My throat works around the words. “Me too.”
Then, abruptly, he says, “I can’t do flowers.”
I laugh into the pillow, relief bursting out of me. “Thank God.”
“I want to do something,” he says, and the way his voice drops on it makes it clear he means it. Means it like a vow. “Something real.”
I glance at the tablet on the nightstand. It’s still open to my schedule because I’m too tired to ever close anything properly. Three days off. Those days are rare. Protected. Hell, so close to the end of the season, they’re almost sacred. A miracle even.
The idea comes so fast it feels like someone else put it there. “You’re in Denver next week,” I say.
He goes still. I can hear it—the pause, the sudden attention. “Yeah,” he says carefully.
“I’ve got three days,” I say, heart starting to race again for a different reason.
There’s a long pause before “Ollie” is all but breathed down the line.
The way he says it—soft, wrecked—makes my chest hurt.
“I could fly in,” I say. “Just for the night.”
“You’d do that?” His voice cracks on the edge of disbelief. “In the middle of your crazy schedule?”
“It’s our anniversary,” I say simply, like it answers everything, even though technically we missed the actual day. “I want to see you.”
The silence warms. It’s no longer empty or heavy.
“I could save you a seat,” he says. “Side stage.”
“I’d like that.”
“And then maybe we just… exist,” he adds, and I can hear him smiling a little through the words. “Room service. No alarms.”
I smile into the pillow. “Perfect.”
“You don’t have to,” he says, like he’s afraid to ask for too much.
“I know,” I reply. “But I want to.”
Another breath ripples from him to me. “Okay,” he says, like he’s holding something fragile. “Then it’s a date.”
I laugh softly. “It’s literally our anniversary.”
“Still counts,” he says. “I’ll try not to fuck it up.”
“We already did.”
He chuckles, real this time. “Fair.”
“Happy anniversary,” I say.
“Happy anniversary,” he answers—and this time it sticks. It feels like something we can hold onto instead of something we missed.
We stay on the line longer than we should, talking through flights and logistics and how ridiculous it is that we’re this excited about one night in a hotel we didn’t choose. But underneath the details, something steadies. We didn’t lose it. Not really. We just had to fight our way back.
I don’t hang up right away. Neither of us does. There’s a stretch of quiet where neither of us speaks, like we’re both afraid the moment we do, it’ll snap and turn back into distance. I can hear him breathing. I let myself match it.
Then he clears his throat. “Okay,” he says again, softer this time. “I should… I’ve got to get back.”
