Jenna had promised herself she wouldn’t check it. It was supposed to be a quiet day off. No filming, no interviews, no stylists knocking on the door, no cameras waiting outside the building. Just a slow afternoon in the apartment she shared with her wife. The kind of rare silence she usually tried to protect like something fragile.

But the phone had been right there on the coffee table and fighting against her curiosity had always been useless, no matter how much she regretted it now.

She was small—barely five foot one—but the tight, restless energy in her body filled the entire room. Dark brown hair hung loose around her shoulders, falling down her back, the faintest threads of red hidden in it catching flashes of light whenever she passed the window. Her dark brown eyes were sharp, restless, unable to stay still. Every few seconds they flicked toward the front door. She paced the length of the living room for the fourth time in a row, her bare feet moving across the wooden floor in a restless line. The phone sat face-down on the couch like it had personally offended her. She had already locked it, thrown it down, picked it back up, and then forced herself to stop reading.

Still, the words stayed inside her chest like an unwanted tattoo. People online always had opinions. Most days she could brush it off. She had been in the public eye long enough to develop a certain callus around the noise. But sometimes, on quiet days like this—days where the world felt slower, softer—the comments slipped through the cracks.

Too intense. Rude. Too arrogant. She thinks she's better than everyone. Overrated.

The words repeated themselves in her mind like a broken record. Jenna exhaled sharply and dragged a hand through her hair. Her eyes kept drifting to the front door. The apartment was quiet without her wife there. Too quiet. The kind of silence that made every thought echo louder than it should.

Jenna hated that the comments had gotten under her skin today. She needed you there with her now. And the hours couldn't pass any slower. She couldn't stop pacing—though she tried and failed almost immedietly. She would occasionally stop near the door like she expected it to open any second. Every time the hallway outside creaked, her head lifted immediately.

She hated knowing she needed your comfort with this intensity, hated that she was pacing in front of the door like a caged animal. The tension sat visibly in her shoulders, in the tight line of her mouth, in the way her movements kept speeding up and slowing down like she couldn’t quite settle into one rhythm.

The sound of footsteps outside made her head snap up. Her heart kicked as the soft metallic clink of keys finally made the handle of the door move.

The door had barely clicked shut behind you when Jenna moved. She closed the distance in two quick steps and wrapped both arms around you with sudden force, burying herself against you like she had been holding that moment back for hours. Because you were taller than her, her forehead naturally pressed into the center of your chest, dark hair falling forward as she leaned into you completely.