Chapter 36
The Soft Place Where We Land
The world outside was still dripping with the remnants of the storm, rainwater trickling down the windows in slow, shimmering trails. But inside Mason's cabin, everything was still. Quiet. Sacred.
Marissa woke first, the early morning light filtering through the curtains and casting a soft glow across the room. Mason's arms were wrapped around her, one hand tangled gently in her hair, the other resting over her heart like he was trying to memorize the rhythm of it.
She didn't move.
Not yet.
She just lay there, breathing him in. The warmth of his bare skin against hers, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the scent of cedar and safety.
How could someone feel like a storm and home all at once?
Slowly, she reached up and traced her fingers along his jaw, soft and unshaven from the night before. Mason stirred slightly, a lazy smile spreading across his face before his eyes blinked open.
"Hey," he said, voice rough from sleep.
"Hey," she whispered back.
His gaze roamed over her face like he was still trying to convince himself she was real. "You're still here."
"I didn't want to leave."
Mason brushed his nose against hers. "Good. Because I would've gone after you."
They stayed like that for a long time. Wrapped in each other. No words. Just presence.
Later, Mason cooked breakfast...shirtless, barefoot, and grumbling about burnt toast. Marissa leaned on the counter, wearing his t-shirt, sipping coffee from a chipped mug, and watching him with a quiet kind of awe.
They ate in comfortable silence, knees brushing beneath the small table. Every glance, every smile, was a conversation in itself. It wasn't about the food it was about the moment. The slowness. The simplicity.
Afterward, they curled up on the couch, a blanket thrown over their legs, the soft hum of the wind whispering outside. Mason pulled her into his side, and she laid her head on his chest.
"I've never had this before," she murmured.
"This?"
"This… softness. This peace. Usually, love felt like war. Like survival."
He kissed the top of her head. "Then let this be your ceasefire."
Marissa looked up at him, heart aching in the best way. "Why are you always saying the perfect thing?"
"Because I mean it," Mason replied. "I want to be the place you land. Not the one you fight."
She blinked fast, the sting of tears creeping in. But this time, they weren't born from pain.
They were gratitude. Healing.
"Do you think people like us get to keep things like this?" she asked, voice trembling.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I do know that I'll fight for it. For us."
She kissed him then, slow and deep, like she was trying to carve the feeling into memory. And he kissed her back like she was his whole world wrapped in skin.
The day passed in moments stitched together by softness: fingers brushing over skin, shared laughter over a broken light switch, quiet talks about nothing and everything.
At one point, Marissa found herself curled up in Mason's hoodie, reading on the floor while he fixed a crooked cabinet door. She looked up and caught him watching her eyes full of something she hadn't seen in a long time.
Worship.
And in that moment, it hit her...love didn't have to be loud. It didn't have to hurt to be real. Sometimes, the truest kind of love was found in the silence, in the mundane, in the healing.
Later that night, lying in bed again, Marissa whispered, "This scares me."
Mason turned toward her. "What does?"
"How safe I feel with you."
He reached for her hand, weaving his fingers through hers. "Then I'm doing it right."
She smiled through the tears that slipped out anyway, and he pulled her closer, tucking her beneath his chin like she was the most precious thing in the world.
"You don't have to be scared alone anymore," he said into the dark.
And for the first time in a long time, she believed it.