For one second neither of us says anything.
Then she holds up her phone with one of the clips open and says, softly, “You’re insane.”
I look at the screen.
At myself at the podium.
At the caption.
At the line about loving her badly.
Then I look back at her.
“No,” I say. “Just late.”
Her mouth trembles at the edges.
Almost a smile.
Almost tears.
She drops the phone to her side and steps into me so fast it feels like impact.
I catch her automatically.
One arm around her back.
One hand at the back of her neck.
She buries her face in my chest and just breathes for a second.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says against my shirt.
I put my mouth in her hair and close my eyes briefly.
“Yes,” I say. “I did.”
Her hands fist in the back of my warm-up top.
And then, quieter:
“You said it in front of cameras.”
I ease back just enough to look down at her.
At the dark eyes.
The fierce mouth.
The woman I once failed under softer pressure than this.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
The question isn’t disbelief.
It’s deeper than that.
