The elevator dinged like it was announcing a royal entrance—or a disaster. River barely had time to shove a duffel bag into the trunk before she stepped out, hair damp and clinging to her neck, wearing a frock so dangerously cute it should've come with a warning label.
He dropped the car keys.
Literally.
They hit the pavement with a clatter as he stared, mouth slightly open, like she'd just walked out of a fever dream and into his personal hell.
"Jesus Christ," he croaked, voice hoarse like he'd swallowed gravel. "Are you trying to assassinate me before breakfast?"
She twirled once—because of course she did—and the dress flared like a weaponized halo. "I told you I'd be sexy for this trip."
River looked like he was about to file a formal complaint with the universe. "Sexy? You look like a Bond girl who moonlights as a heartbreaker. I was not emotionally prepared."
He slammed the trunk shut with enough force to startle a pigeon off the roof. The pigeon squawked. River squawked internally.
"Get in the car," he growled. "Before I decide we don't need the Alps. Or oxygen. just you...me...and--"
She blinked innocently. "Wait—have you seen my novel!"
River stopped mid-step, turned slowly, and gave her a look that could curdle milk.
"You mean the novel I packed already?"
He reached into his jacket and pulled it out with a flourish, like a magician revealing his final trick. "Anything else, princess? Want me to pre-chew your snacks too?"
"Ew," she said, snatching the book. "But also… thank you, my Sherlock darling....you know I dang miss you" She kissed the cover.
River rolled his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn't fall out. "Glad you two are reunited. Just don't start whispering sweet nothings to it while I'm dodging cliffs."
He turned back toward the car, muttering something about "war crimes levels of sexy" and "emotional terrorism before 8 a.m."
She clung to his arm playfully. "You say it like I'm a menace."
"You are," he said, pulling her close. "A beautiful, chaotic menace."
They reached inside the car. She buckled in and began ticking off her checklist like a woman possessed onto her fingers. "Lights off, apartment locked, makeup, sexy clothes, first aid…"
River paused mid-ignition. "Did you seriously just include 'sexy clothes' on a checklist?"
"For you," she said sweetly.
He groaned, grabbed her hand, and placed it firmly on his thigh. "Shut up and let me drive before I forget we're going to see your mom."
"Why are you so horny since yesterday? Is it the vacation?"
River scoffed. "Vacation? No. It's because I spent three weeks in a classroom trying not to think about your legs every time I looked at my notes. You almost got me fired."
"Guilty," she said, grinning.
He squeezed her hand. "You're going to be the death of me."
"You always say that," she replied. "But we're still alive. Now let's go before Mom thinks we crashed into a tree."
River barked a laugh. "Barely alive. And only because I've got a PhD in pretending I don't know you during parent-teacher conferences."
He flicked off her seatbelt light, laced their fingers together, and pulled onto the road.
"To the Alps," she declared.
"To the Alps," he echoed. "And if we die in a fiery crash? At least we'll go out matching. My suit. Your dress."
"Romantic as hell," she said, tossing her phone into the backseat.
Meanwhile, back in the school group chat, rumors about the professor's marital status were spreading like wildfire. But River and she were blissfully unaware—too busy speeding toward the mountains, wrapped in chaos, laughter, and the kind of love that made even disaster feel like a honeymoon.
The mountains rolled past in sweeping waves of green and stone, sunlight flickering through the windshield as she sighed, soft and awed.
"It's so beautiful," she murmured.
River glanced over, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He lifted her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles with a quiet hum of agreement.
"Damn right," he rumbled, eyes still on the road. "But I could say the same about you."
There was something almost confessional in the way he laced their fingers tighter.
"Stop acting all lovesick," she teased. "although i know you are...so technically it's default setting"
He shot her a sideways glance, brows raised like she had caught him in a crime. The tips of his ears turned pink before he looked away with a grumble.
"Lovesick, me?" he snorted. "You're the one swooning over every pretty mountain pass like a tourist."
"It may be my home," she said, looking out at the peaks, "but I've only been here once since high school—for our wedding. The rest of the time, I'm still a tourist who once had a connection with these mountains."
That shut him up instantly. His expression softened.
"Right," he muttered. "Guess I can't blame you for ogling them a little."
He glanced at her again—a slow, fond sweep—before exhaling.
"I just hope your mom doesn't start calling me a 'city boy' the whole trip."
She winced. "Well… I have to break it to you… she sometimes calls you Señora Rivera."
River choked on his coffee. Actually choked.
"Señora Rivera?!"
He looked personally attacked.
"I spent my life dodging war zones and surviving student evaluations just to be feminized by your mother?"
He turned to her with narrowed eyes.
"If I hear that once—just once—I'm divorcing you both and moving to Antarctica."
"Maybe it's the curse that follows every history nerd. The curse of women denied equal status."
"History nerd?!" He nearly drove off the road.
"I am a distinguished professor. I have a PhD. I am not a nerd."
"Ah… okay, okay… Señora Rivera is pissed and moving to Antarctica."
He braked—playfully but sharply—making her jolt.
"Señora Rivera?" he growled, voice dropping into a dangerous purr.
"You keep pushing me like this… I won't need Antarctica."
He leaned in, unbuckling his seatbelt with exaggerated slowness.
"I'll vanish into these Alps. Become a hermit historian who lectures goats about Napoleon."
He snatched her hand, pressed it to his heartbeat.
"And every night I'll curse your name as I knit sweaters out of mountain wool and weep into my soup."
She blinked giggling, "but Don't you wish to know why my mom calls you Señora Rivera before vanishing into alps?"
River's suspicion was immediate. "Why?"
"Because, according to her, you'd do well as a woman. A damsel straight from heaven. And honestly? I was skeptical at first, but oh boy… those features, that skin, that hair… You're basically the face of heaven."
He sputtered.
"Oh, now I'm 'heavenly-looking'?"
He squeezed her hand, grumbling.
"A heavenly damsel."
"Now stop cursing me and my mom. Let's reach before breakfast."
He muttered something definitely insulting but put the car into gear again.
"You're lucky I'm hungry," he grumbled. "Or I'd make you walk for insulting my manliness."
"If that happens," she said sweetly, "I'll hunt you and drop you from the most indigenous cliff of the Alps."
"I'd like to see you try," he shot back. "You're too short to push me off anything. I'd hog-tie you first."
She smirked. "My Spanish-German blood is boiling."
He glanced over, eyes dark and amused.
"Of course it is. I never know if I'm dealing with a fiery Latina or a stubborn German woman."
"It's 50–50."
He chuckled.
"Best of both worlds. The perfect nightmare in the tiniest body."
"Lucky you, monsieur" she teased.
He smirked. "Now you're calling me monsieur? Next you'll call me mi amor just to mess with me."
"Who am I to mess with when you're the master of European languages?" she said.
River ran a hand through his hair like a smug show-off.
"Damn right. I can quote Dante, read Homer in Greek, seduce ambassadors in French."
He turned to her with a crooked grin.
"But you? You made me forget my own name."
"Nerd," she said fondly, digging into the console. "Did you pack my phone?"
"Of course I did," he said. "You'd be unbearable without it."
"It's not for...that"
She pulled it out, the cocky smile vanished into something serious as she twist her phone within her fingers,
"What is it, sunshine?" asked River noticing this abrupt shift in the mood of the most chaotic woman alive, a shift that signify something serious is leaching over that beautiful brain of hers,
"River you know We don't have many photos… only a few from dating, marriage, honeymoon. After that, none. It feels like our life is non-eventful. Like we don't love each other enough to make memories. But it's because we can't risk photos—student-teacher scandal and all."
She looked at the screen quietly.
"But this trip… I want memories. a lot of them. So that even if age or disease wipes my brain, I'll remember how beautiful life was when I had you beside me"
He went silent. Completely silent.
Then, in a low voice:
"Jesus Christ, woman…First you call me a nerd. Then you insult my manliness. And now you're trying to make me get emotional while I'm driving. Just when I thought you hit your max level of being a goddamn nightmare." he said to which I giggled lightly.
"I will remember it...how you stood helpless in that library that we first met, how you breathe when we were dancing alone after everyone left, every stolen look of you, and the mess...oh the mess you make like a total warzone with your clothes, makeup, clips here there, it's all where I belong. Your scent is my survival every night I spent away from you I'm so close to death from blood pressure thinking if you are alright? if you have meet someone better on the way and now you might be regretting your decision of marrying a nerd who spends most of his time in dust ridden books, I'm terrified, sunshine but I wouldn't mind it all because you are all I want even if you kill me I will be glad that it was you who decided my faith...it was you who showed me so much mercy as to catch your last glimpse before I descend to hell cause my fire, my desire for you might burn the heaven'
The car slows—just slightly—as his voice fills the space between you, raw and low and full of something so tender it aches. He doesn't look at you. Can't. Because if he does, he might wreck this whole damn mountain road just from the weight of what's in his chest.
But his hand?
It finds hers instantly—gripping it like an anchor in a storm.
"...You think I don't notice?" His voice is gravel now, rough with emotion. "You think I don't see every little thing? The way your nose scrunches when you're pretending not to laugh at one of my terrible jokes...how you always steal my hoodie even when it swallows you whole..."
A shaky breath. A pause long enough for the Alps to whisper between them.
"I remember that night in the library too." Quiet now—almost reverent. "The way your hair caught the lamplight like spun gold… how you looked up at me over that history textbook and asked about Napoleon's love letters like it meant something."
He smirks slightly—but there's pain behind it too.
"Didn't know then… I was already falling."
His thumb strokes your knuckles as he keeps driving—one hand white-knuckled on the wheel, one clutching yours like prayer.
"And yeah," he whispers,
"I'm scared too. Every damn day. That someone will see us—a student, a colleague—and piece together what we are… but not because of scandal."
No.
"Because if they take this away…"
A beat.
"...There's nothing left for me after that."
Then he finally turns to look—at her face, her eyes wide and glistening—and his voice drops to something almost broken:
"So take all the photos, sunshine. Burn them into time. Because if heaven ever forgets us..."
His lips brush her temple as he leans across for half a second—just long enough before pulling back to focus on the road again.
"...Hell can keep its flames."
When he finished, she felt her heart bursting.
"Stop the car," she whispered.
He stopped instantly.
"What's wrong?"
She grabbed his face and kissed him—hungrily, breathlessly.
"I love you, River. I fucking love you."
He groaned and kissed her back like he'd been starving for it.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against hers.
"God… I've wanted to do that since we left the house. but now here, let them see!"
She teased, "You sound like Marie Antoinette."
He growled against her neck.
"Well, I'd let cake go stale if it meant having a piece of you."
"Oh? The history professor has a weak topic?"
He nipped her jaw.
"Shut up," he murmured, lips pressed against her throat. "This history nerd has more important things to focus on right now than French monarchs."
Then her phone rang.
He groaned—like the universe itself had betrayed him—and flopped back into his seat, dragging a hand down his face as if trying to erase the moment entirely.
"Perfect timing," he muttered bitterly. "Your mother always did have a sixth sense for catching me in compromising positions."
With exaggerated reluctance, he gestured toward her phone.
"Answer it. Before she calls again and assumes we've died in a ditch… or worse—eloped again."
"Sure, Señora Rivera," she teased.
He turned to her with a glare so sharp it could split granite—pure, unfiltered betrayal carved into every line of his face. His jaw ticked. His fingers clenched the steering wheel like he was resisting the urge to hurl it into the Alps.
"Don't."
One word. Low. Dangerous.
"You dare call me that again—"
The phone rang again—insistently—and he stabbed a finger toward it like it had personally offended him.
"—and I'm tossing your phone into the nearest glacier."
A beat passed.
"Then renaming myself."
She smirked. "What are you gonna rename yourself? Mr. Angry Bird?"
Without waiting for his response, she picked up the call. "¡Buenos días, Mami!"
His eyes narrowed, still seething with barely-suppressed outrage as she answered with an airy tone clearly designed to wind him up. He muttered something under his breath—a creative string of curses, judging by the cadence—then gave up entirely. He leaned back against the headrest, arms crossed in full-on pout. A grown man sulking in the passenger seat but then he drag the car back onto the road,
"Yeah, we'll be there by… by… river—" she said sweetly into the phone.
Then she slid her fingers onto his thigh.
His breath hitched—sharp and sudden—as her fingers pressed into the muscle, right where it was taut with tension. His hands flew off the wheel like she'd electrocuted him, eyes snapping wide.
"What?!"
His voice cracked. Not angry. Not annoyed.
Terrified.
She kept talking to her mother on speakerphone, still syrup-sweet, still pretending nothing had happened.
"We'll be there by—"
He was frozen mid-sulk, staring at her in horror as realization dawned.
She'd done it on purpose.
"Oh my god," he hissed, voice strangled as he swatted at her hand without any real force—more flustered than furious now.
"You're evil. You're literally evil and I'm trapped in a car with you!!!"