Chapter 2: Arrival in Texas
The Gulfstream’s engines whined down into a ghost of a hum, leaving a vacuum quickly filled by the buzz of cicadas and the dry, baking heat. Dasha blinked as the cabin door opened, a wall of Texas air hitting her like a physical thing—thick, aromatic with hot tarmac and distant hay.It smelled like a fever dream.
“Home sweet home,” Matt said beside her, his voice tight. He hadn’t looked at her since they’d landed, or maybe since they’d taken off from New York, both of them pretending to be engrossed in their own windows.
She stepped onto the airstrip, the polished concrete glaring under the setting sun, and her ballet flats immediately felt sticky. “You failed to mention the surface of the sun was part of the itinerary.”
“It builds character.” He offered a hand to help her down the short steps.A performative gesture. For the uniformed attendant, maybe.Or for himself.She took it. His palm was warm, slightly damp, and the contact sent a jolt up her arm that had nothing to do with the heat. They let go too quickly.A black SUV sat nearby, a driver already loading their bags. The ride was quiet, air conditioning blasting, the landscape rolling past in shades of gold and dust-green. The silence between them wasn’t their usual easy quiet.This was a held breath.Matt cleared his throat. “So.The story is we’ve been dating for three months. It started… after Jim’s anniversary.”
Dasha flinched, just internally.He was right to anchor it there. A moment of vulnerability they’d shared.A real moment.Using it felt like a sacrilege. “Okay.”
“We kept it quiet because of my… situation. And because we didn’t want the pressure.”
“Makes sense.” She watched a water tower slide by, a town’s name fading in the distance.“My family’s gonna love that. They’ll eat it up.” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “My aunts will think it’s terribly romantic. My dad will just be glad I’m not ‘moping around alone’ anymore.”
She heard the quotation marks around his dad’s words, the old, tender frustration. She wanted to reach over, to squeeze his hand like she would have done a week ago.A friend’s comfort. Now, she couldn’t tell where the performance began.He did it for her.
His hand covered hers on the leather seat between them.A deliberate move. “Eyes in the back,” he murmured, not looking at her, a smile playing on his lips for an imaginary observer.
But his touch wasn’t casual.It was firm.Intentional. His thumb stroked the ridge of her knuckle, once, twice, a slow, devastating sweep. A current, low and insistent, buzzed beneath her skin. She stared at their joined hands, his tanned fingers over her paler ones, and forgot how to breathe.
The SUV slowed, turning onto a long, gravel drive flanked by ancient pecan trees. At the end stood the ranch house, a sprawling, beautiful mix of limestone and faded clapboard, warm light already glowing in the windows. It was picture-perfect.It felt like a trap.
Before the SUV had fully stopped, the front door flew open and a small, energetic woman burst out.Matt’s mother, Elaine. Her smile was a force of nature.“You’re here! Oh, let me look at you!” She engulfed Matt in a hug, then immediately turned to Dasha, pulling her in without hesitation. She smelled like lemon verbena and flour. “Dasha, honey, it’s so good to finally have you here properly! Not just a face on a screen!”
“Thank you for having me, Mrs.Bomer.The house is beautiful.”
“Elaine, please. And it’s a wreck, but it’s home. Come in, come in, you must be exhausted.” She looped her arm through Dasha’s, leading her inside as Matt followed with the bags.“We’ve got dinner warming. Megan’s already here, buzzing around like a hornet about her flowers. The rehearsal is tomorrow at four, so we can all have a lazy morning…”
The house was a comfortable, lived-in cacophony of family history: worn rugs, shelves crammed with books and framed photos, the smell of roasting meat and coffee. It was the kind of home Dasha had always dreamed of as a child, a stark contrast to her own quiet, curated apartment.It disarmed her completely.
Elaine chattered nonstop, leading them down a cool, wood-paneled hallway. “Now, we’re a bit full up with all the cousins, so we had to get creative with rooms. Megan’s in the blue room, Aunt Bea is in the guest cottage…”
She stopped at a door at the end of the hall, pushing it open with a flourish.It was a lovely room. A big four-poster bed with a quilt in shades of cream and sage dominated the space. A single, large window looked out over the darkening fields.There was one armchair.One dresser.One bed.Elaine beamed. “I figured you two would want to be together. No sense in standing on formalities nowadays.” She gave Matt a wink. “Your father and I aren’t dinosaurs.”
Dasha’s mouth went dry.Her entire body went still.She felt Matt stiffen beside her.
He recovered first, his actor’s instinct sliding into place like a mask.“Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”
“Bathroom’s through there.” Elaine pointed to a door. “Dinner in twenty! Don’t be late!” She swept out, leaving a wake of lemon-scented goodwill.The door clicked shut.The silence in the room was absolute and deafening. The faint hum of the cicadas outside the window seemed to pulse in time with Dasha’s heartbeat. She stared at the quilt, at the single, plump pillow in the center of the headboard.
Matt hadn’t moved. He was looking at the bed too, a muscle working in his jaw.“One room,” Dasha finally said, the words barely a whisper.
“One bed,” Matt corrected, his voice flat.“You didn’t… you didn’t clarify? When you booked?”
“I said ‘two rooms’ to the travel agent. I guess my mom took over the arrangements here.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of pure frustration. “I’m sorry. This is… I didn’t plan this.”
The absurdity of it, the terrifying intimacy of it, wrapped around her throat.They were here to pretend.To act. But this wasn’t a staged handhold in a car. This was a closed door, a shared space, the profound quiet of a place where no one was watching.
“What’s the protocol now, Matthew?” she asked, forcing a lightness into her voice that she didn’t feel. “Do we… draw a line down the middle? Pillow barrier?”
He finally looked at her.The charming, easy-going mask was gone. In its place was a raw, weary honesty that stole the air from her lungs. His blue eyes held hers, and she saw the same panic, the same dizzying awareness.“I don’t know,” he said softly, honestly. “I didn’t think this far ahead.”
He took a step toward their luggage, then stopped, as if the center of the room was a minefield. The space between them was charged, humming with everything they hadn’t said for over a year. The king-sized bed loomed, a silent testament to the fiction they’d crafted, a fiction that now felt dangerously thin.
From down the hall, Elaine’s voice echoed, cheerful and unknowing.“Boys! Soup’s on!”
They were alone, but they weren’t. The performance had already begun, and the most crucial scene was one for which they had no lines, no blocking, no clue how it would end. All they had was the overwhelming, terrifying truth of a single, shared room.