I step into the spare room without ceremony. The door closes behind me with the soft, inevitable click that marks the villa's rhythm. The light is low; Cass is on the bed, phone face-down, shirt sleeves pushed up, fingers worrying the hem. Tiffany is draped in the doorway like she was born to judge moments.
I don't let them look up. "Babe," I say, because the invitation on my desk has been folded into a plan and the word fits the plan like a closing seal. "We're going out tomorrow night."
The syllable is small and deliberate. It lands and everything else in the room rearranges itself around it.
Because of the bond I don't need to watch him to know what it does to him. I feel the first bright flare of embarrassment hit him in the same instant I speak it — hot and immediate, a blush blooming under my thumb where it will be invisible but no less real. Beneath that heat there's something else: a rush of stupid, boyish delight, a private tally of all the ways he's been rehearsing this without knowing it. I can taste the thought on the inside of my skull:She called me babe. She called me babe. She actually called me—
He freezes mid-fumble; the phone flips face-down like it's trying to hide. He goes small—the posture of someone who's been temporarily unstrung—and his grin unspools in stages. First a twitch at one corner, then the lopsided, delighted smirk that always makes his eyes crinkle. His hands drum a nervous rhythm on the duvet and then still because he notices how loud he is.
Tiffany loses it. She collapses into a laugh in the doorway, hand pressed to her mouth. "Oh my God," she squeals. "She actually said it. Cass, did you just get called babe? This is prime content."
Cass scrabbles for words and comes up with the imperfect ones. "I—uh—what do you mean, going out? Where—?" He's trying to buy time, to find a voice large enough to carry him out of the swoon. The bond gives me all of it: his clumsy delight, the private imagining of what he'll put on, the nervous list of do-not-say-things he rehearses mentally. It makes our hands hard to keep to ourselves. Every impulse, even the stupid ones, comes across as a tug.
I close the door behind me—no drama, just the soft click again. My arm slides through his and the contact is casual, claiming. He flinches and then leans in as if the anchor steadies him.
"There's an important dinner," I say, tone flat. "Formal. You will wear something that doesn't look like it was stolen from a nightclub dumpster."
He chokes on a laugh that is half incredulous and half thrilled. "I—have clothes that aren't—" He gestures helplessly toward the wardrobe like evidence will save him.
"You'll wear the suit Conrad had tailored," I tell him. "Stand where people can see you, and smile when they look."
Tiffany sashays over, palms on hips, theatrical and delighted. "Is this one of those very serious events?"
Cass does a strangled, adorable sound and tries to smooth his shirt with concentrated, useless dignity. "I'm being shown off," he says, as if testing the reality of it.
"Yes. By me." I let the softness in my voice be private even with an audience in the room. "I want them to know."
He relaxes a fraction, the way people do when a threat becomes a possession. The bond delivers his next thought like a gust:I want to be enough. I want her to be proud of mee. Also can we have sex in the car—, the bathroom—, anywhere—Fuck am I already half hard... the last bit is a wild, guilty laugh lodged under the embarrassment.
He called me babe first and I didn't answer it aloud. I heard the word in his head then the same as now—hungry, hopeful—but I let it sit. Now the name slips from me, and hearing it echo back in him is sweeter than any ceremony.
He groans, but it's the fold-into-affection groan. "You're impossible."
"You love it," I say. His mouth twitches and the corners of his eyes crinkle in that stupid, perfect way that proves him incapable of dignity where I'm concerned.
"What time?" he asks, because timing is his anchor.
"Seven sharp," I tell him. "Conrad will be in touch about fittings. Go get some rest. You'll need it."
He reaches for my hand before I turn away. The action is small and half-stolen; his fingers close around mine with a pressure that's both plea and promise. Another thought slides across the bond, private and sharp:Say it again. Please say it again. Please don't make this the first and last time.His need sits in my ribs, honest and clumsy and utterly endearing.
He tries, mutters the word on a breath—"Babe—"—then falters. The sound is soft and immediately vulnerable.
I don't say more. I lean down and press my mouth to his in a quick, intimate kiss—no ceremony, no fanfare—just the press of lips that says yes, and steady, and mine. He melts into it, all the nervous electricity in his body unspooling into something warm and solid.
God he's so cute.
When I pull back his face is unreadable for the heartbeat it takes him to recompose. His cheeks are still flushed. He swallows. "Wear the suit," I say on breath and meaning. "Don't be an adorable idiot."
Tiffany snorts, already off into wardrobe analysis. "Literal translation: don't trip on a red carpet, Cass Roan."
He rolls his eyes but the color lingers. I stand in the quiet left behind, the kiss a small heat against my lips. The bond still hums between us, thick with his fumbling thoughts and the thin thread of my own: protection, presentation, a private promise. Saying babe out loud closes a loop that was left open a while ago. The name sits on my tongue like an addition to the contract I've already written with my blood.
Conrad appears in the corridor with the suit over his arm and a list in his hand. He says, efficiently, "Final fitting tomorrow at five." His eyes flick to Cass as if to confirm that the boy will turn into the man we want him to be on the night.
Cass pokes his head back in like he's been eavesdropping on himself. "Right. Cool. I'll—thanks, Conrad." He is both ridiculous and unbearably real. Tomorrow we will set the world to watching. Tonight, he has my name in his mouth and I have his hand in mine, and that is enough.