Chapter Text
Feyre couldn’t tell if the wetness on her cheeks was due to the rain outside, or due to the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.
She didn’t care.
She wasn’t sure it made a difference anyway.
She hadn’t really meant to reach Rhys’s house, earlier. Hadn’t meant to talk to him at all, and certainly not to barge in the middle of the night and spit all of her long-drowned emotions at his face.
She hadn’t meant to.
She had anyway.
And now she was walking—trying to run when she really couldn’t—and stumbling in the rain.
And on top of her broken heart, and the sobs she was trying but failing to stifle, she had made a fool of herself.
She was merely reaching her car a few houses down the street when she felt a hand on her wrist and she almost jumped out of her skin.
She probably would have, if not for the pair of violet eyes she was met with when she whirled around, and Rhys’s voice reaching her ears immediately,
“What did you say?”
Feyre blinked at him.
First, at his tone—sharp and rough and… almost desperate.
Then, at everything she could read in his eyes—the mix of certainty and uncertainty, the hope, the need.
And finally, at him. Simply him.
His hair—wet even though he had only stepped out of his house a few minutes ago. At his still bare chest and the way his brows were still furrowed. At his touch on her wrist—gentle and caring and everything she wanted but everything she shouldn’t feel.
She swallowed, just as Rhys repeated,
“What did you say, Feyre?”
Feyre shook her head in confusion a second before she rasped, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Was his hand on her wrist slightly contracting?
It certainly felt like it was.
Certainly felt like her heart was, too.
The tip tip tipping of the rain around them almost echoed the sounds of her heartbeat thundering violently in her chest and for a moment, it was all she could focus on.
“The proposal,” Rhys eventually said, painfully slowly. “What did you say?”
“I—”
Feyre found herself blinking again.
The proposal.
Tamlin’s proposal.
Oh gods, she was gonna be sick.
This time, it was almost an instinct to remove her arm from his hold and take a step back.
Rhys didn’t let her. He took a step toward her in return and then another one as she retreated again, and soon her back met the hard surface of her car behind her and it was all she could do not to crumble against it.
“Feyre,” he repeated—almost pleaded and his voice was so freaking gentle it hurt. “Tell me. I need to know what you told him.”
The tears had somehow stopped leaking from her eyes by now, and although the rain was still dropping strong around them, she could see him a little better.
The pain on his face that resembled her own.
The heartbreak written in his every feature that seemed to be the exact match to hers.
But despite all of that—despite her heart roaring and her pulse jumping—she could only fire back,
“Why do you care?”
She was using his own words against him.
She couldn’t care less.
Feyre had reached a point—one she hadn’t even thought possible.
But pain had been such a deep, intricate part of her for the last five years and a half that she couldn’t even feel bad about making anyone else hurt.
She couldn’t, because it was only fair, wasn’t it?
That somebody else, in this world, shared the pain that had been eating her alive for so long.
Rhys didn’t even seem surprised by her question. He only kept staring at her—only kept inspecting her eyes and probably her very soul—before he said,
“The guy you like.”
She blinked at him—yet again.
“What?”
“You said the guy you like,” he repeated, his voice a little more certain than it had been all evening.
More certain than she had heard it in a few months now, really—ever since she’d made a fool of herself by pretending she had been looking for Cassian in her backyard, and confusing him for Cassian when really, how could her heart ever not know?
She swallowed, and shook her head.
She really didn’t understand what he was saying.
Rhys’s hand found her wrist again, and the hold was still gentle but firm, too, when he lifted her arm to take a look at her hand.
“Earlier,” he said, his eyes trained downwards this time, “You said the guy you liked just proposed. Not the guy you love. Not the man you want to share your life with, not the love of your life—the guy you like.”
When had the world started spinning around her?
Probably at the exact same time as her head had started getting way too fucking loud for her own good.
“And you’re not wearing a ring, either,” Rhys continued, with only calculation lacing his words now that he seemed absolutely certain of whatever he was trying to get her to admit. “So I need to know Feyre,” his gaze found hers again. “What did you say?” His stare was heating her skin and she felt the need to swallow under his scrutiny. “What did you tell him when he asked you to be his wife?”
Words were lacking.
Air was lacking.
Hell, heartbeats were lacking with how slow her heart was beating now.
It was weird—it had always beaten more strongly with Rhys by her side.
Only earlier tonight, it had been slamming against her ribcage so much it hurt—so strong it had made her feel sick.
Now, she was barely feeling it with how little it was beating.
She could say nothing except repeat—in a breath this time,
“Why do you care?”
A part of her half-expected him to lash out at her.
To scream (at least as much as she had screamed at him) and to perhaps admit everything she desperately wanted him to admit (but also knew he didn’t feel).
Another part of her though, expected the exact opposite. Expected him to simply take a step back, appraise her with those eyes of his that made the very essence of her being live and shrug a shoulder. Expected him to say, you’re right. I don’t care.
Absolutely no part of her—not even a single one—expected him to swallow what looked like the exact same lump she was feeling in her throat, and gently lift a hand to cup one of her cheeks.
Gently.
So fucking gently.
The touch burned her. Froze her. Made her shiver and want to scramble away, but also drown in it, too. All at the same time. She wanted to spend the rest of her days in this touch and run away from it as far as possible. She wanted to tell him to stop and to tell him to never dare make a single move away from her, too.
The tears came rushing back to her eyes but she managed to keep them at bay.
It was Rhys’s turn to say, in a breath, “I’m a liar.”
His thumb started brushing over her cheekbone slowly—so slowly. And his body was so close to hers now that it was almost impossible to breathe without breathing him.
He smelled like rain and salt and citrus, and desperate need and fucking longing. He smelled like love and home—and she didn’t think she was allowed to think that but she did anyway.
“I’m a liar,” Rhys repeated, his voice still as quiet when she didn’t answer. He slowly shook his head. “I don’t want to be friends.”
Feyre’s eyes fluttered closed at that—almost a reflex to hide the sight of him when she needed to do anything but forget him.
“I can’t be friends with you, Feyre, I—” she felt his forehead meet hers, their noses almost touching and his hot breath heating her skin but she still didn’t open her eyes. “I can’t. Not when I need so much more.”
His last sentence did things to her heart she didn’t understand. It was like it was both making it beat at full force, and making it stop. Both dissolving the lump in her throat but putting it back in place. Both erasing every single pain she had ever experienced but also scorching a wide new hole in her heart.
She opened her eyes to find his trained on hers.
“I meant every word of that text,” he murmured. “I wish that you’d never left. I wish that you’d stay here and that you—”
“You don’t get to do that,” she rasped.
And she was angry again, wasn’t she?
That’s why her stomach was starting to churn again and why her breaths were getting more shallow with each passing moment, and why her tears were fighting like never to escape. That’s why she felt the need—desperate, uncontrollable, absolutely unreasonable—to push him away from her, as if it would help her breathe any better, somehow.
Rhys stumbled a few steps away when she shoved at his wet chest and he was probably panting, too, but she couldn’t really make it out.
“You don’t get to do that,” she repeated. “You made me go,” she almost yelled, “You made me—”
“I didn’t—”
“You decided you didn’t want me anymore and you fucking shipped me away, Rhys!”
The tears were back.
Of course they were.
And it didn’t even matter, because she could swear she saw ones mirroring her own in Rhys’s eyes.
In his wide, uncomprehending eyes.
It was his turn to blink at her.
“What?”
With what little strength she still had in her, Feyre ran both her hands on her face in an attempt to clear her mind.
Useless.
Of course it was useless.
She took a few moments to breathe—deep and shallow breaths but who cared—and then, when she felt like she could trust her voice enough, she turned back towards Rhys.
She cleared her throat, very slowly, and announced,
“This is ridiculous. Let’s just do what we do best and pretend none of this ever happened, shall we?” She nodded toward his house behind him, “Go back to bed. We’ll never talk about—”
“Like hell,” Rhys shook his head, taking a step towards her again. “Like hell I’m letting you go and run away right now.”
“You—”
“Tell me what you meant,” he asked—ordered, perhaps. “Tell me you don’t believe that. That you don’t believe, even for one second, that I wanted to break up with you and—”
Feyre could only scoff.
A small and dirty one—one that was filled with every single pain and desperation and humiliation she had felt for the last five years.
One that she had never thought she’d let him see or hear.
She was long past the point of caring, by now.
“Please tell me you’re not really convinced that—”
“Then what was it, Rhys?” she asked slowly—almost quietly—as she cocked her head to the side. “What was it that made you decide in my stead, that I’d leave for Paris, and leave the life I had here behind? What was it that made you think I’d be—”
“You wanted to go,” Rhys interrupted her, brows furrowed. “You wanted to—”
“I never said—”
“You told me you’d go if you could afford it,” he countered, all anger brimming to the surface only matching her own. “You told me you’d die to go to this school, and live this life, and—”
“You bought me a freaking ticket and didn’t even ask,” her palm met her own chest with a little more force than she intended, but she was glad to still feel her heart beating beneath it. She hadn’t been sure it was still intact. “You bought me a flight ticket and then told me we should probably break up for however long it’d take me to—”
Rhys’s jaw ticked before he said, “That’s not—”
“That’s what you did,” Feyre breathed with a shake of her head. Her tears were falling, but what else was new. “You bought me a flight ticket, and you told me it’d be best to break up.”
There was a moment—a second, a minute, a lifetime?—where they just stood there, staring at each other. Staring at their lies and their failures and their fucking hearts breaking anew. Breaking all over again. Breaking because it seemed like they didn’t know anything other than that.
Until eventually, Feyre swallowed, and said,
“I wanted to go to Paris,” she admitted, very quietly. “But I wanted you to come with me.”
If she hadn’t known him so intrinsically, perhaps she wouldn’t have noticed the emotions crossing his eyes. Perhaps she wouldn’t have noticed the small move of his shoulders—as if the weight of the world had just been dumped on him.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have noticed how much he was hurting, too.
He said,
“And I didn’t want to hold you back.” He paused, just long enough for her to blink, and then added, “I told you you deserved to be happy. I wasn’t lying, then. I’ve always wanted you to be.”
And despite everything—despite their conversation, and the rain, and the tears trailing down her cheeks and the hurt she couldn’t even feel anymore in her heart; despite her trembling hands and despite the realization that maybe they were bound to be just that, two broken hearts and two broken and unmendable souls—despite every single thing life had ever thrown at her, Feyre laughed.
She laughed.
And it wasn’t a heartfelt laugh. It wasn’t an amused one, or a big one, or one she’d ever link to a happy memory.
But she laughed, because what else could she do?
What else could she answer to the biggest, stupidest thing she had ever heard?
She laughed, and Rhys’s brows, in return, only rose.
“Well,” Feyre finally said, with a sad smile this time. “There you have it.”
Rhys wasn’t finding anything funny, it seemed.
She moved, stepping away from the car only to brush her tears—and some droplets of rain, too—away from her cheeks.
“There I have, what?” Rhys asked, his voice clipped and his gaze impenetrable.
“You,” she answered, turning her back on him for the second time this evening. “You being… well, you.” She fumbled with her bag for the few seconds it took her to find her car keys and unlock it. “That’s what you’ve always done, Rhys,” she said as she opened the door, turning towards him again only to find him staring back at her with that fucking mask that had become second nature hiding his true feelings again. “Always thought you were undeserving, or unworthy. That’s what you’ve always felt like, and you’ve refused to believe every single person telling you otherwise.”
She saw him open his mouth to speak, and then close it.
But she was so sick of waiting.
She was so sick of being desperate, and heartbroken, and miserable.
She was tired, and angry, and lost, and certainly pained, too.
She was fucking out of strength, and she couldn’t bear to be faced with her failures anymore.
Hers and his, anyway.
Feyre slowly climbed inside the car and before she thought better of it, she glanced above her shoulder to him again.
“There’s something you’ll never seem to understand though,” she murmured as she met his gaze. “You say I deserve to be happy?” she didn’t wait for his nod to continue, “You’ve never been able to understand that you were my happiness. I’m happy when I’m with you. I’m smiling when I’m with you, Rhys.” Feyre swallowed, offering him the saddest smile she guessed had ever spread her lips. “I don’t think you realize it. But you’re everything that I needed all along.”
Rhys took a step forward, and he looked like he was about to say something, but Feyre only allowed herself one second to look at the hurt in his eyes before she turned away from him.
Again.
She closed the door and drove away—leaving his street and his blurry form in the dripping rain. Leaving her heart and her soul probably, too, but she was too far gone to care.
Too tired and too sick to even realize she was the one running away ; despite everything she had told him.
Her palms were almost sweaty, gripping around the hard and cold handle with a little more force than necessary.
Her hair was a mess—she had tried to tie it in a bun several times before giving up on the few strands that wouldn’t stay tucked—and her sweater too big for her, but she paid it no mind. She would at least be comfortable.
Her eyes were red. They were puffy and they hurt a little, too.
It probably didn’t help that she’d been crying all night.
That she'd been smoking all night, too. As if that could help with her heartbreak.
But her cheeks were finally dry, at least.
“What do you mean?”
Mor’s voice over the phone was almost scolding. Disbelieving.
Feyre tried not to add it to the mountain of her failures.
She needed her friend right now more than she needed a lecture.
She cleared her throat as she presented her documents to the lady in front of her, and on the phone she said,
“I mean exactly that. I’m leaving.”
There was a pause at the other end of the phone, which was just long enough for the lady to let her eyes roam over her documents, before offering her a short nod and giving them back.
“You’re leaving,” Mor repeated, her tone stiff. “You’re leaving where?”
Feyre wrapped her hand around the handle of her carry-on luggage once more, passport and flight ticket in hand. “Paris,” she supplied as she walked away from the desk.
Again, Mor paused. Feyre used the opportunity to tuck her passport into her handbag.
“Paris,” she echoed.
Feyre couldn’t help but huff at her friend. “Are you just gonna repeat everything I’m saying, Mor?”
Instead of answering, she asked, “When?”
Ah. There it was. Feyre closed her eyes for just the second it took her to gather her strength.
“Now,” she answered. “I’m at the airport right now.”
“Are you fucking—fuck, Feyre, what the hell?”
Feyre took a deep breath as she began walking towards the security checkpoint. She knew it was coming. She had just thought Mor would be a little more supportive.
Maybe she should have called Cassian instead.
“Mor I—”
“What happened?” she interrupted her, “because last week—last week, Feyre—you called me in the middle of the night, telling me Tamlin proposed. And then you don’t answer to my texts or my phone calls for a whole fucking week, and now you’re telling me you’re leaving? What the hell?”
“I—”
“Are you eloping?”
Feyre huffed an almost laugh.
“I’m not eloping.”
“Or is that the honeymoon? Are you already married and—”
“I’m not married,” she cut her off with an eye roll she couldn’t control. “And I’m not engaged, either.”
Again, silence.
There was only silence at the other end of the phone.
Feyre wasn’t sure she was prepared to hear whatever would come afterward.
She slowly walked the line that would lead her behind the security checkpoint and tried to ignore the lump slowly starting to form in her throat—again.
Fucking hell. How much more miserable could she feel?
She closed her eyes.
When Mor’s voice cut through her thoughts, it was a little quieter, somehow,
“Is that somehow linked to why Rhys has been an absolute wreck for the past week?”
Feyre’s eyes snapped open at her friend’s words.
“What?”
She didn’t mean for her tears to come back, or for her heart to squeeze more than it usually did.
And yet, here she was.
“Rhys,” Mor continued slowly, “Has been a fucking mess for a week. Which is strange, considering in that exact same week, you got engaged, and then broke up, and then now you’re telling me you’re running away to the other end of the fucking planet.”
Feyre didn’t even correct her to tell her she hadn’t been, technically, engaged.
She hadn’t even touched the ring.
She had just done what she did best—she’d run away.
And had ended up at Rhys’s doorstep.
Gods, what a mess.
She took a deep breath.
“Look, Mor,” she said, “I’m fine, okay? A lot has happened in the past week, but I’m alright. I’m about to pass security, actually, and I—”
“Don’t you dare hang up right—”
“I’m sorry,” she offered even though she wasn’t, really. “I have to go.”
She hung up the phone before Mor could complain again and felt the need to close her eyes.
Again.
She really, truly hoped she could at least leave some of her pain behind once she stepped on that plane.
Feyre found a small spot near her departing gate and once she was seated—on the floor with her back resting against the wide window where each plane was departing towards a new beginning—she did something she hadn’t done in a long time.
Way too long for her liking.
Sketching hadn’t been easy in the past year.
Now, it felt like she somehow needed it.
She had come to the airport way too early—and she knew it.
But she had no idea what to do with herself once she had left Tamlin’s house with whatever little belongings she had for herself.
Their house.
Their former house.
And it had been best, she had thought, to just spend her extra time at the airport.
Better here than being faced with Mor’s raised eyebrows or Cassian’s pained expression.
So she sketched, sitting on the floor in the airport, and she sketched, and she sketched, and it was almost perfect, like that.
It was almost perfect, because she could at least feel something other than the pure heartbreak that she had felt for the past five years.
It was good, because she could forget the rest of the world, drowning in her sketch and her drawing and her pencil dancing on the page.
So it was good.
Great.
Perfect.
And the fact that she had been at that exact same spot, five and some months ago—with the exact same red and puffy eyes, and the exact same breaking heart, and the exact same shattered soul—wasn’t lost on her.
Actually, it was all she could think about.
It was all her mind could provide—tangling thought after tangling thought blurring with the way her hand moved frantically to pour all of her feelings onto the page she was holding but could barely see, really.
It was all that she could—
“Feyre.”
Her name.
That voice.
Her heart stopped.
Again.
She didn’t even have to look to know who it belonged to.
But of course—like a magnet looking for its twin, and like a star looking for its perfect match—of course she lifted her head.
And she saw him.
And it didn’t make any sense, did it?
Rhys was standing in front of her.
Violet eyes looking right at her with that edge and that… terror splattered all over them. Worry was lining his face and his hair was ruffled but he was dressed in a suit that definitely didn’t belong in an airport.
His hands were clenched into fists at his sides and his tie was a little unbound but he was here.
He was here and he was gorgeous, and she didn’t want to see him right now.
It was too soon.
Way too soon for her heart and her body and soul.
Way too soon for her whole being, to be close to him like that right now.
She swallowed, and merely watched as Rhys took a single step toward her.
“Can we talk?”
Feyre probably would have scoffed. Instead, she turned her gaze back down to the sketchbook on her lap and asked,
“What are you doing here?”
Another step towards her.
“I came to talk.”
She slowly lifted her head again, finding his eyes once more and this time, she scoffed.
She really did, because—what the hell?
She was in an airport.
No one just came here to talk.
“You came here to—”
“Don’t go,” he said—asked, demanded, pleaded. “Please don’t go.”
“I—”
“Please, Feyre,” he shook his head as he took another step towards her, standing right before where she was seated now but his eyes never leaving hers. And when she kept her mouth clamped shut, Rhys slowly crouched down before her.
She saw it all, then.
The pain, and devastation, and fucking heartbreak that was even worse to bear than her own— all on his features for her to see.
He hesitantly brought both his hands to her knees where they were drawn to her chest—drawing a shiver out of her even though his hands were nothing cold—and then, he pleaded again.
With his eyes this time.
Feyre swallowed, and cursed under her breath at the bite she could feel in her eyes—again.
“Please,” he repeated. “Please don’t go. Please don’t leave. Please—”
“It’s too late, Rhys,” she breathed. “It’s—”
“Then let me come with you.”
She blinked at him, but could find only sincerity and raw determination in his eyes. He moved one of his hands and lifted it to her cheek—slowly.
So very slowly.
She wondered if he was debating whether it was okay, after everything.
His palm met her cheek. And the touch was so, very gentle that the tears welling in her eyes simply fell, slowly.
For a minute, they stayed like this. Kept looking at each other, sharing the burden of their hearts and their pain. Sharing the burden of their truths, too, that had been kept hidden for way too long and had been finally torn apart.
It was Rhys who eventually broke the silence—and it wasn’t even silent around them. The airport was buzzing and fucking loud. But they were.
They were silent and so her whole world, was.
“You didn’t marry him,” he murmured.
Out of all the things she had expected him to say, this was not on her list.
Still, she murmured back,
“Of course I didn’t marry him.”
Again, Rhys fell silent—for all but a minute.
A minute of accepting.
A minute of understanding, perhaps.
And then, he said,
“Marry me instead.”
Feyre didn’t know if she should laugh—laugh or snort or roll her eyes perhaps.
She straightened, slowly, but Rhys kept her right there with his hand.
“Marry me instead,” he repeated. “I’m not kidding. Marry me.”
“I don’t—” she shook her head, and then finally rolled her eyes. “I’m not—”
“Marry me,” he repeated, and brought his other hand to her other cheek.
His face was impossibly closer than it was before, and she couldn’t even escape him.
Not when he was holding her like that.
Certainly not when he was looking at her like that.
Like he was a question and she was his answer.
Like he was sick and she was his cure.
Like he was lacking air and she was his oxygen.
Like he was dying and she was his life.
“Why not?” he asked after a few seconds. “Why—”
“Flight number 27496 to Paris, France will depart in thirty minutes. All passengers should report to gate B.“
Feyre’s eyes tried to dart towards the gate that was, indeed, starting to board, but she couldn’t even do it. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Not from him.
Not from his eyes.
Not from the words coming out of his mouth.
“Why not?” he continued in a breath.
When Feyre didn’t answer—only kept staring—he asked,
“Why didn’t you marry him?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but Rhys continued, “No lies. Please.”
Feyre clamped her mouth shut.
Because I don’t love him.
That was the truth.
That was the undeniable, unfiltered truth.
But there was also more to it, wasn’t it?
She swallowed instead of answering.
Rhys’s thumbs started brushing her skin softly in a back-and-forth motion.
“You’re not in love with him,” he said—more of a certainty than a question. “You can’t love him.”
Feyre was almost holding her breath—waiting on his every word as if they were her last breath.
“You can’t, because you still love me,” he continued, very quietly.
His voice, this time, lacked the certainty he had displayed before.
And yet, certainty was everything she felt within him when he spoke the words.
“And it’s a good thing,” Rhys continued in a breath, “Because I love you, too. I have loved you for—” he shook his head. “For way too many years to count. I have loved you for longer than you could imagine, and I haven’t stopped—not for one second.”
When his thumb moved this time, it spread something wet on her cheek, and she probably wouldn’t even have noticed she had been crying if not for his finger.
“And perhaps I was a fool. Perhaps I was an asshole and a fucking idiot, and perhaps I don’t deserve to—” he cut himself off mid-sentence, huffed a laugh, and flashed her a smile that would have made her knees buckle had she not been already sitting. “Guess you were on point with the thinking-I’m-not-deserving thing.”
Feyre chuckled, but it was messy. It was blurred and mixed with her tears and her sniffles.
“I don’t care that I think I don’t deserve you,” he announced. “I never will. I will never feel worthy enough to be with you, because you are the fucking sun, the most beautiful person this world has ever known and if you still love me, too, Feyre there’s—”
He never finished his sentence.
He never did, because she didn’t let him.
Instead, she surged forward, bringing both her hands to his wrists to gain levity and used them to shift and let her mouth meet his.
And she kissed him.
Or perhaps he was kissing her, she didn’t care.
The kiss was messy.
It was desperate.
It was broken, but healing too.
It was starved and hungry, but feeding and very much needed.
She kissed him like nothing else mattered. Kissed him like she needed and like he probably needed, too. She kissed him like her life depended on it, and she kissed him like she wouldn’t be able to breathe without it, and then kissed him even more than that.
She kissed him, and he kissed her back, and she didn’t pay attention to anything other than their lips dancing and teasing and just… loving.
They didn’t pay attention to the people around them, or the curious looks, or the small coughs. They didn’t pay attention to the second boarding call, or to the buzzing noises of the airport.
Her whole world narrowed to that kiss. And perhaps his, too, if the way Rhys kissed her back was any indication.
His hands had moved—cradling her neck, and her waist, and her soul, too.
And when she couldn’t take it anymore—when even kissing wasn’t enough, somehow, she breathed, without ever leaving his lips,
“I love you, Rhys,” another kiss, then another. Then another. “I love you and don’t you dare ever pull this kind of shit again.”
He huffed against her, between kisses, but she felt his hands contracting slightly against her. As if trying to keep her right there—no matter that there wasn’t anywhere in this world she wanted to go.
“I’m never letting you go,” he kissed her, and somehow managed to bring her a little closer to his chest, too. “Ever.”
“Flight number 27496 to Paris, France will depart in fifteen minutes. All passengers should report to gate B.“
Reluctantly, Feyre broke the kiss and she found herself panting slightly. She took a few moments to catch her breath, her chest heaving a little too much. But Rhys was looking at her with such an intensity she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to breathe normally again.
Not with him.
Certainly not without him, either.
“Tell me you’re not taking that plane,” he asked, voice very quiet.
Slowly, she shook her head.
“Not if you don’t come, too.”
The smile that spread across his lips was… pure. Unguarded. Happy.
He pulled her against him and she immediately obliged, meeting his chest and letting him wrap her in his arms.
And she finally felt at home.
No matter the city.
No matter the surroundings.
Him.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and said,
“I have two tickets to go to Norway.”
Feyre huffed a laugh against his chest. “Why the hell do you—”
“It was the only one they could sell me last minute,” he offered before she could finish her sentence. “I wouldn’t have been able to pass the gate otherwise.”
She slowly lifted her head to be able to look at him.
“But you have two?”
He shrugged a single shoulder.
“I got hopeful.”
Rhys leaned in to place another kiss—a little more delicate, this time—on her lips. “I wasn’t taking no for an answer, this time. And now that I think about it,” he brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Oslo could be the perfect place to elope.”
She snorted, trying to straighten out of his arms but he held her close.
“I wasn’t kidding. Not even for a second.”
“We can’t—”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s crazy.”
His smile suggested he didn’t care in the slightest.
He kissed her instead.
“I’ve been in love with you for most of my life, Feyre. I don’t care about anything else.” He paused, then cocked his head to the side. “You want to know the real reason I took dance classes with Mor?” Feyre blinked at him, and even with her furrowed brows, she nodded. Rhys’s smile turned even softer. “Because she wanted me to know how to dance for when I eventually get married.”
He gently brushed his knuckles against her skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake. He was still smiling at her—and looking like he was about to share a secret he hadn’t told a single soul on this earth before he continued,
“I only had you in mind. Even Mor teased me about it all during this fucking class.” He kissed her brow, then her nose, then, finally, her mouth. “I love you and I don’t plan on ever loving anyone else.”
Somehow, she didn’t find an answer to counter that, either.
She, too, brought a hand to his cheek and gently stroked his skin.
“I love you, too,” she said, and it was the best truth she knew.
Rhys kissed her thumb when it darted to his lips, and then he leaned in again—only to kiss her lips, again.
“We should get to the other gate,” he said gently when he broke the kiss. “Get on our plane.”
Feyre huffed, but she didn’t even try to hide her pout when he pulled away from her.
She was already missing him.
“You were serious about that? Norway?”
Rhys slowly untangled himself from her and stood up, before extending a hand to help her stand, too.
“Of course,” he answered simply as she took it. “Why not?”
Feyre could think of a thousand reasons, actually. The first one being that he had absolutely no luggage and no bag with him.
She rolled her eyes at him, but humored him anyway.
Why not.
They were slow as they made their way to the gate. Feyre had made quick work of gathering her things—tucking her sketchbook in her bag and gathering the rest of whatever she had unpacked on the floor of the airport—but they weren’t able to walk in a straight line. Rhys was glued to her side, one of his hands rolling her suitcase carelessly while the other one was too busy touching her—her waist and her hip and her arm. Brushing and caressing and gently squeezing, as in reassurance.
His lips were no better. He’d slow down every few steps to steal a kiss—on her temple, on her cheek, on her mouth—and then would stop fully walking when Feyre inevitably deepened said kiss.
She couldn’t help it.
It’s not like he did anything to make her stop.
They were almost at the other gate when Rhys slowed down—once more. But it wasn’t to drop a kiss on her skin, this time, and she could almost feel her chest filling with a little disappointment—no matter how ridiculous it was.
“Can I ask you something?”
Feyre hummed a response and cocked an eyebrow at him. When he didn’t speak, she placed a hand on his chest, took a few moments to feel his heartbeat under her palm, and offered him a soft smile.
“Yes?”
Rhys covered her hand with his own.
“There was,” he searched her eyes, his brows slowly furrowing. “A swing, in your backyard.” Both of Feyre’s eyebrows rose at that. “Are you... Were you... I mean...” Rhys let out another breath. “Why?”
She furrowed her brows and echoed, “Why?”
“I mean, I—” he ran a hand through his hair, and it only deepened the frown on her face. “Fuck,” he shook his head. “I just—It’s been driving me insane. I thought—”
“Oh.”
“I thought you were—” he grimaced, not able to even finish his sentence, and Feyre had to bite her lower lip. It was only for a second, though, because a laugh bubbled out of her and Rhys’s eyes snapped back to hers.
She shook her head before she explained, very slowly,
“Tamlin is a real estate investor.” Her hand was still splayed on his chest and he was still looking down at her as if she was the most beautiful treasure this life could ever provide. “He said it’d be best to keep it, in case we were to sell. Just makes a good selling point.”
Rhys blinked at her, and again, she had to huff. She moved her hand slowly, until it reached his neck, then his jaw.
“It was already there,” she said quietly. “It came with the house, Rhys.”
Relief crossed his face, but she only saw a second of it before he captured her lips with his once more.
“Thank fuck,” he murmured, drawing a chuckle out of her. “I was going insane over that fucking swing.”
Perhaps she should have told him.
Perhaps she should have said how much she had freaked out when she’d seen it, and how Tamlin had tried to brush it aside.
Perhaps she should have said how much she despised it all—the swing, and the house, and the relationship she had found herself in.
Perhaps she should have.
She didn’t.
Instead, all she said was, “We could have our own.”
And she meant it, meant all of it—the house, the swing, the everything.
The relationship and the love and the happiness, too, finally.