Page 58 of The No Pressure Pact
I guide her up carefully, steadying her slippery legs as she climbs out of the tub. She’s flushed, hair plastered to her skin, and I swear my chest aches just watching her. I grab a couple of white hotel-sized towels from the warming rack and toss them onto the puddles in a half-assed attempt to mop the floor. She snorts at me, wrapping herself in one of her own.
“Impressive cleanup skills,” she says, deadpan.
“Finance degree,” I mutter, grinning, “and honestly, have you seen my friends? It’s like I minored in damage control.”
Manuela’s laugh is low, warm. God, I want to bottle that sound up and carry it with me everywhere I go, open it when things get bleak and stressful and my life is directionless.
I tug on a towel myself, then pull her into the hallway, our wet footprints streaking across the wood floor. We make it through the obscenely big closet and into the bedroom. The space is warm with late-afternoon light, windows stretched wide across the far wall, the lake glittering beyond them. She hesitates at the foot of the bed, hair dripping down her shoulders, leaving tiny dark spots on the floorboards. I can see the thought flicker across her face—the house is still empty but not for long.
“An hour, maybe,” I say, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “They’ll probably stop somewhere else for drinks before dinner.”
She nods once, like she’s agreed to some unspoken pact, and then I’m kissing her again, walking her backward until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed. She tumbles onto the duvet with a surprised laugh, pulling me down after her.
The shift from the hard surfaces of the bathroom to soft sheets and golden afternoon light feels… different. Quieter. More dangerous.
I settle on my side, propped on one elbow, tracing idle lines over her towel-covered stomach. She looks at me like she’s not afraid of what she’ll see, and it makes me want to tell her everything I’ve never said out loud.
“When I was a kid,” I hear myself say, “I used to sit out by this, like… pond at the back of my parents’ property every summer. My parents were inside, some dinner party going on, or maybe they were working, and I’d just… stare at the water and pretend it was endless.”
She turns towards me, her expression soft. “Did you swim?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Just skipped rocks. Climbed trees. Told myself I’d run away but never got farther than theend of the driveway.” My lips twist into something that’s maybe a half smile. “I liked knowing I could leave. Even if I didn’t.”
Her hand comes up, thumb brushing along my jaw. She studies me for a long beat as she drags her palm through the stubble there.
“Huh,” she whispers. “Funny. I thought leaving would fix everything.”
I blink at her and study her face. She looks far away, like she’s going back home and thinking about growing up. She mentioned she’s from a small town, and I wonder how tight that felt—if it was anything like growing up for me.
“And in some ways, it did. I got my dream job, got to start over. But in New York…” She pauses, eyes searching mine, like she’s not sure she wants to admit it. “In New York I feel invisible. Like everyone else is sprinting past me, and I’m still trying to catch up. And then I come home, and I don’t fit there anymore either. Too New Yorker for Argentina, too Latina for New York.”
Her honesty twists something deep in me. My chest aches. I brush a wet strand of hair from her cheek, tucking it gently behind her ear.
“I get that,” I say quietly. My voice doesn’t sound like mine—too raw, too unguarded. “I don’t belong anywhere either. I’ve spent years in a job I hate, chasing numbers I don’t care about, pretending to be the guy my family wants me to be. The one who makes partner, gets married, raises kids in the suburbs. But I’m exhausted, Manu. Burnt-out to the bone. I wake up and feel like I’m already drowning.”
Most days it’s like my body refuses to cooperate. My hands shake when I hold my coffee. I forget to eat. I lie awake until three in the morning even when I’m so tired I can’t see straight. And then I get up and do it all again, like a machine that’s one tiny inconvenience away from breaking.
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t pull away. She listens, and that makes me keep going.
“I ended things with Athena because she deserves more than me half-present, half-pretending. But without her, without my job… I don’t even know who I am. Or what I want… I just know I can’t keep going like this.”
The words sit heavy in the air but lighter in my chest. Like saying them out loud, finally, to her of all people, has carved out space for something else to grow.
“Guess we’re both still figuring out how to stay and how to go,” I murmur.
She leans into me, her forehead pressing to mine. “Connor?”
“Yeah?”
“This is going to ruin us, isn’t it?”
The question slices through my chest. I should tell her no. I should promise this is just fun, temporary, what we agreed to. But I can’t. Not when her eyes are this close and I still taste her on my lips.
“Maybe,” I say, my thumb stroking her hip. “But right now, I don’t care.”
Her breath leaves her in a rush. She kisses me, slow and lingering, not fire this time but something heavier that feels like giving in.
I kiss her back, but the panic coils anyway. She curls into me, soft and certain, and all I can think is that I don’t know how to bring her into the life waiting for me. I don’t even know if I want to.
