SOFT FOR YOU

TESSA POV

I wake up somewhere I don’t recognize.

The first thing I notice is the scent.

Not the jarring kind that punches you awake—no smoke, no sweat, no alcohol-stale air clinging to my lungs. This is softer than that. Clean. Earthy. Like water running over smooth stone. Like trees after rain, when the world smells briefly forgiven.

I inhale again, deeper this time, like my body is searching for something familiar to hold onto.

Then there’s the fabric.

Rich. Warm. Heavy in a way that feels intentional. I shift slightly, and the sheet whispers instead of rustling—smooth beneath my fingertips. Definitely not the thrifted polyester sheets from my flat. The ones I bought because they were cheap and promised they’d last.

My brows knit. My fingers twitch.

Wait.

A bed?

My eyes fly open.

Sunlight pours in, warm and bright—too bright. For a second, I can’t tell if I’m still dreaming or if I’ve been dropped inside someone else’s morning.

I bolt upright. My body reacts before my thoughts catch up. Heat floods my chest, then drains fast, leaving me cold and unsteady. My heart hammers so loudly I swear it echoes off the walls.

I press my feet into the mattress, then the floor—just to feel something solid.

Breathe.

I count it out the way I used to when anxiety hit in the middle of the night. In for four. Hold. Out for six.

Again.

The room doesn’t soften.

High ceilings. White walls. A marble floor polished so perfectly it catches the sunlight and throws it back at me. Massive glass windows cracked open to a breeze that lifts sheer curtains like it owns the place.

Wherever I am, it is not my life.

And worse—I don’t feel like I’m in danger at all.

I feel like I’ve stepped into someone else’s.

“No,” I breathe.

I throw the covers off and stumble toward the windows, bare feet meeting cold stone. Bare. I don’t remember taking my shoes off. I don’t remember deciding to stay anywhere overnight.

And then I see it.

The ocean.

Blue and endless and unreal, sunlight dancing across the surface like the whole world is showing off. It’s so beautiful it steals the fear right out of my chest for one fragile heartbeat.

It looks like a dream I never let myself want, because wanting it would mean admitting how small my life feels most days.

“Paradise,” I murmur.

Pain slices through my skull—sharp, sudden, and punishing, like my body is reminding me I don’t get things this beautiful without paying for them.

I gasp, clutching my forehead as nausea rolls through me hard and fast. My temples throb. My vision blurs. The room tilts.

“What the hell happened last night?” My voice comes out thin.

Vegas.

The word flickers across my mind like a broken neon sign—bright, unreliable, impossible to stare at too long.

I don’t remember arriving. I don’t remember leaving.

Just flashes that refuse to line up into a story. Noise. Light. Someone laughing too close to my ear.

A balcony. Warm air.

A man’s voice, low and close: You don’t have to pretend with me.

And me—God help me—answering: I’m so tired of pretending.

My stomach tightens.

That doesn’t sound like a girl who lost control.

That sounds like a girl who chose.

I press my fingers to my temples, begging the memories to settle. They don’t. They scatter instead, like they’re protecting something from me.

Whatever happened didn’t feel reckless.

It felt intentional.

I turn from the windows and scan the room for answers.

This isn’t some downtown Vegas hotel. It’s expensive in a quiet, effortless way—like nothing here ever has to prove itself. There’s a dress folded neatly over a chair. Not mine. A man’s watch on the nightstand.

My pulse stutters.

I don’t do this. I don’t wake up in strange places with no memory and no plan.

Careful girls survive. That’s how I’ve always lived.

And last night, I wasn’t careful.

“Loosen up, Tess.”

Marnie’s voice echoes in my head, teasing and familiar, like she’s perched on my shoulder enjoying the disaster.

“Why did I listen to you?” I whisper.

A sound drifts up from somewhere beyond the door—male voices, laughter, easy and unbothered.

Cold dread creeps in.

I swallow hard and force myself to do a body check like I’m someone competent.

Okay. Clothes.

I’m wearing yesterday’s dress—wrinkled, uncomfortable. My bra strap is still in place. My underwear is there. My skin doesn’t ache in a way that makes my throat close. No bruises jump out at me when I push the dress aside and look. My scalp is tender from sleeping wrong, and my mouth tastes like sleep and something sweet—wine? Cocktails?

Relief hits me so fast it makes my eyes sting.

Then anger follows, right behind it.

Because relief means the fear was real. Because my brain went there without my permission.

I press my palms to my eyes.

Breathe.

My lungs finally work again. Not enough.

I catch my reflection in the mirror.

Barefoot. Mascara smudged. Hair tangled. Eyes red-rimmed and unfamiliar.

She looks reckless.

She looks brave.

She looks like the kind of girl who says yes before she thinks.

I’ve never been her.

My life is already a mess—unemployed, rejected by every publishing house I’ve ever submitted to, thirty blog followers and most of them trolls—but at least I always knew where I woke up.

The last editor didn’t even reject the book.

She rejected me.

Your voice is too quiet for the market.

Maybe last night, for once, I tried to be loud.

Footsteps.

I freeze.

Not heavy. Not rushed. Calm. Measured. The steps of someone who belongs here.

A soft knock taps against the door.

I don’t answer.

Another knock, careful this time—like whoever is on the other side knows fear and doesn’t want to poke it.

The handle turns.

The click is ordinary.

And terrifying.

The door opens.

“Are you okay?”

The voice is calm. Too calm.

I stare at the floor, at my bare feet, at anything but the man standing in the room where I woke up.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says gently, as if reading my silence. “I just wanted to check on you.”

He doesn’t come closer. I can feel the space he keeps.

My throat closes. My heart is still trying to outrun my body.

“I don’t remember anything,” I manage. “And I—I don’t do this.”

Silence stretches.

Then a soft sound—almost a laugh, caught halfway, more surprised than amused.

“What?” he says.

Heat burns behind my eyes. “I just… I really don’t want this to be bad.”

When I finally look up, the world tilts again.

The tattoos first—dark ink wrapping his forearm as he balances a tray far more carefully than a man like him should. Then the sharp jaw. The mouth caught between concern and apology.

A bottle of water. A glass of something green. A folded napkin, like this is normal.

And a face I’ve seen everywhere but never like this—without stadium lights, without a crowd, without a screen between us.

“Oh my God,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

His expression shifts—recognition, then resignation, like he’s used to being discovered in moments that are inconvenient.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

My breath catches.

Chase Madrid.

The football superstar. Walking headline. The kind of name that doesn’t belong inside my bedroom—or any room that has ever belonged to me.

“That’s not possible,” I say, but it comes out like a question.

He sets the tray down on the dresser with an annoying amount of care, like he’s trying not to make a single sound too loud. Like he’s trying to make himself smaller. Less threatening.

“You passed out,” he says gently—no judgment, no edge. “At the party. You were exhausted.”

He hesitates, like he’s sorting through something fragile—choosing what to hand me and what to keep.

“You kept saying you were lost,” he continues. “I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

Lost.

The word settles in my chest like it recognizes the place.

Because that’s all I’ve ever been—lost in rejection, lost in heartbreak, lost in a life that shrank every time I tried to dream too loudly.

I study him then. Really look at him.

And this—this—isn’t the man the world thinks it knows, or the one I thought I knew until right now.

“You kept saying you’d be fine,” he adds quietly. “But you weren’t.”

Something inside my chest shifts. Not pain. Not hope.

Something more dangerous.

“Marnie,” he says suddenly. “You kept saying that name.”

My stomach drops.

“She left me?” My voice thins on the last word, like it’s afraid of the answer.

“She didn’t leave you alone,” he says immediately. “I stayed.”

There it is again—that assurance. That calmness.

I stayed.

The words echo, unwanted and undeniable.

As if he’s known me longer than this moment. Longer than makes sense.

“I brought you here because you couldn’t even keep your eyes open,” he adds.

Here.

The word hums between us, dangerous and loaded.

And somehow, he knows exactly where my mind goes—like he’s been blamed before for things he didn’t do, and learned how to stand ahead of the storm.

“Nothing happened that night,” he says, firm but gentle. “I slept on the couch. You had the room. I didn’t touch you. I swear.”

I study him, searching for arrogance, for expectation, for that smug look men get when they think they’re owed something.

There’s none.

My shoulders sag a fraction, like my body has been holding a weight it can finally set down.

“You don’t like me much,” he murmurs after a beat, and there’s something almost self-aware in it. Not flirtation. Not a line. Just… observation.

“I don’t know you,” I say, because that part is still true. “And this looks… bad.”

He nods once. “Yeah. It does.”

No ego. No defense. Just honesty.

He gestures to the glass. “It helps with hangovers. Not spiked.”

I hesitate, then take it. The condensation chills my fingers. I sip—bitter, citrusy, real. My stomach protests, but the taste anchors me back into my body.

He steps back toward the door again, keeping the same careful distance.

“Drink water too,” he says. “And sit before you pass out again.”

Again.

The word lodges in my chest. It feels like a hint I’m not ready to understand.

He stills for half a second, like he wishes he could take it back.

“Why are you being nice to me?” I blurt.

He pauses, hand on the doorframe. Looks back at me, and for one second the superstar disappears. There’s just a man who saw something he couldn’t ignore.

“Because you looked scared,” he says simply.

Then he leaves.

The door clicks shut, and the silence that follows is heavier than before.

I stare at the ocean beyond the glass, at the sunlight on the marble, at the tray sitting in my room like proof this is real.

His kindness feels heavier than fear.

That scares me more than anything else.

And somewhere beneath the fear, a question settles in my chest—quiet and unshakeable.

What happened last night that made Chase Madrid care?