And just like that, the moment ended. The time where we could act like two long-separated friends exchanging all the good news we had to offer. As if this could ever be that and we didn’t need to get into anything deeper.
We’d never been surface level. Those eleven days had changed me, had altered the course of my life. What I learnedabout myself and who I could be. What I deserved from relationships, even if it was temporary.
And that brought me to my second difficult question.
“Why are you here?” I said, catching him off guard, his shoulders tightening and pulling back under his navy shirt, the arms rolled up to his elbows.
He cleared his throat. “I heard from another player that this is where Scottie was staying.” His gaze flicked back to me, guilt mixing with the dark brown. “I worked with her for years, before everything came out.”
A sharp pain gripped my heart. Her father had drugged her, doped so she’d recover faster from injury. His own greed had overridden what his daughter wanted, what was important for her, what was right.
“Did you know?” I asked, my heart pausing in my chest. I knew what he’d said on the doorstep, but I needed more.
“I swear, Kit, I didn’t know,” he said, a wrinkle in his forehead appearing. “I would never have gone along with it. I know it’s been a long time since us, but do you think I’d do that to anyone?”
“I don’t.” I could read it in his eyes, the mix of regret and guilt, the same I felt. He wouldn’t do that. The Jonah I knew was kind and caring. When he’d told me about his book, it had been to help improve coaching for players, not help them get around the rules. “I didn’t think he was capable of half the stuff he did.”
My own guilt increased, wrapping around me like a snake. I’d left her. I’d let him do this to her.
Jonah fell silent, his head hanging, the quiet lingering long enough to fill my head with doubt and regret.
“Can we talk about it now?” he asked. I looked at him, the question written across my face. “Why did you leave like that?”
The letter. My four words.“I…” I hesitated, trying to find the right words. I never thought I’d see him again, never thoughtthis conversation would happen. “I didn’t think I’d cope leaving you. I know we didn’t have long, but what we did have…it meant everything to me. I didn’t want to ruin it with one last sad memory.”
He leaned back, his hand slipping into his back pocket, revealing a black leather wallet, battered and bruised from years of use. His fingers slipped out a piece of paper, unfolding it, the lines deep from years of age, and he placed it on the marble expanse between us.
My own handwriting stared back at me:
‘We promised no goodbyes.’
I still remembered how I’d held back tears as I wrote it.
Looking up at him, I found his brown eyes already on me, as if trying to read my expression. My throat was too dry for words, my voice too shaky, but I spoke anyway, the hoarse sound leaving me, “You kept it?”
“I kept any piece of you I could,” he rasped. “Any reminder, I carried it with me.”
And I knew then what he meant. He carried the pain with him too, the pain I thought I had escaped but had actually left behind.
Tears lined my eyes, the squeeze in my chest so tight I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry, Jonah,” I managed. “I just?—”
A flash of realization in his eyes was followed by the swift movement of his body, and he was around the kitchen counter in an instant, his arms pulling around my body, his chest to mine, like no time had passed. “I know. If I had been the one leaving, I might have done it too.”
“You wouldn’t,” I whispered, my body shaking. I knew he wouldn’t. My eyes found his, my body pressed to his like Ineeded him to stop me falling to the floor. “I don’t think you ever would’ve left.”
And we might still be there, slow dancing in the falling snow, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ playing softly in the background.
His forehead met mine, a lock of dark hair brushing against my face. “If it’s what you’d have wanted, I could’ve.” His hands clutched tighter around me, fingers twisting into my top, his own body reacting to the lie.
We’d still be there.
I wrapped my arms around him, wanting to never let go again. His scent, his body, all of it was so familiar, it felt like I’d never left him.
“I don’t hold it against you.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead, the feel of his lips against my skin overwhelming. “Any of it.” He kissed me again, his lips against my face, leading down. Now that he’d started touching me, he couldn’t stop, desperate as I was for more.
Every breath took him closer to my lips. Years had separated us. With one easy touch, it turned to dust.
He was Jonah. And I was Kit. Did we need anything more?
