The headlines.
The team.
The noise.
But for now, it’s just us, and the promise of everything that’s waiting to begin.
50
Oliver
I wake to the sound of her breathing.
It’s steady and even.
Rina’s asleep on my arm, her hair spilling over my skin in dark waves. The sheet has slipped down her back, revealing a stretch of golden skin bathed in the muted morning light streaming through the windows.
For a moment, I don’t move.
I just watch the steady pattern of her breathing, the subtle flutter of her lashes, and the way her lips part.
Lying here with her in my arms, this moment feels like something I never want to end.
Last night runs on a loop in my head, returning in flashes.
The faint tremor threaded through her tone when she whispered my name.
The way her body shook when she finally let go.
I’ve scored goals, lifted trophies, stood under bright arena lights as glory rained down on me, but none of it comes close to what it felt like to hold her when she came apart in my arms.
There were nights this penthouse felt hollow. Too much glass, too much space, not enough life to fill it. The silence used to envelop me until I drowned it out with music, late-night workouts, noise, and women.
Now that same silence feels like peace as it wraps around us.
For years, I told myself that wanting her wasn’t meant for me. That if I could just stop chasing her, I’d stop needing something I could never have.
But lying here, watching her sleep, I finally get it.
It was never about the chase.
It was about the finding.
The quiet, steady realization that she was always the missing piece of a life I hadn’t figured out how to live yet.
I press a kiss into her hair and take in the faint trace of her perfume as it lingers on the pillow, mingling with the clean scent of my soap and the warmth of her skin. It’s sultry and feminine.
Unmistakably her.
The proof of what we became last night continues to weave itself between us in the tangle of sheets and the hush of dawn.
Home.
That’s what it feels like.
I’ve always had a place to go back to. A family that loves me, a house that’s never empty. But this is different. This is the kind of home that settles under your skin. The kind that doesn’t fade when the door closes behind you.
With Rina beside me, home isn’t a place anymore.
