My throat pulls tight.I feel the words coming but they get stuck, caught on every bruise I’ve tried to cover with logic and distance.Because that’s the thing about Vesper—she doesn’t want flowers or fucking poetry.She wants truth.Effort.The ugly, real parts that mean something.The parts that change things.
She asks for the things that matter.
And that terrifies me more than any body check, any screaming crowd, any broken play in the final ten seconds of overtime.Because if I give her everything, she could still walk away.If I give Callaway everything, he might laugh in my face.
I nod once.It’s small, but it’s everything I have.
“I would,” I say.“If I knew where he was.But I can’t go hunting for him when his parents are still watching.What if someone’s listening—we can’t let people into our world when things are still in shambles.”
She watches me like she’s counting seconds between heartbeats.Like she wants me to show her something I haven’t yet.
“How do I know this won’t fall apart,” she asks, “because you two keep waiting for the right moment?”
I hate how much that hits.
I take a breath and drop to the couch beside her, not too close at first—but close enough to feel her warmth, to feel her presence settle into my bones.And then I turn, bracing an elbow on the back of the couch, facing her fully.
“It won’t fall apart,” I say, and it comes out raw.“Not because of me.Not this time.”
She doesn’t believe me yet.
So I reach down and lay my hand over her stomach, fingers splaying gently across the still flat surface.My thumb moves in slow circles, not for her, not for me—but for the life growing inside her.
“For you,” I whisper.“For this baby.I’ll make it work.I’ll make us work.Not as a sacrifice—never that.”
I look up at her.Her eyes are wide.She’s still holding herself back like she doesn’t want to hope too hard.
“I know I’ve made it seem like he and I can’t happen.And maybe we won’t figure it out overnight.But I’m not going to keep waiting for a perfect moment that doesn’t exist.”
I swallow, hard.
“This is about whetherIcan finally choose you without forcing you to choose betweenus.”
She breathes in, shaky.“And can you?”
“I’m trying.And I will.Because I want you.”My voice breaks, and I let it.“I want this baby.I want a life where I don’t have to run.And yeah—him and me?It’s complicated as fuck.”
I look away, then back again because she deserves the truth.
“I don’t know what to call what I feel for him.It’s not simple.Some days it burns.Other days it scares me so much I shut everything down.But when I see him—when he touches me—I want ...I fucking want.And maybe that’s love.Maybe it’s something bigger.But I feel it in my bones.”
I close the space between us.
“And I feel it with you too.Different.Sweeter.You make things possible, Vesp.You make me think I could actually be someone worth loving.”
Her eyes fill, but she doesn’t cry.Instead, she smiles—wobbly, sarcastic sunshine like only she can deliver.“That’s big talk from a man who once ghosted me for three weeks because I sent him a picture of the Eiffel tower and invited him to come along.”
“I was having an identity crisis,” I mutter.
“Still are,” she whispers back.
But she leans in anyway.
So I kiss her.
ChapterThirty-Five
Alberto
