Sweet Romance12 min read
She Wore My Blanket, He Kept My Name
ButterPicks14 views
1
"Don't move. Be good."
The voice was low, rough with sleep and something like amusement. I froze, then remembered: I was lying against a stranger's chest. Panic punched through me.
"Why are you holding me?" I whispered, because the room was small and the bed smelled faintly of smoke and cheap aftershave.
He tightened his arms a little, not enough to hurt. "You fell asleep. I didn't want you to roll off."
"You can't just—" I scrambled, wrapping the thin blanket around me like armor. The edge barely covered his waist. His skin was pale and smooth under the blanket, and when he moved, I saw the slope of his collarbone. My face heated.
"Stop moving," he said again, but this time his voice had a lazy softness. "Stay."
I pushed myself to the bed's edge. "Get away from me."
He smiled then—one of those crooked, deliberate smiles that reached the lip but not the eyes. "You first went, you leave now."
"I will, soon." I slipped off the bed, tripped on the blanket, caught myself. He stood, collected his clothes, calm as if he hadn't just shared a body heat with me.
"Change," I said, teeth tight. "Get out."
He shrugged, dressed slow enough that I could study him. He had long fingers, a narrow face, a mole under his left eye. When he slid the last boot on he said, "I'll wait outside."
"Wait for what? A thank-you?" I managed a sour laugh.
"To talk about responsibilities."
"Responsibilities?" I blinked. My mind replayed the drinks, the loud music, the flash of another woman's heel—then a blank. "You expect me to take responsibility for a one-night—"
"Not one-night," he interrupted, amused, "for not falling like you did three times on the stairs."
His steady gaze made my cheeks flare. I left him standing there and fled to the bathroom to salvage dignity.
2
At home I searched for Brooks. He wasn't in his room, so I knocked on the guest room. When the door eased open, there was the stranger again, buttoning a shirt.
"Brooks?" I said, heart doing a lurch. "You have company."
He turned, unimpressed, towel-dry hair, casual. "Hailey, I thought you were in the main room." His eyes flicked to the man on the bed and back to me.
"That's Jett," I said before I could stop myself. "Jett, this is my brother Brooks."
He glanced at me with the same flat humor. "Hailey, nice to meet you."
"Same," I lied.
Brooks raised both eyebrows. "Jett, what happened to your arm?"
Jett rolled his sleeve, there were faint red lines, like fingernail marks. "A wild cat," he said, deadpan. Then he looked at me—direct, teasing. "She scratched me."
I coughed. Brooks gave me a look like he knew more than he said. "Guess who gets to explain."
3
Later, after Brooks left for training, I found Jett at the kitchen counter, smoking, the ashtray full like a little gray river.
"You're home," I said.
He glanced up, eyelids heavy. "You shouldn't go out by yourself."
"I can handle a bar." I forced a laugh, embarrassed by my own memory gaps. "I just... don't like not remembering."
"Memory's overrated," he said. He flicked ash into the tray, then asked, casual as a weather report, "Do you want milk before bed? You always drank milk."
"I don't—" I stopped. Milk? Why would he know that? My mouth went dry.
"You okay?" he asked, and he already sounded concerned, a quiet ring different from his usual teasing.
"Fine." I lied. "Go wash your face. Don't leave it all stubbled."
He smirked. "Will do."
When he left the room, the house felt wrong in a new way. I pinned my shirt closed and walked around like a person in someone else's life.
4
"He's staying for a week," Brooks told me over dinner. "Family stuff."
"A week?" I nearly choked on my fork. I'd already slept in his bed twice. "That's too long. He barely knows me."
"You cried last week," Brooks said, not looking at me. "You were a mess. Jett helped."
"He just... found me."
"Then stop acting like he kidnapped you." He sounded irritated, but the way he worried when I had a fever made me want to be smaller, kinder.
The first heart-throb came two nights later when I caught him shaving. He didn't notice me, but the light fell on his cheekbone and for a heartbeat the whole room felt smaller.
"Where's the milk?" I called, making my voice ordinary.
He turned, bare forearm wet with lather, and smiled—something that broke the room into a thousand gentle pieces. "In the pantry, Hailey."
It was a simple thing: him saying my name like he hadn't noticed the world until it rotated toward me. My chest ached and I shook it off like a stupid fever.
5
He was a paradox. One minute he was all careless jokes and cigarette smoke, the next he could be deeply steady.
"You should see a doctor," I said one evening when he sent me a photo of a thermometer. "You look like you're burning the place down."
"Call the ambulance if you like," he shot back, but when I arrived home, he lay on the sofa, pale, long lashes resting over red lines. He refused to get up.
"Please go," I told him, hands on his shoulders, absurdly maternal. "You look like you might pass out."
He grabbed my hand and held it until I melted. "Stay," he said, soft and small. "Please."
My second heart-throb was his clumsy, human plea. He fit into my hand like a secret I wanted to keep.
"You're heavy," he murmured later when I lay down next to him to warm him. "In a good way."
"I am not heavy." I tried to sound indignant and failed.
He laughed and tucked my hair behind my ear like such a habitual gesture could be the proof of everything.
6
The next week was an oscillation between intimacy and distance. He would stand at a window and turn away when I tried to speak. Or he'd pluck a grape from a bowl and feed it to me like a silly lover.
"You're my girlfriend today," he said, as if he were discussing the weather. He brushed a grape across my lips.
"Stop," I told him, cheeks hot. But my fingers strayed to his arm, noticing the soft callus of work or habit, the scar that looked like an old repair.
He leaned in until our foreheads touched and said, "If you let me, I'll keep you from falling again."
That line—small, promise-like—made my heart stutter. That was my third true heart-throb: the look, the near whisper, the moment he chose to be guardian and partner at once.
7
Not everyone liked the closeness. A recent ex, Philip Gauthier, trailed after me like a shadow who couldn't let go. He wanted me back, or maybe he wanted to punish me for leaving. He showed up at a café where we used to meet.
"Hailey," he said, syrupy apology wrapped in arrogance. "I made a mistake."
"You made a habit of it," I replied, unable to keep the sharp edge from my voice.
"You were my person once," he said, leaning closer. "I can fix it."
"You broke me," I said. "You left me for someone younger. You told me you were bored."
He blinked, stung, then smirked. "People change. Move on."
8
Then there was Camilla Vieira—the girl who scented hallways before she walked into them. She had the kind of beauty that used strategy and the ability to make rooms lean toward her.
She called the building a dump when she first stepped inside. "Your place still smells like takeout," she said to me one afternoon, in a voice rimed with contempt, and I realized she thought she owned me like a future prize.
"She's a liar," Brooks muttered one night, watching her shadow cross our living room when she visited Jett's father in the hospital.
"She's trying to be his stepmother," Jett said quietly. "Don't be bitter—she's playing at a game."
"Then it's a game she'll lose," I said, but my voice trembled. I was jealous, angry, and painfully aware of my smallness.
9
The face-slapping moment—the one that forced truths into the open—happened at a hospital fundraising gala. Jett's father had been in and out of the ward; that night the foundation hosted a testimonial evening. Camilla came dressed like a queen. Philip appeared with a new lover on his arm, as if to thumb his nose at me.
I had come to bring soup to the nurse's station and instead found myself ushered into a crowded room where speeches were given with glassy eyes. Jett stood near the podium, composed, his father in a wheelchair beside him.
"Tonight," a man started, "we celebrate people's courage."
Camilla smiled and glided forward to place a bouquet at the podium. She wore a dress so bright people turned their heads. I stood at the back, scarf in hand, when she caught my eye and lifted her chin like a challenge.
At that moment, Philip strode in, saw me, and couldn't resist a public snarl of mockery. He raised his glass. "To old lovers," he called, loud enough for the nearest crowd to hear. Laughter like glass clinking followed.
I heard Jett's intake of breath like a bell.
Then, one after another, the small truths—texts, photos, witnesses—spilled from my pocket. Brooks had given me an envelope earlier with messages Philip had sent the week before—promises made to another woman, an admission to a secret trip. I had meant to ignore it, but my hands shook. A woman by the stage stepped to the microphone and said, "I think Ms. Vieira should explain why she called someone else's home a dump."
Heads turned. The room slotted into pin-drop silence.
"Excuse me?" Camilla said, voice cool like a blade she'd learned to wield.
Then I walked forward. "You called my home a dump," I said, voice steady. "You called my life a stop on your climb up. You told Mr. Gauthier that you were fine with being second if it meant having money."
A ripple of gasps. Camilla's smile, practiced for months, cracked.
Philip raised his voice. "That's a lie—"
"Is it?" I asked. "Because here's a message." I unfolded the printed text Brooks had handed me: Philip's words, clear and shameless. "Here are photos," I said, and a second envelope slid from my coat. A friend had photographed Philip leaving another woman's apartment two weeks ago and forwarded it. "Do you want to explain these?" I said, and I felt more dangerous and alive than any drink or confusion had ever made me.
"You're making a scene," Philip said, posture rigid. "This is a charity event."
"A scene?" A nurse near me murmured, "They deserve a scene." A man started to record, the light of a phone blinking like a curious insect. I felt the room tilt toward the truth.
Camilla's face went through colors—first a small cruel smile, then surprise, then denial. "You— you printed lies." She tried to catch my eye, but Jett stepped between us.
"Hailey," he said softly, placed his hand at the small of my back, not possessively but like an anchor. "You didn't have to—"
"Yes, I did." Something in me unlatched. "You stand there making plans to marry a man for his money. You pretended to be poor to get sympathy. You told the foundation you'll be a model stepmother, but the only mother you want is the one who will give you access to his bank account."
Camilla's denial shifted to rage. "You don't know anything!" she spat. "You think you can take everything?"
"Everyone here has phones," Brooks said, stepping up. "Everyone here will see what she says."
A silence that felt like a held breath. Then people murmured and checked their screens. One by one, eyes slid to Camilla. Her face, once composed, started to crumble.
Philip, who had tried to sound above it all, went pale. He realized the tide had turned. "This is private—" he started, but the crowd chewed the words and spat them back. A woman near the stage tapped the name of a blogger who had covered Camilla's unsteady claims. Phones rose like a small army.
Jett leaned in close to me and said, quietly: "I want them to see everything."
He walked to the podium with a gait that didn't demand attention but took it anyway. He unclipped a small memory stick from his pocket and plugged it into the laptop. On the screen scrolled conversations between Camilla and a hospital administrator, messages where she negotiated favors in exchange for influence, and photos of her staging charity visits at other hospitals. Evidence, clear and clinical. The crowd read.
Camilla's composure snapped. She tried to laugh it off. "That's out of context!" she cried. "You— you can't—"
"Watch," Jett said softly. His voice didn't rise, but the room listened like an ocean listening for a stone. "I never believed you were here for my father. I thought you were here for his name."
"You have no right!" Camilla screamed. She pointed a manicured finger at me. "She provoked this—"
"Liar," someone hissed. "She planned it."
Cameras clicked. A nurse shook her head, eyes wet. "She lied to my charity," the nurse said. "She used the sick for social media posts."
Camilla's face betrayed an animal fear. She started to cry—at first loud, theatrical—but the sound didn't summon sympathy. People stood, murmurs turning to condemnations. The blogger typed furiously. Within minutes, a thread began to form: Camilla's photos compared with old posts that proved staging. The crowd split into factions: disgusted, angry, vindicated.
Philip tried to step forward, to defend her, but someone held his sleeve. His voice, usually loud enough to drown mistakes, hit the clatter of sharp, now-sharp reproach. "You left her," I said to him, turning so the room could hear. "You left me for the excuse of youth. You tried to make me the bad guy for calling you out."
He looked like someone who had suddenly realized what people see when they look closely: a coward who could only act in safe spaces.
Camilla, stripped of pretense, made a last, desperate move—she grabbed for Jett, trying to pull him back into stage lights of gossip. Jett's face hardened. He stepped aside and slapped her hand away. The sound made a small crack of finality.
She fled the stage, leaving her bouquet. People whispered, some applauded. Someone called security. Someone else recorded the moment Camilla—formerly magnetic, now exposed—walked past with a face raw as broken plaster. A cluster of phones followed, broadcasting to strangers who suddenly knew a private crookedness.
Afterwards, I stood under the hum of the chandelier, my scarf clutched like an old comfort. The nurse beside me patted my shoulder. "You did right," she said softly. "We get used and used."
Jett caught the debris of the evening and found me outside, hands in his pockets, coat buttoned, steady as a cliff. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I am now," I said.
He smiled, the kind that reached both eyes this time. "Good," he said. Then he put his arm through mine as if we were taking a long walk home. The press release hit the morning feeds, and within hours Camilla's contacts evaporated. Philip's reputation hiccuped; sponsors rewrote statements. They had been publicly unmasked, and the people in that room had watched the fall.
10
The punishment was public—and not cinematic with handcuffs and courtroom drama. It was the shriveling of a reputation. Camilla's father called, not with consolation for his daughter but with an angry, measured distance. People who had planned to work with her backed away. Her staged posts were archived and compared, and the charity board released a statement promising stricter vetting. For Philip, clients and friends who preferred discretion watched the footage and slid away. He texted me later until my phone went silent when I refused to reply.
But the real punishment—the part that mattered most—was the way Camilla and Philip were shunned in the circles they had tried to charm. At coffee shops, people recognized them from the headlines and looked away. At the hospital, volunteers who once flattered Camilla found their faces colder. At the fundraiser's next meeting, Camilla's name was never spoken; Philip's calls went unanswered. Both of them learned quickly what I'd always known: some currencies burn fast when the light hits them.
11
After that, life narrowed into honest things—soup at midnight, a pair of old sweaters tossed between us by accident, the small ritual of making tea when the other woke at three in the morning. Jett began to teach me how to repair a leaky faucet; I taught him how to fold a fitted sheet without crying.
He did things that felt like stubborn miracles. He laughed openly in the kitchen when I burned toast. He took my jacket when I shivered and refused. He learned to get Brooks's coffee order correct. Once, when I was too stubborn to take help, he put a single finger under my chin and tilted my face to look at him.
"Stop being hard on yourself," he said.
I blinked back tears. "Why do you care so much?"
He shrugged, then admitted, "Because I don't like being the one who sees you hurt and does nothing."
That admission was simple. It was not the fireworks of swooning declarations; it was the available, every-day kind of love that settles like good furniture into an apartment you plan to keep.
12
Philip tried to crawl back once, a dim message like a moth against the window. "Can we talk?" he asked. I read it, then deleted it. No call, no scene, no drama. I had already written an entire new script: one where I was allowed to choose safety over chaos.
Brooks teased me mercilessly about the way I blushed when Jett smiled. "You look like a fool," he would say. "A very happy fool."
"I'm not a fool," I would reply. But sometimes I pressed my palm to my mouth and laughed at the mess of my heart.
13
Time knit itself into a comfortable fabric. Jett's father recovered slowly. Jett grew quieter—less smoke, less restless pacing—and in his stead, the man who sat beside me and held a spoon for me when my hands were full. People began to call us a couple and smile in that surprised, approving way. I noticed neighbors watching us walk past the mailbox, little human witnesses to small happiness.
One night as we were folding laundry, Jett looked at me like he wanted to carve the moment into the world. "Do you remember the first time we met?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, and I felt heat remembering the ridiculousness of waking up in his arms. "You were careless."
He laughed. "You were worse."
"I don't think so," I said. "I didn't let you run."
"You didn't let me run." He reached for my hand and squeezed. "Good."
14
We kept the blanket I had taken the night I first woke in his arms. It lived on the back of the sofa, frayed at one corner, stained with a patch that would never come out. I used to think it was evidence of a mistake. Now it was a kind of relic.
One afternoon, as rain stitched quiet lines against the window, Jett bent down and picked it up.
"This came home with you," he said with a smile that went straight to my belly.
"Not by accident," I admitted. "I was keeping it for reasons I couldn't name."
He wrapped the blanket around both of us and held me close. "Then keep it," he whispered. "I like your reasons."
I looked up at him. He was smiling, clear and gentle. "Do you ever regret staying?" I asked.
"Only when you don't laugh at my terrible jokes," he said. "Then I regret it for a second."
We laughed together until we wept. The blanket smelled like us—soap and the faint smoke he couldn't quite quit—and for the first time I felt safe calling a future mine.
The End
— Thank you for reading —