Her eyes flicker.
That still gets her, praise from me when it’s not about beauty or heat or the way she can stop my entire nervous system with one look.
“It was the second before,” I say. “When you looked up.”
She goes still.
I keep my thumb moving lightly along her cheekbone.
“You found me in that crowd like there weren’t ten thousand other things in front of you. Like you already knew where to look.”
Her mouth parts slightly.
“I did know.”
“I know.”
The wind lifts one strand of her hair and lays it across her mouth. I tuck it back automatically, fingers catching briefly on the medal ribbon, the bracelet, all the little pieces of our history stacked on her body tonight.
“And standing there,” I say, “watching you touch that bracelet before the serve…” I shake my head once because the truth of it still feels too large. “I realized I’m never going to get over being part of this with you.”
Her lashes lower.
“Good,” she says softly. “You’re not supposed to.”
That lands exactly where it should.
I laugh once under my breath and drop my forehead to hers.
We stay there for a second.
Just breathing.
Sea air.
Moonlight.
The sound of our families and friends beyond the doors, alive and warm and real.
And maybe it’s because we’re in Greece.
Maybe it’s because she just won gold.
Maybe it’s because after Stanford, after all of it, I’ve finally learned that a man can waste years trying to look composed when what he really needs is to say the thing clean.
So I do.
“I used to think if I got enough right on paper, I’d become someone worth living as.”
She goes very still in my arms.
I don’t stop.
“Harvard. Stanford. Stats. Brand. Draft noise. Family. All of it.” I glance toward the dark water once, then back to her. “And none of it ever felt like enough because it was missing the one thing I was stupid enough to keep trying to survive without.”
Her eyes shine harder now.
No tears yet.
