’s at two. I need to go back to the hotel, get my stuff from last night…” He trailed off, looking at her. The domestic bubble was already shrinking, the walls thinning.
“You should go,” she said, her heart sinking.
“I don’t want to.”
“I know.”
He came around the island. He didn’t kiss her. He just pulled her into a hug, his arms wrapping tightly around her. She buried her face in the soft cotton of his shirt, inhaling the scent of clean skin and Claire’s cheap coffee. He held her for a long moment, his chin resting on top of her head.
“Three weeks,” he murmured into her hair. “We’ll talk. Every day.”
“You’ll be busy.”
“I’ll make time.” He pulled back, his hands framing her face again, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones just like he had under the towel. “This is real, Dee. I’m not going to wake up in Vancouver and convince myself it was a fever dream. Not this time.”
She believed him. The certainty in his eyes was new, and solid.
He kissed her then, soft and lingering, a promise sealed. When he left, grabbing his leather folder from the counter, the kitchen felt immeasurably larger and emptier.
Dee stood there, listening to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs, the front door opening and closing. A minute later, from the window, she saw the town car pull away from the curb.
Claire materialized beside her, holding her empty plate. “Well?”
Dee let out a long, shaky breath. “He’s gone to Vancouver for three weeks. We have a date when he gets back.”
Claire nodded slowly, assessing. “And how do you feel?”
Dee looked at the empty spot where he’d stood, at the second mug still on the counter. She could still feel the ghost of his arms around her, the imprint of his kiss. The fear was there, a cold little stone in her stomach. But over it, warming her from the inside out, was a fragile, terrifying hope.
“Like there’s no going back,” she said quietly.
Claire slung an arm around her shoulders. “Good. The view forward is way better anyway.”
Outside, the Brooklyn morning was fully awake. The story of last night was now folded into the quiet of the house, into the taste of coffee and pancakes, into the space where he’d been. It was no longer a secret, a fantasy, or a desperate kiss in the rain. It was a fragile, spoken thing, set against the ticking clock of a flight to another country. It had to survive the distance now. It had to become real in the daylight.