Close enough now that I can feel his warmth.
“You were chosen. Pretty quickly,” I say softly. “Just not the way you deserved.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it.
“What started as a strategy turned into something I didn’t know how to walk away from,” I continue. “And instead of telling you that, I tried to manage it. Control it. Like I do everything else when I’m scared.”
I shake my head once.
“I know how to handle narratives. I know how to protect optics. I didn’t know how to stop doing that when it stopped being work.”
He’s quiet for a long second.
Then, “I’m still pissed,” he says. “I don’t know how not to be yet.”
I nod. “That’s fair.”
“But,” he adds, voice rougher now, “I also know I didn’t kiss you out there because of the crowd.”
My heart stutters.
“That wasn’t for the cameras,” he says. “That was me.”
The simplicity of it steals my breath.
He exhales. “And I’m done guessing.”
I meet his gaze. “Then you don’t have to. I’m right here.”
We stand there, close and raw and real.
No promises. No declarations.
Just honesty.
He studies me like he’s deciding what to do with all of it.
“So,” he says quietly. “What are we doing?”
My pulse jumps.
The question isn’t about the hallway.
It’s about us.
I hold his gaze. “I’m in.”
He doesn’t react. Not yet.
“Okay,” he says. Not casual. Decisive. “Then we’re not dancing around it anymore.”
“I don’t want to,” I admit.
His eyes drop to my mouth and back up. “Good. Because I don’t do half-in.”
“I know.”
That earns me the smallest nod.
