Hundred and Eighty

Hundred and Eighty
By the time we got home, the world already knew. As I had expected it to.

Declan’s phone hadn’t stopped buzzing since we left the conference room. Mine, too - the messages, missed calls, notifications piling in faster than I could clear them. 

We hadn’t even taken off our shoes when Noah came running from the living room, barefoot, a little chocolate smeared on his cheek. His babysitter, Chloe, smiled at us when we walked in, then carefully slipped out.

“Mommy! You were on TV!” he yelled, bouncing. “Declan, you were on TV too!”

Declan froze mid-step, looking half panicked. “We were?” He looked at me, and I made a mental note to ask the babysitter why she thought it was okay to watch our press conference in front of Noah.

“Yeah!” Noah grinned, proud, pointing to the screen. “You looked serious, like in the movies!”

Declan laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s… exactly what I was going for.”

I bent down, smoothing Noah’s hair. “Did you watch the whole thing?”

“Just the start,” he said. “Then I got bored. Chloe made popcorn!”

“Thank God,” Declan muttered under his breath, earning a small laugh from me.

Noah ran back to the couch, humming, completely unbothered. For him, it was just another day.

Declan turned to me, his hand brushing mine. “You okay?”

I nodded, or tried to. “I think so.”

“Do you want me to turn off your phone?”

“I should at least look.”

He sighed. “I would not suggest it.”

But I did.

I sank onto the couch beside Noah, unlocking my phone with trembling fingers. The first thing that popped up was a headline:

‘Ashwell Heir Declares His Love for Former Student — “She Paid the Price, Not Me”’

My stomach dropped.

Declan sat beside me, scrolling through his own screen. “Well,” he said wryly, “at least they quoted me right.”

I laughed weakly, though my chest was tight. I kept scrolling through social media, comment sections, tags.

Some were kind. I ship them so hard.

Some were cruel. Gold-digger. She’s not even pretty.

My throat burned.

“Hey,” Declan murmured, noticing my expression. “Stop. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I just,” I swallowed hard. “I thought maybe it’d feel better, finally telling the truth. But it doesn’t. Not yet.”

“It will,” he said gently. “Give it time.”

I put the phone down and leaned back into the couch. Noah had fallen asleep halfway through eating his popcorn. Declan carefully moved the bowl away and covered him with a blanket. 

He looked back at me. “You shouldn’t read the comments,” he said quietly. “People write things they’d never say out loud.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s just… strange.”

“Do you regret it?”

I met his eyes. “No.” I thought about it for a moment. “But I’m scared.”

He came closer, sitting sideways on the couch to face me. “Scared of what?”

“That they’ll destroy you the way they did before,” I said. “That my name next to yours will always mean scandal.”

“Then we’ll redefine it, again.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah. Just like that.”

The certainty in his voice disarmed me.

“I don’t know how you do that,” I murmured. “Be so sure all the time.”

“I’m not,” he admitted. “But I’ve spent years being afraid of what people would say, of losing control, of not living up to expectations. I’m done being afraid. Especially of loving you.”

My throat tightened again. “You shouldn’t have to keep proving it.”

“I will if I have to,” he said, with a half smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

We sat there for a while, wrapped up in each other.

Declan got up eventually, disappearing into the kitchen. I could hear the faint clink of mugs, the low hum of the kettle. When he came back, he handed me a cup of lavender tea.

“For the nerves,” he said, sitting down beside me again.

I smiled faintly. “You know I hate lavender.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You loved lavender. You used to make me drink it after late lectures.”

“That was before I realised it tastes like chlorophyll.”

He laughed, the sound low and warm. “Fine. I’ll drink it, then.”

He took a sip, made a face, and said, “Okay, yeah. It’s terrible.”

We stayed up late, talking quietly. Noah snored softly on the other couch, and we watched him.

“Do you ever think,” I said after a long pause, “how strange it is that after everything, all these years, the pain, the distance, we ended up here? On a couch, in your apartment, hiding from the world with a five year old”

Declan leaned his head back against the couch. “I think it’s perfect.”

I shook my head. 

He smiled. “And you’re beautiful when you’re exhausted.”

I rolled my eyes, but my cheeks burned anyway.

He reached for my hand, his thumb tracing slow circles against my skin. “I know today was a lot,” he said softly. “But I’m proud of you, Willow. You didn’t let them get to you.”

I looked down at our hands. “You made it easier.”

He squeezed gently. “We make it easy for each other.”.

Eventually, Noah stirred, mumbling in his sleep. Declan picked him up effortlessly, carrying him to his room. I followed, leaning against the doorway as he tucked the blanket around him. Noah’s hand curled instinctively around Declan’s wrist.

Declan smiled faintly. “He’s getting used to me.”

“He adores you,” I said softly.

He turned, looking at me.  “You know what that does to me, right?”

“What?”

“Hearing you say that. After everything.”

Something in his voice made my chest ache.

He brushed a stray strand of hair off my cheek. “I love you, Willow.”

I didn’t reply. I just leaned in, resting my head against his chest. His arms came around me immediately, pulling me close.

We stood like that in the quiet, listening to Noah’s breathing as he slept. I whispered, “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Yeah. We are.”

When we went to bed later, neither of us could sleep. We lay there in the dark and his fingers traced lazy patterns on my wrist, and mine rested on his chest.

“You think they’ll leave us alone now?” I murmured.

“No,” he said honestly. “But we’ll learn to shut them up.”

I smiled into the dark. “You always have the last word, don’t you?”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Of what? Being impossible?”

He chuckled. “Of being in love with you.”

That shut me up pretty quickly.