LOGIN✦ ❦ ✦Jayson Pov ✦ ❦ ✦I was sweating through my shirt and we weren't even at the house yet."You good?" Riley asked, squeezing my hand as we pulled up to my parents' place."No," I said honestly. "I'm literally about to have a heart attack.""Your father already had the growth moment," she said. "He apologized. He asked to have dinner with me. He's not gonna be a dick.""You don't know that," I said. "He could be. He's good at being a dick."She laughed and kissed my forehead. "I can handle your dad, babe. Trust me."But as we walked up to the door, I realized I was more nervous about this than I'd been about anything in months. This was my father finally meeting the woman I was going to marry. This was him seeing if he could actually accept her.My mother opened the door before I could even knock."Jayson," she said, pulling me into a hug. Then she looked at Riley. "And you must be Riley.""I am," Riley said, extending her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Woods.""Please, call me M
✦ ❦ ✦Riley Pov✦ ❦ ✦The email came on a Friday afternoon.I was at my desk, working on edits for my second book, when my inbox pinged. It was from some major production company — one of the big ones. The ones that make actual movies.*Subject: Film Adaptation Interest — Sex Exploration*My hands literally shook as I opened it.They wanted to adapt my book into a feature film. A major motion picture. With a real director and real actors and a real budget. They were calling it "a groundbreaking narrative about love, vulnerability, and female agency in the modern world."I read it three times.Then I called Valentina."Oh my God," she screamed when I told her. "Riley, this is massive. This is life-changing. Do you understand what this means?"I did. I understood exactly what it meant.It meant my story — the real, raw, exposed version of my life — was gonna be on screens everywhere. It meant millions of people would watch me navigate that video leak. It meant everything I'd kept private
❈❈ Jayson Pov ❈❈My phone rang on a Tuesday morning.Unknown number. I almost didn't answer, but something made me pick up."Jayson," my father's voice came through, and he sounded different. Older. Tired."Dad?" I said. My heart was already racing."Can you come to the office?" he asked. "I need to talk to you. In person.""Is everything okay?" I asked."No," he said. "But I'm trying to make it okay."I told Riley I was going out and drove to the office in a daze. My father wanted to talk to me. Actually wanted to have a conversation. That hadn't happened in months.The office felt different when I walked in. Smaller somehow. Less important. I went up to his office and knocked even though it was my father's door."Come in," he said.He was sitting behind his massive desk, looking smaller than I remembered. Older. His hair was grayer. His face looked tired."Hi," I said, sitting down across from him."Hi," he replied. We sat in silence for a moment."Your mother finally told me off,"
❈❈Cassie Pov❈❈I don't know why I offered to help them take care of Jayson.Actually, I do know. It was guilt. It was nostalgia. It was some weird part of me that wanted to be part of their world again, even though I knew that ship had sailed.But they accepted immediately, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like Cassie being there was just... normal.So I found myself at their Brooklyn apartment, helping Riley change Jayson's bandages while Mila made soup in the kitchen.He was in a lot of pain. The doctors had given him meds but he was trying not to take them because they made him drowsy. So instead he was just grimacing through everything, being stubborn as hell."You're an idiot," I said, adjusting the pillows behind him."I know," he said. "But at least I'm a cute idiot.""Debatable," I replied.Riley came back with fresh bandages and we worked together to change them. Our hands kept brushing and I felt this weird electricity. Like my body was remembering wh
❈❈Cassie Pov❈❈ I was getting ready for bed when my phone rang. Unknown number. I didn't want to answer, but something made me pick up. "Cassie?" Riley's voice came through, and it was completely shattered. Like she'd been crying so hard she could barely speak. "Riley?" I said. "What's wrong?" "Jayson," she said, and I heard her take a shaky breath. "There was an accident. A car accident. He's at Mount Sinai hospital and I can't... I can't..." She broke down completely. "Okay," I said, already grabbing my keys. "Okay, I'm coming. What hospital?" She gave me the address through sobs and I hung up and ran. I didn't even think about it. Didn't think about Klaus or what this meant or anything. I just ran. Mount Sinai was chaos. It was like midnight and the ER was full of people and I had no idea where Jayson would be. I went to the desk and asked for him and they sent me to the third floor. When I got out of the elevator, I saw them. Riley and Mila were sitting outsi
❈❈Cassie Pov❈❈I was nervous as hell. Like, actually nervous. Not the fake "I'm so fine" nervous I usually put on. Real, stomach-twisting, hands-shaking nervous. Because Klaus was picking me up in like ten minutes and I'd already changed my outfit twice.Klaus worked in the finance department at my dad's company. We'd never really talked until like a month ago when he'd gotten stuck in an elevator with me and spent the whole time making jokes to keep me from freaking out about being trapped.He was stupid funny. Like, the kind of funny where he'd say something and I'd be like "wait, did he really just say that?" He had this dry delivery that made everything he said ten times funnier.And then he'd asked me to lunch. And then dinner.And now we were going on an actual date and I was losing my mind.When the doorbell rang, I took a breath and opened it.Klaus was standing there in a casual button-up and jeans, holding flowers like it wasn't a big deal."These are for you," he said. "I
Days blurred together after we got back home. Not bad blurred—just heavy. We were talking again, really talking, but not about the obvious thing. We'd sit up late over coffee that went cold, or I'd find Dave already at the kitchen table when I came down in the morning, like he'd been awake for hou
I woke up to gray light bleeding through the curtains we forgot to close last night. My body felt destroyed in that specific way—sore in places that reminded me exactly what happened, muscles aching from positions and exertion I wasn't used to. The room was quiet except for the air conditioner's lo
Dave hadn't touched me for six days. Not a real touch—the kind that meant something. The kind that said *I love you* or *I forgive you* or *I still want you*. I moved around our house like a ghost in my own life, cooking meals he barely ate, asking about his day and getting one-word grunts in retu
I lay on my back staring at the ceiling fan spinning lazy circles, the sheets already cooling under my ass. Dave was still breathing hard beside me, with one arm draped across my stomach like it always ended up. Another Tuesday night special — missionary for five minutes, a bit of clumsy fingering,







