He didn’t deserve her.

Not even a little bit.

Mason lay there with his arms full of the girl who used to make his heart stutter just by looking in his direction—who still did, who always would—and tried not to let the tidal wave of emotion crawl up his throat and ruin the moment.

Because God, how did a guy like him—chaotic, weird, too-much-in-all-the-wrong-places Mason Hayes—end up here?

With her.

With Rowan Starling, who once wore her armor like it was stitched into her skin. Who rolled her eyes like breathing and loved people in secret because that felt safer than saying it out loud. Who used to run from everything soft because it never lasted.

Now curled against his chest like maybe this time, it could.

He watched her eyes flutter closed again, lashes fanning across her cheek, her hand rising and falling with his breath where it rested over his heart. And yeah—okay—his throat was doing a thing. But he let himself feel it.

Didn’t hide.

Didn’t deflect.

Didn’t make a joke.

Instead, he leaned in, kissed her forehead like he meant it (because he did, more than anything), and whispered back:

“Yeah, well… believe it.”

She didn’t open her eyes, but her lips tugged into a smile, and that was enough to make his chest hurt in the best possible way.

“I know I’m a lot,” he said softly, thumb brushing over the curve of her jaw. “I talk too much, I think too loud, I’m, like… aggressively emotionally available now. But Ro?”

His voice dropped lower.

“I never knew how to be brave until you.”

She blinked then—slow, sleepy, but watching him. Really watching him.

“And if you’re still wondering why it’s me?” he added, mouth tilted in that lopsided, stupidly earnest smile of his. “It’s ‘cause loving you doesn’t scare me. Not even a little.”

He ducked his head slightly, pressing their foreheads together again like they could sync thoughts if they just stayed close enough.

“You’re not breakable, Ro. You’re just real. And I’d rather build something messy and true with you than perfect with anyone else.”

A pause. A breath.

Then—

“You kissed me like it was gravity. Like it wasn’t even a choice. And I swear to God, that’s gonna haunt me forever—in the hot way, obviously.”

She huffed a laugh, which made him grin wider.

“But if you ever doubt this again—if the fear comes back or the world gets loud—I want you to remember this part,” he said, voice barely above a whisper now. “Me. Here. Holding you like a lifeline. Choosing you with my whole damn chest.”

He kissed her again then—soft, deep, full of every word he didn’t have language for.

And when he pulled back, brushing her hair off her forehead, his grin softened into something quieter.

“Also,” he added, “if you ever wanna make out in the nursery like teenage rebels with a mortgage, I fully support it. Could really up the resale value.”

She groaned into his chest like why are you like this, but she was laughing too, shoulders shaking against him.

And Mason?

Mason held her like it was the only thing he’d ever been good at.

Because in this room, in this house, in this life they hadn’t even finished building yet—

She was his favorite blueprint.

And he was already home.

He was warm beneath her palms.

Real in a way she still hadn’t quite wrapped her head around—even now, even after all this time. And maybe she never would. Maybe that was the point.

Because some things?

Some things were too good to make sense of.

She felt his hands settle at her hips—steady, reverent, like he didn’t want to push, didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to risk waking her from whatever this was. And she got that. God, did she get that. Because she used to feel the same way. Used to live in that constant flinch—like happiness was a trap door waiting to snap.

But with Mason…

It wasn’t.

With Mason, it was this.

Soft cotton and open hands and laughter in her lungs. A whole future wrapped in the sound of his heartbeat. A life she never planned for, never dared to ask for, and now couldn’t breathe without.

Her forehead dropped against his, breath catching in her throat as she closed her eyes. Let it all in. The weight of him. The steadiness. The way he made her feel like she could finally stop running from herself.

“I love you,” she murmured against his mouth.

Simple. Certain. Undeniable.

“I love you in the grocery store. I love you when you’re wearing that dumb apron. I love you when you cry at commercials and when you hum off-key and when you get paint on your nose.”

A soft laugh broke in her throat, and she smiled.

“I love you when I’m scared. I love you when I’m brave. I love you when I don’t know which one I am.”

She opened her eyes then—met his fully. No flinch. No mask. Just her.

“And if the world burns down tomorrow,” she whispered, “I’m still glad I get this. You. Me. All of it.”

Her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt like she was afraid she might float away otherwise.

But she wouldn’t.

Not now.

Not with him to hold her down.

Mason’s throat was already tight by the time she said I love you the second time.

By the third, he was wrecked.

Not in the dramatic, sob-on-the-floor kind of way—but in the quiet, bone-deep way that happened when the world shifted beneath you and you realized, oh. This is the moment everything changed.

Because Rowan Starling didn’t just say I love you like it was sweet. She said it like it was sacred. Like it cost her something once, and now she was choosing it anyway. Choosing him.

And maybe that was the part that undid him most.

She could’ve run. She didn’t.

She could’ve closed up. She didn’t.

She could’ve made a joke or deflected or brushed past the heat rising between them like she used to, like he used to expect her to.

But instead?

She just… stayed.

In his arms, in the moment, in the truth of everything she’d said. Her voice full of cracks and courage. Her fingers twisted in his shirt like she was anchoring herself there—like she wanted to.

And Mason Hayes—complete disaster of a man, wildly in love and two steps from getting on one knee in sweatpants—could barely hold it together.

“Okay,” he breathed, voice rasping around the weight in his chest. “Well. That’s it. You’ve officially broken me.”

His hands slid from her hips to her back, pulling her closer, gently, slowly—like if he didn’t hold her tight enough, she might vanish in a puff of lavender-scented heartbreak.

“You can’t say things like that and expect me to survive, Starling,” he muttered against her hair. “I’m already planning, like, seven grand gestures and a playlist that’s mostly Taylor Swift now.”

He felt her laugh, soft against his chest, and something loosened inside him.

God, he loved that sound.

“I love you too,” he said quietly, seriously now, because she deserved more than just jokes. “In every version. In every universe. Even the one where I’m a barista with a man bun and you’re still pretending not to like me.”

A beat. A breath. Then:

“I love you when you steal the covers. I love you when you leave your books all over the house like breadcrumbs to your brain. I love you when you doubt yourself, and I love you when you let me remind you who you are.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her, thumb brushing her cheek like it was instinct.

“And if the world burns down tomorrow?” His mouth tilted, gentle but sure. “I’ll meet you in the ash. Wouldn’t want to haunt anyone else.”

She laughed again—wet and beautiful—and he caught her mouth with his like a secret.

Not rushed. Not hungry.

Just theirs.

The kind of kiss that said stay. The kind that said home.

And when they finally broke apart, breathing the same quiet air between them, he rested his forehead against hers and added, with a grin just barely softened at the edges—

“But, uh… can I still wear the apron? Asking for a domestic icon.”

Rowan didn’t laugh right away.

She smiled, sure—wide and crooked and a little dangerous—but the sound that came out of her was more breath than laugh. Something soft and overwhelmed and wrecked in a way she wasn’t even trying to hide anymore.

Because Mason Hayes had always been too much. Too loud. Too sweet. Too infuriatingly sincere.

And God, she loved him for it.

For all of it.

She stayed in his lap, forehead still pressed to his, fingers still curled in the front of his shirt like she was trying to keep the moment from drifting too far away. And then—still breathless, still glowing—she kissed him again.

Just a whisper of a kiss this time. Warm and slow and steady.

Like yes.

Like of course.

Like always.

“You can wear the apron,” she murmured against his mouth, voice low and completely unbothered. “But only if you’re ready to be objectified while making pancakes.”

She felt more than heard his grin.

“And you’re not allowed to complain when I write ‘Property of Rowan Starling’ across the ass in Sharpie.”

Her voice was teasing, sure. But her hands were still soft where they held him. Her body still loose and safe and home where it rested against his. Because everything she said—the jokes, the claims, the I love yous tucked inside the banter—meant something now.

And she wasn’t scared to let them.

Not with him.

Not here.

Not anymore.

Mason let out a strangled sort of laugh—the kind that was half flirty bark, half are you trying to kill me?—and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

“Oh my God,” he groaned into her skin, voice muffled but brimming with helpless amusement. “You’re gonna be the death of me. Sharpie on the ass? Really? That’s the legacy we’re leaving our child?”

But his arms tightened around her anyway.

Because of course she’d say that. Of course she’d make something as simple as pancakes feel like foreplay and forever at the same time. And he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

He leaned back just enough to look at her—really look at her. Eyes dancing, cheeks flushed, that little smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth like she’d already won whatever game he didn’t realize they were playing.

“You realize,” he said slowly, tipping his head like he was thinking very seriously about this, “that you’ve just given me full license to get a custom apron that says Starling’s Snack. In script. With hearts.”

Rowan tried to roll her eyes.

Failed spectacularly.

Because he looked so proud of the idea.

And because, underneath the chaos and the teasing and the entirely too-serious apron talk, there was that same steady truth again—that tether between them. Real. Constant. Unshakable.

He kissed her then, soft and quick and laced with more affection than he knew what to do with.

Then:

“You’re it for me, Ro. In the kitchen, in a thunderstorm, in a grocery store parking lot with expired coupons and bad ideas—you’re it.”

His hand brushed her jaw, thumb grazing just beneath her cheekbone.

“I’m yours in every universe. With or without ass Sharpie.”

He paused, then added with a raised brow and a crooked grin:

“But preferably with.”

Rowan let out the kind of laugh that shook straight through her—shoulders trembling, head tipping forward against his as her fingers curled tighter in the front of his shirt.

“God, you’re so dumb,” she said, almost fondly, her voice barely above a whisper.

But she didn’t pull away.

Didn’t even try.

Instead, she slid one hand up to his jaw, thumb grazing the corner of his mouth, and met his eyes with something that looked a lot like wonder.

Because this was the part she never believed she’d get. The comfort. The clarity. The kind of love that could make her laugh through tears and still feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

“Starling’s Snack?” she repeated slowly, as if tasting the words, her mouth twitching at the edges. “That’s what we’re going with? Not like… Chef of Chaos? Domestic Disaster Husband? Cinnamon Roll Daddy?”

She tilted her head, biting her lip like she wasn’t entirely kidding.

And then, quieter—less of a joke now, more of a confession—she whispered, “You know you’re it for me too, right?”

Rowan leaned in again, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Then his jaw. Then the soft skin just below his ear, where she could feel him inhale like it knocked the air out of him.

“I don’t care what you wear,” she murmured, lips brushing his skin with every word. “An apron, a hoodie, nothing at all…”

She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes again—serious now, full of that soft defiance only he ever got to see.

“You’re mine either way, Mason Hayes.”

A beat.

“And if you think I won’t also write that on your ass, you don’t know me at all.”

She didn’t give him time to recover.

Didn’t wait for another apron joke or one of his dangerously sweet declarations.

Because the way Mason looked at her—like she was everything good in the world, like he couldn’t believe his luck even now—it made her ache in a way that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with want.

So Rowan leaned in—slow and sure—until her lips brushed his, soft and deliberate. A tease. A warning. A promise.

And then she kissed him.

Properly.

Fully.

Like she meant it.
Because she did.

One hand slid into the back of his hair, tugging just a little, while the other rested over his heart, grounding them both. Her body pressed into his as she deepened it, slow and certain, like she was memorizing the feel of him all over again.

When she finally pulled back—barely, just enough to breathe—her voice was lower, lips still brushing his.

“My parents are at the bookstore a little longer,” she murmured, one brow arching as her eyes flicked down to his mouth, then back up. “Book club’s running late.”

A pause. A shift.

Then she wiggled her eyebrows.

“Which means we’ve got time. You know… if you wanna do something wildly irresponsible.”

Her grin was all wicked mischief and flushed confidence, and Mason looked like she’d just short-circuited the last rational thought in his head.

He blinked.

Once.

Twice.

And then let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, wasn’t quite a groan—just Mason Hayes in complete and utter agony, the good kind, the kind that came with too much adrenaline and too much heart and zero common sense.

“Okay,” he said, very seriously, “first of all—‘Cinnamon Roll Daddy’? That’s illegal. That should not be allowed. I need at least a five-minute warning before you deploy something that unholy in my lap.”

But he didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe, practically.

Because she was still right there—smirking and gorgeous and lit up from the inside like a fever dream in one of his old hoodies—and she’d just said you’re mine.

And if she thought he was coming back from that anytime soon?

Yeah, no. Not happening.

He tilted his head, just enough for his nose to brush hers, his hand sliding slow along her hip like it had every right to be there.

“Second of all,” he murmured, voice pitched low and wrecked and just barely holding it together, “I have never wanted to make a dumb decision more in my entire life.”

His eyes flicked to her mouth. Then back up.

“And I’m including the time I ate a full rotisserie chicken on stage during a dress rehearsal because I thought it would be ‘method.’”

He was teasing.

Sort of.

But the heat beneath it was very, very real.

Because Rowan Starling was looking at him like that—like he was hers to claim, to wreck, to keep—and he wasn’t sure how the hell he was supposed to stay upright under that kind of pressure.

So he didn’t.

Didn’t fight it. Didn’t overthink it.

Just surged forward and kissed her like the world had narrowed to this single moment of yes.

Like it was okay to want her like this.

Like she wanted him right back.

His fingers curled into the hem of her borrowed t-shirt, thumbs brushing bare skin, reverent and greedy at the same time. And when she sighed into his mouth—God help him—he made a sound that could only be described as utterly feral but still in love.

They were chaos.

They were ridiculous.

They were gonna get caught.

But when he pulled back for half a second, forehead resting to hers, breathless and beaming, all he could say was—

“You had me at Sharpie on my ass.”

Rowan was gone.

Not in the oh-no-I’ve-lost-my-head kind of way—though, let’s be honest, it was close—but in the full-body, full-heart kind of surrender she never used to let herself feel. Not like this. Not with anyone but him.

Because Mason Hayes was a damn fire hazard when he smiled like that.

And when he kissed her like that?

She didn’t stand a chance.

Her breath caught on the tail end of his grin, her forehead still pressed to his, her body flush against his in a way that felt more like a promise than a choice. And God, the way he’d said you had me at Sharpie on my ass like it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever uttered?

She couldn’t even be mad.

She laughed—low and a little breathless, cheeks hot from too much adrenaline and affection—and threaded her fingers through his hair again just to feel him melt.

“I’m not saying I plan to write ‘Property of Starling’ in cursive,” she whispered, brushing her lips against his in a kiss that didn’t quite land, “but I am saying I’ve got nice handwriting.”

She kissed him again, this time for real—deeper now, with more heat and more weight and just enough teeth to make it count.

And when she pulled back, just barely, she was smiling.

Not coy. Not smug.

Just… sure.

“I want you,” she said, voice hushed but steady. “Like, now-now.”

A beat.

Then, with a tilt of her head and an eyebrow that really should have been illegal:
“And my parents are definitely still at the bookstore. Which means we’ve got at least twenty minutes to make a very irresponsible decision.”

She leaned in again, lips brushing his jaw this time.

“So… what do you say, Cinnamon Roll Daddy?”

Rowan didn’t break eye contact.

Not even when her hands slipped down to the hem of the oversized shirt—his shirt, technically—and paused there, her expression unreadable for half a second. Like she was giving him a moment to stop her. Like she was daring him to.

He didn’t.

So she pulled it off.

Slowly. Deliberately.

The cotton slid over her skin and hit the floor with a soft sound, like punctuation. And suddenly, the room wasn’t just warm—it was charged. Like every molecule had aligned around this moment.

Around them.

She didn’t say anything—didn’t need to. The way she looked at him said it all.

I trust you.
I want this.
I want you.

Then she leaned in again, her mouth brushing his in something just short of a kiss, voice a whisper against his lips:

“Don’t waste the fifteen.”

And that was it.

That was the match.

That was the fire.

He didn’t stand a chance.

Not when she looked like that—flushed and radiant and his, standing there in nothing but bare skin and bravado, her belly curved like the softest kind of miracle between them, and that mouth of hers daring him to move.

Mason Hayes might’ve been a lot of things—overdramatic, constantly starving, emotionally deranged in the most poetic way—but at this exact moment?

He was gone.

Ruined.

Absolutely, irrevocably hers.

“Okay,” he said, breath catching like a punch to the gut. “You do not get to look like the most gorgeous creature on earth, take off my shirt, and then hit me with ‘don’t waste the fifteen.’ That’s—there should be a law against that. That’s emotional terrorism.”

But he was already moving.

Already closing the space between them like a man possessed—hands reverent but starved as they slid along her waist, her sides, her back, mapping her like a language he’d been fluent in for years but was still finding new ways to worship.

“Jesus, Ro,” he breathed, forehead falling to hers, his voice low and wrecked and shaking with restraint. “Do you even know what you look like right now?”

His lips brushed her jaw, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth like he couldn’t decide where to land, couldn’t decide what to do with all this want without falling to his knees.

“You’re literally glowing. Like, unfairly. Like some sort of ethereal forest goddess who just wandered into your childhood bedroom and decided me, of all people, was worthy of being ravished before your parents come home from book club.”

His hands slid down again—soft over the swell of her hips, her thighs—until his thumbs hooked gently beneath her underwear, slow and asking.

“But sure,” he whispered against her skin. “Let’s be irresponsible.”

Then he kissed her.

Really kissed her.

Deep and hungry and laced with every bit of awe he’d been holding back—every heartbeat of how are you real and how did I get this lucky and I would die for you and your dumb Sharpie jokes.

He pulled her with him as they backed toward the bed—the one with the familiar creak and the worn quilt and the posters still tacked up from high school. The room that didn’t belong to just her anymore. Not since him. Not since them.

And when the backs of his knees hit the mattress, he sat, tugging her gently into his lap like she belonged there.

Like she always had.

His voice broke the silence again, this time rougher, closer to reverent:

“You are everything, Rowan Starling. You know that?”

And just before he kissed her again—hands warm on her hips, eyes dark with want but soft with love—he added, lower now, almost like a secret:

“You’re the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’m counting the time I caught a lighting gel on fire during tech week while shirtless.”

Then he kissed down her throat, over the slope of her shoulder, lips dragging reverent and slow, like prayer and promise and heat wrapped in reverence.

Because this wasn’t just want.

This was worship.

Rowan didn’t rush.

She didn’t need to.

The moment was already heavy with heat and hush, thick with everything unspoken and everything understood. It clung to her skin like summer air, like breath shared in a space too sacred to name. And she was aware—so achingly aware—of every inch of him beneath her. The rise and fall of his chest. The tension thrumming through his muscles. The way his eyes searched hers like he was memorizing her all over again.

Her hands moved with purpose—gentle, sure—as she reached for his wrists. His skin was warm under her fingertips, pulsing with something that felt a lot like reverence. Like awe.

She guided his palms upward, skimming past the curve of her waist, across her ribs, until they settled—tentative and trembling—beneath her chest.

She stayed there.

Let him feel the rhythm of her heartbeat against his palms, wild and certain and real. Her breath hitched, but she didn’t look away.

Didn’t flinch.

Because this wasn’t about fear anymore.

This was about trust.

“Feel that?” she whispered, her voice thick and quiet, the words catching on the heat between them. “That’s what you do to me.”

Her heart drummed against his touch like it was trying to answer for her—every beat saying stay, stay, stay.

His hands didn’t move. Just held her there—soft, steady, like he understood that this wasn’t about claiming. It was about honoring. About being let in.

Her breath stuttered once, then evened as she leaned in, eyes never leaving his. She kissed him again—slow and deep, lips parting just enough to let the weight of the moment sink into every inch of her. Her fingers curled in his shirt. His mouth moved against hers with that same aching tenderness she always forgot how much she craved until he gave it back to her like a vow.

And when they parted—barely—she let her forehead rest against his, the space between them nothing but shared breath and skin and truth.

Her fingers grazed his collarbone, trailing slowly to the sides of his neck. “I used to think being seen meant being exposed,” she said, voice softer now, eyes on his mouth, his jaw, the space where they fit. “Like someone would take what they found and twist it. Hurt me with it.”

Her eyes flicked back up to his.

“But you don’t do that,” she breathed. “You see me… and I feel safe.”

Mason didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

Because the way he held her—bare hands to bare skin, eyes wide and reverent, breath caught like she was something holy—said it all.

And Rowan?

Rowan didn’t look away.

She let him keep looking.

Because for the first time, she wanted to be seen.