Chapter 64

Lumi

We climbed into the front car, the second the safety bar locked over my lap, a nervous laugh bubbled out of me. Ren glanced sideways, smirking.

"Scared?"

"Terrified," I said honestly.

"Good," he replied with a short smile. "Means you’re paying attention to something other than your own head."

The coaster lurched forward, and my stomach immediately dropped somewhere near my shoes.

By the first loop, I was screaming, by the second drop, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe, and by the time we rolled back into the station, my hair was a wreck and my cheeks hurt from grinning.

"Again," I said the moment we stopped, completely breathless.

Ren laughed, loud and unguarded, and it was such a good sound. I love to hear the sound of his laughter, it sounded sweet, made me want to do anything to hear it again.

I dragged him straight back into the queue without waiting for an answer.

We rode it twice more. Then a spinning ride that left us both dizzy and useless, clinging to each other just to stay upright afterward.

Then a rickety old wooden coaster that rattled so hard I was sure it would fall apart beneath us, and somehow that made it even better.

Somewhere between the third ride and the fourth, I stopped thinking about Callum’s ugly words in that office. For a little while, I was simply happy. Loud, breathless and undignified happy.

After like four hours, my feet were aching and my stomach was growling loud enough that Ren heard it over the noise of the crowd. He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Was that you or a small animal?"

"Shut up," I said, laughing, pressing a hand against my stomach. "I haven’t eaten properly since this morning."

"Right." He checked his watch, then took my hand without asking, pulling me gently toward the exit. "Come on. I know a place." I still need to ask how he knows almost all the places more than I who stayed for years.

The place turned out to be a small, quiet restaurant tucked down a side street, the kind with candles on every table and a violinist playing softly somewhere near the back.

It felt like the exact opposite of the loud, sugary chaos we’d just left behind, and I said as much the moment we sat down.

"You went from rollercoasters to this?"

"You needed the noise earlier," Ren said, shrugging out of his jacket.

"Now you need the quiet. I pay attention, Lumi." I stared at him across the table, something warm curling low in my chest.

"You really do."

He ordered for both of us, something rich and comforting, and when the food arrived, he watched me eat with a small, satisfied smile, like seeing me eat was somehow its own reward.

"What?" I asked, catching him staring.

"Nothing." He shook his head slightly. "I just like watching you like this. Relaxed. Not carrying the whole world on your shoulders for five minutes."

"You’ve made a habit out of trying to lighten my load, you know," I said, twirling my fork through the food. "The lake. The track. Now this."

"Get used to it," he said simply. "I told you. I’m not stopping." My stomach did another stupid flip.

After dinner, he insisted on walking through a row of little boutique shops along the street, their windows glowing warm and inviting.

I protested, tired and full, but he ignored me completely, tugging me from window to window like an excited child.

"Ren, I don’t need anything..."

"I didn’t ask if you needed it," he said, already pushing open the door to a small shop that smelled like lavender and old paper. "I asked if you wanted it."

He bought me a soft grey scarf I’d only glanced at for two seconds, claiming the colour matched my eyes, though I was fairly sure my eyes weren’t grey at all.

He bought a small leather notebook from the shop next door, insisting a woman running a company needed somewhere to write down her brilliant ideas.

In the third shop, he stood very seriously in front of a shelf of chocolate, deliberating like he was choosing between competing business proposals, before finally selecting a small gold box and placing it directly into my hands.

"For emergencies," he said. "Bad days. Whenever you need something sweet and you don’t want to ask anyone for it."

"You’re ridiculous," I said, laughing, my arms now full of small bags I hadn’t asked for and somehow didn’t want to put down.

"I’m thorough," he corrected, taking half the bags from me without asking, because apparently that was simply what he did now, took things from my hands before I even realised they’d grown too heavy.

By the time we walked back to the car, my arms were considerably lighter, and my chest was fuller.

"Thank you," I said quietly, glancing over at him as we walked. "For today. For dragging me out of that box."

"You did that yourself," he said. "I just opened the door."

We didn’t say much on the drive back to the hotel. There wasn’t a need to. The quiet between us felt easy now, comfortable in a way it hadn’t been in a long time.

Once we reached the suite, I dropped my bags near my door, my body still humming pleasantly from the day.

When I stepped back out into the living room, Ren had also gotten ready and was standing near the window, his silhouette framed against the glowing city lights outside, the glass stretching high behind him.

He turned when he heard me, and something in his expression softened the moment his eyes landed on my face.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"Lighter," I said honestly, crossing the room toward him. "Thank you, Ren. Genuinely. For today. For the papers. For the scarf and the notebook and that ridiculous gold box of chocolate."

"You’re going to run out of ways to say that," he said, a faint, crooked smile tugging at his mouth. "Because I’m not planning on stopping any time soon."

"Is that a threat?"

"It’s a promise." His voice dropped, quieter now, more serious.

"I meant what I said earlier, Lumi. You’ve spent so long holding everything together for everyone else. Theo. Neve. Even Callum, once, back when you still thought that meant something." He reached up, brushing a strand of hair away from my face, his fingers lingering against my cheek.

"I just want to be one person in your life you don’t have to hold anything together for. Someone who holds a few things for you instead."

Something about the way he said it, low and certain, like it was simply a fact of his life now, made my chest ache in the best possible way.

Every rational part of me was screaming and reminding me who we were, but when your heart is involved, there’s nothing like rational.

I had fallen madly for him that it even scares me because I know my feelings would hurt everyone around me, including myself. But I couldn’t help it.

I stopped a foot away from him, close enough to feel the warmth coming off him even through the cool air of the room.

I looked up and he was already staring at me, like he wanted to reach deep inside my soul with his eyes, neither of us said anything.

I don’t know who moved first. I really don’t. One second there was still space between us, and the next there wasn’t.

His mouth was on mine and it felt less like a decision and more like something that had simply always been coming.

His hands slid up into my hair, and I gripped the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, needing there to be even less space between us than there already was.

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was slow at first, and then it wasn’t, deep and hungry, like something had finally been let off its leash after being held back for far too long.

I felt it everywhere. In my chest, in my knees, in the way my whole body seemed to lean into him without my permission.

He walked me backward without breaking the kiss, one hand firm against the small of my back, guiding me until the edge of the sofa hit the back of my legs.

Then his hands slid down, cupping the backs of my thighs, and he lifted me clean off the floor.

I gasped against his mouth, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, my arms locking behind his neck as he lowered us both down onto the cushions, his weight settling carefully over me, not to crush me.

I couldn’t focus on anything except him, the warmth of his mouth, the roughness of his hands, the low, quiet sound he made against my lips like I was something he’d been starving for.

I kissed him back with everything I had, every bit of fear and grief and relief from the last few days pouring straight out of me and into him instead.

My fingers slid into his hair, gripping, and he groaned softly, deepening the kiss further, his mouth moving against mine like he was trying to memorise the exact shape of it.

I could feel my body getting hot and I knew if I didn’t stop right now, we won’t be able to stop till the very end.

I held his chest to push him away but the touch felt electric and I didn’t know when my hands started moving around his hard chest slowly.

"Ahhhww....Fuck..."