He watched me, silent now. Waiting.
“I want this,” I said, stepping closer. “I want you.”
His jaw tightened. “Then why does it feel like you’re walking away from me?”
Because I’m scared, I almost said. Because I don’t know how to hold onto you without losing myself. Because everything about this is bigger than me.
Instead, what came out was louder. Messier.
“I love you, you idiot!” The words ripped out of me before I could second-guess them.
They hung in the air like a shockwave.
Aiden froze.
“You—” He blinked, like he was trying to catch up. “You love me?”
I huffed out a breath, half laugh, half disbelief at myself. “Yes. Obviously. I thought that was clear?”
“It was not clear,” he said, still staring at me like I’d just rewritten the rules of gravity.
“Well, it is now.” I threw my hands up, pacing the length of my living room before turning back to him. “I love you. And I’m not walking away from you. I’m just… trying to not walk away from myself.”
Something in his expression shifted. The panic, the frustration… it didn’t disappear, but it loosened. Made room for something else.
Hope.
“We can make this work,” I said, stepping back into his space. “I don’t know exactly how yet, but I have to believe it’s possible. That we can have this without losing who we are. Without fading into something smaller just to make it easier.”
He searched my face like he was looking for cracks in it. Like he needed to be sure this wasn’t going to disappear the second he stepped out the door. Replaced, like he used to believe everything could be.
“You really think we can do that?” he asked quietly.
“I have to,” I said. “Because I’m not giving you up. Not after everything.”
Something in him gave way.
He stepped into me, hands coming up to my face, pulling me in like he needed to make sure I was real.
And then he kissed me.
“I love you too,” he murmured against my mouth, like it had been sitting there waiting for the right moment to exist.
My heart did something ridiculous in my chest.
“Good,” I said softly, because anything else would’ve been too much.
We stayed there for a second longer than we should’ve. Just breathing each other in. Letting it settle.
Then reality came knocking again.
Game 6.
He pulled back, forehead brushing mine for half a second before he stepped away. I felt the loss of him immediately, like the room had cooled by a few degrees.
“I have to go,” he said.
“I know.”
