• • •

Wes had been watching the same email sit open on his screen for four minutes.

That was unusual.

Not the email— The staring.

There was nothing complicated about it. Numbers he had already reviewed. A question he remembered answering more than once. Someone looking for approval they technically didn't need, probably because his name made everyone feel safer if it went wrong.

Normally, he would have responded in thirty seconds.

Instead, Wes glanced at the time.

4:17.

Wes closed the email without responding.

His office had gone mostly quiet around him. Friday afternoons emptied early when nobody thought he was paying attention, which was funny because he always was.

His phone sat beside his keyboard.

There weren't any messages from Laken but he picked it up anyway.

Laken's thread was near the top.

Laken: hope your day is going better than mine 😵‍💫 love you.

He had answered.

I love you too.

Maybe he could've asked about her day, but he was in a meeting and didn't have the time to ask then.

He'd ask later. There was nothing wrong with that. There was nothing wrong with most things lately.

That was the problem.

Laken still kissed him when one of them left first. Still answered when he called. Still woke up on his side of the bed even when she fell asleep on her side. Still laughed.

Nothing had actually stopped.

Some of it had just stopped happening first.

He noticed when she stopped reaching for his hand in the car. When he walked into a room and she looked up a second later than she used to. When she told him where she was going like information instead of invitation.

Small things. Too insignificant to mention without sounding like he was keeping score.

The obvious explanation would have been Noah.

That irritated him enough to dismiss it, then reconsider it, then dismiss it again.

Wes had no interest in giving another man that much influence over his relationship, but pretending he didn't exist would have been stupid. Wes knew the situation had affected her. He knew the bracelet had not been an accident, even if wearing it had been.

He also knew Laken well enough to recognize when pushing would make her retreat.

So he hadn't pushed. He thought that would be enough. Instead, nothing changed.

Wes preferred anger. Anger had a cause. Anger could be addressed.

This was harder to get hold of.

His desk phone rang.

"Yeah."

"Still good for tomorrow morning?"

Wes frowned. He remembered the meeting the second the question was asked, though he had not thought about it since agreeing to it.

"No." He paused, "I'm clearing tomorrow."

They had spent most of the week arranging schedules around Saturday's meeting.

"Move it to Monday," Wes said. "If that doesn't work, Tuesday. Send me the final numbers tonight. If nothing changed from yesterday, you have my sign-off."

He hung up and opened his calendar.

Saturday held the meeting, a lunch, two calls, and an appointment that should've been an email. He stared at the blocks of color, then began moving them.

The lunch went to next week. The calls went to Monday or someone else. The appointment disappeared into another person's calendar.

His phone buzzed, his assistant texting:

Everything okay?

Wes read it twice.

Fine. Need the weekend open.

A moment later:

All weekend?

He had only meant to clear Saturday. But Sunday held one brunch and an evening call, neither of them important.

He moved those too.

Yes.

The answer made him feel better, even if it fixed nothing.

For the next hour, he closed anything that might reach into the weekend, working faster than he had all afternoon. By six, Monday morning was ugly but manageable.

Monday could be ugly. He wanted the weekend clean.

He didn't have a plan for it yet. No reservation. No dinner booked. He only knew that lately every attempt to spend time together happened around something else: a call, a meeting, her grading papers, his laptop, someone needing him.

They had become very good at being together while doing other things.

Wes stood and reached for his jacket, calling downstairs for the car.

He looked at his reflection in the mirrored wall of the elevator as the doors closed.

Laken had been mad with him before. She'd yelled, ignored him, cried, slept in the guest room.

He understood those versions.

This one still kissed him goodnight. That was worse.

Wes checked his calendar one last time. Saturday. Sunday. Nothing after tonight until Monday morning.

He didn't know what he planned to do with it yet. Dinner, maybe. Somewhere outside the city. Maybe nothing.

He didn't care.

Wes wanted time with her where nothing else was waiting for either of them.

No phones if he could manage it. No laptop. No reason for her attention to be somewhere else.

By the time he reached the car, he decided this was what they needed.

• • •

Laken woke sometime after nine with Wes's arm heavy across her waist and sunlight pushing through a gap in the curtains.

For a while, she didn't move.

His breathing was slow against the back of Laken's neck as she stared toward the wall and thought about nothing.

Maybe that was why the week had felt so good.

Nothing had happened.

No big conversation. No dramatic attempt to fix anything. Wes hadn't come home with flowers or planned some elaborate date, and Laken hadn't sat him down with a list of everything she needed from him.

They'd just been... good.

He'd called when he said he would. She'd stopped reaching for her phone every time the room got quiet. They ate together more than once without either of them doing something else at the same time, and sometime around Wednesday, she'd realized she hadn't spent the whole day wondering when the next argument was coming.

It felt stupid to be relieved by that.

But she was.

Laken felt Wes shift behind her, "You awake?"

"No."

"Hmm." His arm tightened, "You wanna do something today?"

Laken turned to face him, "Like?"

"Whatever you want."

"That sounds lazy. I know a man who hasn't thought of shit when I hear one."

Wes smiled, eyes still shut, "You usually have your Saturdays planned."

"Not today. You have thirty seconds before I just lay here all day."

"Who can plan a day that fast?"

"Twenty secondssss." Laken sang, unbothered, "I can probably find a movie for us to watch."

Wes opened his eyes, "Let's take the jet somewhere."

"Today?"

"We can." He shrugged, "Where do you wanna go?"

Laken stalled, running through cities she'd filed away as places she wanted to visit.

"Thirty seconds." Wes spoke through a yawn, pushing his face into her neck, "Hurry up before I pick for you."

"Utah."

Wes lifted his head, staring at her for a moment, "Go pack."

It was surreal—waking up and being asked where you wanted to take a jet. The spontaneity excited Laken.

"Are you... Serious?"

"Depending on how fast you pack, we can be in the air in an hour."

She sat up, searching his face for the joke, "This is different."

Wes had never taken his eyes off her, "We need something different."

"Work? Did everyone die and it's nothing for you to do?"

He laughed, reaching for his phone, "There was nothing on my calendar. Go pack, Laken. You're wasting time."

Laken moved with purpose then, mentally listing everything she needed to throw in her bag.

Halfway through digging through her closet, she reached for her phone.

good morning 🤍

i'm going to utah today lol. prob won't be on my phone like that, hope you have a good day.

noah: Who tf goes to Utah

people w taste.

& i said GOOD MORNING.

noah: Good morning lake. Enjoy yourself 🤍

By the time she was brushing her teeth, she could hear Wes in the other room finalizing plans with the pilot, and she smiled.

• • •

Red rock stretched in every direction, catching the late afternoon light in a way that made Laken understand — finally — why it made her list in the first place, even if she couldn't remember putting it there.

"How high does this shit go?" Wes mumbled, trying to match Laken's pace.

"If you had listened when the tour guide was telling us, you'd know."

"When you said Utah, I thought we'd just eat dinner on a mountain or something. You should've said we were hiking."

Laken looked back at him, "What else could we possibly be doing when I told you to bring boots?"

"I don't know, Lake. You get turned on by weird shit."

Wes smiled as her laugh echoed around them.

"Are you shaming me right now?"

"I packed the boots, didn't I?"

Laken sipped her water before continuing up the trail, "Great answer."

The path narrowed as it climbed, the packed dirt giving way to uneven stone beneath their boots. On either side of them, the canyon opened wider, layers of red and rust stacked against each other.

The higher they went, the quieter it got.

Not silent exactly.

Wind moved through the brush in soft bursts. Gravel shifted under their steps. Somewhere farther down the trail, somebody laughed, the sound carrying against the rocks before disappearing.

By the time they reached the top, the sun had started its descent, spilling gold across the cliffs and pulling purple shadows over the stone.

Laken pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, already reaching for the camera around her neck.

Wes was waiting patiently for his cue, and it came only after Laken had captured pictures of the view.

He took a few of her, having done this enough times to know what her preferred angles were.

"Have you ever thought about getting married up here?"

Laken forgot about the pictures, meeting his eyes, "I wouldn't make people hike to a wedding."

"We'll fly them up."

"Can you even do that?"

Wes smiled, "Baby... We can do whatever we want."

Laken laughed softly. "That sounds irresponsible."

"Irresponsible, once in a lifetime experience— what's the difference?"

She looked past Wes instead, toward the cliffs washed in gold, and tried to picture it, "Small?"

"Just family." He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her forehead. "Twenty people max."

"And invite every one else to the reception?"

"Whatever you want."

She believed him. Standing there, wrapped in his arms with the whole sky changing colors in front of her, the wedding and the twenty people and every whatever you want felt completely possible.

For once, Laken let that be enough.

And it worked.

• • •

The shower at the lodge was perfect. The whole trip had been, actually.

Laken didn't know what strings Wes had pulled to be able to leave his laptop at home and ignore phone calls, but he was the most present he'd been in months.

She was more present than she'd been in months.

Not checking her phone every few minutes. Not mentally cataloging everything waiting for her when they got home. Not wondering if Wes was halfway listening while answering an email under the table.

Just them.

She thought about the trail. The way the light looked echoing off cliffs. Wes's arms around her waist, twenty people, whatever you want.

The glass door opened, Wes stepping inside behind her, "You okay?"

"I was just thinking."

"About?" His arm wrapped around her, "You scare me when you go quiet like that."

Laken smiled, turning in his arms, "Thank you for bringing me here."

"I miss you like this." Wes rested his chin on her head, "I need to figure out how to keep this Laken."

Her smile didn't leave, but she didn't love the way he'd said it.

"Can we do this more? No phones, no anything— just us?"

It wasn't a huge ask, but saying it out loud made it feel bigger.

Wes went quiet.

Laken watched his face, already knowing he was mentally sorting through calendars, meetings, obligations—figuring out where just us could fit.

His thumb caressed her side, "I'll make it work."

It was a start, and she pushed up on her tiptoes to bring his face to hers.

Their kiss started slow, building as the water fell between them. His hands found her waist and she let him pull her in. Wes lifted her, pressing her back against the wall as he lined her collarbone with soft kisses.

She dipped toward him, reveling in the noise that left him when she sank down.

Her nails dug into his shoulder as he found his rhythm. Wes braced one hand against the wall, the other adjusting her hips.

His pace slowed and deepened until she stopped thinking entirely, her moans bouncing off the tile, his name coming out between breaths.

Her hands slid from his shoulders to the back of his neck, holding on as the last of her composure gave way.

She felt him let go the same way she had.

Only heavy breathing and steam surrounded them, Laken pressing kisses to his forehead, his cheek.

Neither of them seemed in a hurry to move.

• • •