I didn’t remember letting the ball fall from my hands. I didn’t remember how I crossed the court so fast either. All I knew was Eva—standing now, sunglasses off, eyes wet and shining even as she tried to look composed.
I didn’t slow down. I went straight into her arms and kissed her. Not for show. Not for the press. Not for optics. I kissed her because I wanted to. Because she was mine, and I was hers, and I didn’t care who knew it.
The cameras didn’t exist and the crowd faded away. All I felt was her—the warmth of her pliable mouth, the way her arms locked tight around me like she’d never let go.
“We’re good,” she promised, the words meant only for me. Her hands framed my face, thumbs stroking my damp cheeks. Sweat, tears, or both—I couldn’t tell anymore. “We’re better than good.”
I let out an ecstatic whoop and lifted her clean off the ground, like a rocket breaking orbit.
Her laugh against my mouth was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
The crowd blurred around me. The noise from the arena blurred. Even victory blurred.
I lowered her back down, our lips meeting again as her feet found solid ground. The last time I’d lifted her off this court, she’d just torn her ACL. Before that, I’d been the one hauled away, my temper threatening to get me tossed from the game. We’d picked each other up through injury, through anger, through doubt.
And I knew—we always would.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
We went to her hotel after the game. We could have gone back to the apartment, but I didn’t want to run into anyone we knew. I wanted no small talk, no prodding about going out to celebrate that night. I’d had my fill of Miami nightlife. I only wanted to be alone with her.
I showered quickly after the game, eager, almost restless to be reunited, as if washing off the sweat and confetti would somehow make it easier to close the distance that had grown between us. We changed into more comfortable clothes and ordered hotel room service—the plates sat half-finished on the little table by the window.
The bedroom was dim and warm, the ocean beyond the balcony barely a murmur, and for once, we weren’t filling the silence with tension. I lay on my back, and she used me as a pillow, her head resting on my chest. There was no talk of schedules or upcoming flights, just the steady rise and fall of her breathing against me.
“Why did you come see me this morning?” I asked. “We could have talked after the game.”
She ran her thumbs along the raised, pink scar on the inside of my right wrist. She always touched the scar gently, like she was afraid of undoing the healing.
“I didn’t want to be the reason you didn’t win a championship,” she said softly. “Again.”
My mouth ticked up, half smirk and half genuine curiosity. “You think you affect how I play?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
I huffed out a laugh, more exhale than sound. There had been a time when I would have argued with her—defended my independence, my focus, my ability to compartmentalize. But tonight I didn’t bother because she wasn’t wrong.
We talked in bed, wrapped up in each other, until the words ran out. We talked about boundaries, about trust. About what it meant to stop protecting each other with half-truths and start letting the full, messy version of ourselves exist side by side.
She admitted she’d been scared when Kate had come back into her orbit, not because she wanted her, but because she knew how it must have looked—how it must have felt for me, standing on the outside of a family that already adored her ex.
I admitted that I hadn’t been as untouchable in Miami as I’d pretended. The temptations, the parties, and the late nights—none of it was really about desire; they’d only tested how much it hurt to feel disposable.
It was the kind of talk that didn’t solve everything, but it made the idea ofafter thisfeel possible again.
Her fingers curled at the back of my neck, steady and claiming, like she wanted me closer without needing to say it out loud. AndGod, I wanted to close the gap. To press my mouth to the soft curve of her jaw, to remind myself of every inch I’d gone without.
So I did.
My lips brushed against the place where her jaw met her ear, a touch so careful it almost wasn’t a kiss at all. She inhaled sharply, and I felt her body tilt toward mine, a small surrender in the road back to each other.
My hand kept drifting, tracing the slope of her shoulder, the curve of her arm, until my fingers skimmed gently over her breast.
Her eyes fluttered shut, and for a long moment we just breathed each other in. It was the kind of closeness that wasn’t about urgency or making up for lost time. It was about proving we could still find this—that after all the fractures and doubts, we still knew how to fit together.
Her fingers moved up to trace the line of my jaw like she was learning the shape of me all over again. “Come here.”
