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By the time I got home, I was ninety percent repressed emotion and zero percent functionality.

And I still hadn’t heard a peep from Grant all day.

I toed off my shoes, dropped my bag, and stood in the entryway like a Roomba that had lost the will to vacuum. Too tired to sit, too wired to pace. I could still taste the bitterness of that horrible coffee in my mouth, and I… I didn’t know what to do with myself.

My brain was tired. My chest felt tight. My whole body was vibrating with the kind of exhaustion you can’t sleep off because it had nothing to do with physical fatigue.

So obviously I did the only logical thing possible—flopped onto the floor like a Victorian heroine and sighed dramatically.

Ten seconds later I was curled up on the rug by the couch, wrapped in a hoodie I didn’t remember grabbing.

It took me a second to realize it wasn’t mine.

It wasn’t worn out, emblazoned with a college logo, and missing its drawstrings. It was impossibly soft, smelled like heaven, and was made of some fancy blend of materials that cost a fortune.

It was Grant’s.

Oh god.

I didn’t mean to take it—I really hadn’t. I must’ve grabbed it in the whirlwind this morning when I’d been trying to pretend I wasn’t sneaking out like a thief-slash-trainwreck.

I should take it off. I should .

But of course I didn’t. Couldn’t. Because who could resist being enfolded in his clean, warm, cedar-tinged scent? It felt like he’d just stepped out of the shower and wrapped me in a hug that said, “You’re safe now, baby, I’ve got you.”

It was heaven, and it also gave me the greatest idea I’d had all day.

Last night, he’d asked me what I wanted for a graduation gift, and my mind had blanked out.

I hadn’t wanted a graduation gift at all, because even though I absolutely knew for sure that he meant it as something kind, something to show that he really was fond of me—because I truly did think he was—what it felt like was salt in the wound.

Being kicked while I was down. A tangible reminder, like an exclamation point on a sentence I never wanted to read, that the best thing to ever happen to me would be over .

So no, I hadn’t wanted one. Hadn’t even wanted to think about it.

But now I did. Now I wanted to ask him for this .

It was a nice hoodie, but surely not as expensive as a trip or whatever else he’d said last night. He’d let me have it, wouldn’t he? To remember him by?

And maybe even wear it for me a few more times before handing it over, so it would keep his scent even longer when he… when he…

Oh shit. My throat was tight. I was crying . Just unraveling completely, like a total drama llama who’d gone and fallen for something that was never supposed to exist in the first place.

And even worse, there was no one here to stop it. No strong arms or warm voice or Daddy to whisper “Shhh, baby” and catch me before I spiraled.

I needed him.

I needed Grant.

I needed Daddy .

And then—like my brain had well and truly snapped and started feeding me straight-up hallucinations—I heard it.

A knock at the door, and Grant’s voice calling my name.

I froze.

Oh shit. I was losing it.

He knocked again. “Colby? Baby? Are you home?”

Then my phone buzzed.

Grant.

My heart started hammering, and I launched myself off the floor, tripping a little over the hem of Grant’s hoodie and smacking my shin on the edge of the coffee table.

“Shit, shit—ow—shit.”

I looked around wildly, as if I could suddenly clean my whole apartment and my whole self in the three seconds it would take to answer the door. Too late. My face was puffy, my hair was a crime scene, and I was literally wearing the man’s stolen hoodie.

Another knock, softer this time. Patient. Like he’d heard me—of course he had—and was just reminding me to be good and come let him in.

I padded to the door, every step a small internal crisis, and cracked it open.

He was really here, looking calm and clean and heartbreakingly handsome, like he’d just stepped out of a coffee commercial where the product was emotional stability.

“Hi, baby,” he said softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled at me. “Can I come in?”

I stared at him.

Just stared.

Then I realized I hadn’t said anything yet, and of course he could come in.

But because I was a total menace to myself and all my crying and wallowing today had apparently shattered my ability to self-censor, instead of saying so, instead of inviting him into my apartment like a normal person, I blurted out my biggest fear instead.

“Please don’t cancel us early! I’m sorry I stayed overnight.

I wasn’t trying to be clingy, I swear, I just—last night was so good and I was kind of out of it, and I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep and then I woke up and I panicked and I left and stole your stuff” —I plucked at his hoodie— “and I… I…”

Oh god, I was hyperventilating. Spiraling hard . Ruining everything.

But then Grant stepped forward, closing the distance between us, and made everything better.

“Oh Colby. You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, cupping my face. “You’re perfect, baby. And I will never cancel us.”

Never?

What?

Before I could ask, he kissed me. Just wrapped me up in his arms and made the whole world fall away, all the anxious jittery panic inside me calming like it had never been there at all.

“Better now?” he asked, tenderly brushing my cheeks when he pulled back.

I nodded, staring up at him like I couldn’t quite believe he was real, because I honestly wasn’t sure if he was.

Well, okay. He was. I knew that, obviously. But was this real? Was it really happening?

“Why are you here?”

Grant’s eyes crinkled again, his smile a little self-deprecating this time. “Because I’m an idiot.”

“What? No!”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Thank you, baby, but yes. I have been. I’ve been blinded by… well, a lot of things. My past. That contract I made you sign. My own assumptions.”

My heart started to pound so hard I was sure he could hear it, too, and I honestly wasn’t sure if his words had me feeling terrified or excited. Or maybe terrified to be excited, because it sounded like he might mean… well, one thing. But maybe he meant the opposite?

“You aren’t happy with the contract?” I whispered, clinging hard to his promise earlier that he wasn’t going to cancel it. “I’ve… I’ve tried to be good. I know I didn’t follow it all the time! Last night, and all the texting, and?—”

He puts his finger over my lips. “Shhh. Breathe, baby. You’ve been absolutely perfect. I’ve been more than happy with what we were doing, but I’m not happy with the contract ending. I’m not happy with us ending.”

He wasn’t?

He wanted me?

He wanted more?

Oh shit, I’d cracked. This was some kind of fairytale happily-ever-after fantasy my brain had come up with. There was no way?—

“I’m in love with you, Colby.”

My brain completely shut down. Not just fuzzy, not just overloaded.

Fully blue-screened as my chest cracked wide open, those words he’d just said echoing like a second heartbeat as they replayed on a loop, over and over, until all those feelings my sister had teased me about felt like they were too big to contain in just one heart.

A little sob burst out of me, and then?—

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

Grant froze, his eyes going wide.

Panic flared in my chest, wiping out every single wonderful feeling in existence. Oh shit, oh my god. He just handed me the one dream I hadn’t believed I could actually have, and I’d immediately ruined it?!?

He’d told me not to call him Daddy. Somehow, he’d gone and fallen for me, which was amazing and incredible and a literally miracle, but he didn’t want that .

“I mean—sorry! I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to— mmph .”

He didn’t let me finish. His eyes blazed with something blazing hot and fifty shades of wonderful, then he yanked me against him and kissed me so deeply that I felt it right down to my soul.

He kissed me like he loved me… just like he’d said he did.

And he kissed me like, just maybe, being my Daddy wasn’t off the table, either.

Like maybe he’d realized he already sort of was.