“You keep your hands to yourself,” I say, even as my skin argues.
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. “No.”
The answer shouldn’t do this to me.
It does.
I take a half-step closer before I realize I’ve moved. Not enough to collide. Enough to matter. Enough that the air between us thins.
“This is stupid,” I mutter. Not retreating.
“Yes,” he agrees immediately. “It is.”
Another pause. Longer. My heartbeat climbs my throat.
“If we kiss,” I say quietly, “it stops being leverage.”
His eyes darken. “It stops being choice.”
The word lands clean. True. No heat. No softness. Just accuracy.
I nod once. Active. Decisive.
It hurts anyway.
Footsteps echo at the far end—voices, laughter, a stick clattering against concrete. Reality pushing back in.
Gio shifts first. He stays close, then angles sideways, creating space without severing the line between us.
“Tomorrow,” he says, rough again. “You walk in like you belong.”
“I do belong.”
“I know.” A beat. “That’s why this is hard.”
The footsteps get closer. He holds my gaze for one last second—too long, too intimate, too much—then turns, restraint snapping back into place like armor locking.
I stay where I am. Breathing. Because wanting him didn’t disappear. It just learned gravity.
The corridor opens into light and noise like a trapdoor. The bowl still buzzes—players spilling out, staff shouting names, the low electric churn of people deciding what matters now. Phones are already up. I clock them before I feel them.
Gio doesn’t hesitate. His arm comes around my shoulders, easy and unannounced, like it belongs there. The contact is firm. Deliberate. Possessive enough to read.
My body stiffens on instinct. I kill it just as fast. Because it affects me. Because I promised.
We step forward together.
The shift is immediate. Conversations dip. Heads turn. A camera flash pops from the corner like a spark testing dry air.
“Hey, Rossi,” someone calls. “Good game.”
He doesn’t look. “Thanks.”
Another phone lifts. Then another.
I lean in just enough that my mouth is near his collar, voice low. “So this starts now.”
“Yeah,” he says, just as quietly. “It already did.”
