All This

When Love Feels Like Safety and a Secret

When Nora meets Daniel in the lobby of Sable House, one brief conversation becomes the beginning of something neither of them expected. Coffee, late-night talks, and quiet routines slowly turn friendship into attachment, and attachment into a complicated love. But as Nora lets Daniel closer, his silences deepen and small inconsistencies begin to raise questions about what he is hiding.

Spanning tender and messy years, Raven Wolf’s ALL THIS is an intimate contemporary love story about trust, betrayal, forgiveness, and the fragile hope of repairing what secrets threaten to undo. Follow Nora and Daniel as they discover whether love can survive the truths they have tried hardest to keep buried.

Excerpt from the book

I met him in the Sable House lobby; the elevator smelled like cigarettes, and his laugh landed in my bones. It was around ten p.m. I was jet--lagged, wearing a green hoodie and trying to be invisible, so I told my brother I was going out for a smoke.

Daniel sat at the desk in a blue--collared shirt and stopped me as I passed—”What kind of music do you like?”—and I gave him a weird look because I was exhausted and didn’t want to be bothered. I smoked outside with the door in sight because I didn’t trust being stopped, and when I came back in, he said, “Have a good night.” I shrugged and said, “You too,” but my eyebrows scrunched; he felt creepy. Upstairs, I told my brother the guy downstairs was trying to pick me up, and he teased, “Oh good, you have a new boyfriend.” And that’s how I met Daniel. Not exactly a meet--cute, just a small, weird beginning.

We kept bumping into each other after that—laundry nights, quick smokes by the back entrance, whatever made the day smaller. One night, my dryer sheets fell, and Daniel bent to pick them up like it was nothing; I watched him and thought, “Why is he being so nice?” He offered to take them and told me to meet him in the courtyard. He asked if I had social media, said his name, and we stood under the building lights while Patrick the doorman watched. It felt easy, like sliding into something familiar. I told him something I shouldn’t have because I felt weirdly comfortable, and before I left, I asked, “Can I kiss you on the cheek?” He said, “No—I’m at work.” Then, “Alright, but quickly.” I kissed him quickly on the cheek; he walked me back up to the lobby, I went upstairs, and that was another small, stupid step toward whatever this was becoming.

We started smoking with Patrick in the courtyard, and I became friends with him; Daniel drifted into that orbit sometimes. We exchanged numbers and called each other now and then—he was kind, sweet, easy to talk to. One Friday, he called drunk and said, “I really like you,” and I admitted I kind of liked him too; he asked if he could come over, and I hemmed.

That night, I went downstairs to joke with Morris about the guys who hit on me, and Morris kept saying, “You should get with Daniel,” like he already knew something I didn’t. I kept insisting Daniel wasn’t my type—bald, stocky, not my thing—but he kept showing up anyway. Small moments, slow pull.