I pour each of us a glass of the cabernet she likes, watching her swirl it in the candlelight. “You look like trouble tonight, Star,” I tell her, low enough that it’s just for her.
Her smile curves slowly, dangerously. “That’s because I am trouble, Coach.”
We talk over dinner—the kind of talking we’ve always been good at, even when the rest of our lives feel like they’re on different coasts. She tells me about the new shipment of Italian wood they got in, about Blythe’s ridiculous attempt to charm a client, and about the desert heat warping the showroom doors. I tell her about practice, about the freshman who thinks he’s God’s gift to football, and about the championship game coming up.
At some point, my hand finds hers across the table. I rub my thumb over her ring, slowly. “I missed you,” I say simply.
“I know,” she says, and there’s a softness in her eyes now, the kind that makes me think maybe this weekend can be the reset we need.
We finish the night with crème brûlée, sharing one dish even though she pretends to protest. She scrapes the caramel top with her spoon, offering me the bite. I take it from her fingers instead, licking the sugar from my lips while her gaze drops to my mouth.
By the time the check comes, I already know we’re not going straight home. Not yet.
The rest of our weekend falls into this perfect, impossible balance. Saturday morning, we wander through the city park, the air warm but edged with a light breeze. Laughter carriesacross the grass—kids on swings, dogs chasing balls, someone strumming a guitar near the fountain. For Arizona, it almost feels like Virginia with the shade and greenery.
We claim a spot under a tall cottonwood, my back against the trunk, Stella between my legs with her sketchbook balanced on her knees. Over her shoulder, I watch her sketch a young mom spinning her identical twin boys in a dizzy circle. The lines come alive under her pencil—you can almost hear the children’s laughter coming from the page.
I press a kiss into her hair and keep my arms wrapped around her longer than usual, as if I can anchor both of us there.
When she finishes, she tears the page from the pad and jogs over to the woman. There’s hugging, tears, a dozen thank-yous, and then she’s back in my arms like she never left. Something in my chest eases in a way I didn’t know it needed to.
That night, she makes my favorite alfredo with her grandmother’s pasta recipe. We eat on the back patio, music low, wine in hand. I keep the conversation moving, asking her about things we’ve discussed a hundred times—our first trip together, her old art teachers—anything to keep her smiling.
She tips her head back at something I say, laughter spilling out in that wild, unguarded way I love. The moonlight catches in her hair, and for a second, I think about how lucky I am she calls me hers… and how dangerous it feels to want to keep it that way at any cost.
We end the night tangled in the sheets, hair mussed, skin flushed. She lies on her stomach, only her hips covered, and I rest my head between her shoulder blades, drawing lazy hearts on her back. The world outside doesn’t touch us here—no long distance, no flights, no schedules, no damage control. Just us. We talk about the future in the kind of unguarded way we haven’t in months, no sidestepping, no sharp edges.
It’s just after three in the morning when the storm moves in, the kind that feels personal, like the sky is arguing with itself. Lightning spills white across the walls, thunder low and restless, rattling the glass. She sleeps through all of it—hair spilling over the pillow, her soft snore pulling me back to the warmth we made hours ago. The sheets still smell like her perfume, her scent: jasmine and sugar, clinging to my skin like it knows I need to keep it. I rest my forehead against the glass, watching the sky split open, and the ache in my chest answers back. And I wonder—how did I get here? How did I let myself slip this far down a hole I’m not sure if I can climb out of?
Stella
By morning, the storm is gone, leaving the world scrubbed clean. Sunlight spills through the curtains, warm on my face, the scent of rain still hanging in the air. Donovan’s side of the bed is empty, but the sheets are warm, and I can hear the faint clink of dishes from the kitchen.
For a moment, I just lie there, letting the quiet settle over me. No phone buzzing, no meetings, no deadlines—just us. This weekend has felt like pressing pause on the rest of our lives, and I want to stretch it as far as it will go.
When I finally wander into the kitchen, he’s at the stove, sleeves pushed up, hair still damp from the shower. He looks over his shoulder, smiling like I’m the best thing he’s ever seen. And just like that, I forget to wonder why he’s already dressed at eight on a Sunday morning.
He plates pancakes before I can even make it to the coffee pot, sliding the stack in front of me like this is something we do every Sunday. It’s not—but I wish it was. The butter melts down the sides, pooling in the maple syrup. I take a bite just to hide the stupid smile creeping onto my face.
We spend the morning like that—lingering over breakfast, reading headlines out loud, and trading commentary that has us both laughing. At some point, he moves behind me, pressing a kiss to the back of my neck and murmuring that I smell like strawberries and rain. I don’t bother telling him it’s my shampoo; I like the way it sounds too much.
By late afternoon, his bags are by the door, the day already slipping through my fingers. Donovan checks his watch, muttering about boarding times, and my chest tightens the way it always does when we’re about to go back to separate lives.
The drive to the airport is quiet, not in a bad way—just in that suspended, heavy kind of silence where neither of us wants to admit the countdown’s almost over. He squeezes my hand at red lights, his thumb tracing circles into my skin, but his gaze stays fixed on the road, as if he looks at me too long, something might break.
At the drop-off curb, he kisses me once, twice, three times, like he’s memorizing the shape of me before walking through those sliding doors. For the briefest second, his smile falters—so quick I almost convince myself I imagined it.
I watch him disappear into the crowd, the smell of jet fuel mixing with the last hint of his cologne, and force myself to turn away before I lose the nerve to let him go.
The house feels too big once the door closes behind me. I drop my purse by the stairs, the echo following me into the kitchen. The pancakes are gone, but the smell of maple syrup clings in the air, a reminder of him still threaded through the house.
I wash dishes that don’t really need washing, water the plants even though they aren’t thirsty, and pretend I’m not counting the days until I see him again. By the time the sun dips low enough to turn the kitchen tile gold under my feet, I’ve convinced myself I’m fine.
By the next afternoon, the house feels too quiet. I’ve buried myself in work, sketching out a casket design for Agave Hills’s oldest family names—the kind of commission that demands imported mahogany and hand-stitched silk. My pencil moves in steady lines, chasing symmetry, but my mind drifts every few minutes.
Ansel’s text lights the screen. “Your girl has landed. Come collect me before I get roped into some influencer’s travel vlog.”
An hour later, and much to my surprise, she’s in my passenger seat, wearing sunglasses so big they look like props and a scarf like she’s avoiding paparazzi. She tosses a tote bag into the back, the top gaping open to reveal an alarming number of glossy magazines and a half-eaten bag of peanut M&Ms.
