His hands settle at my waist, grounding me. “Breathe,” he says. “Take a breath.”
I do. His cedar scent floods in, and my omega settles by degrees. The urgency loses its sharp edge and eases back into something manageable.
“I'm sorry,” I say into his shoulder.
“Don't.” His voice is soft, the same tone he used in the kitchen. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I was doing so well.”
“You were.” His thumb makes a slow pass across my back beneath the edge of the vest. “You still are. This isn't a setback.”
My hands loosen on his vest, but I don't move away. His scent is easing the sharp edge of the flare, and the adrenaline from thegame is still running through my system. The combination is not helping.
I'm aware of how close we are in a way that has nothing to do with the game we were just playing.
“It's getting closer,” I say. I mean the heat. He knows I mean the heat.
“Yeah,” he says.
I press one last breath against his throat, then step back.
He doesn't immediately drop his hands from my waist. When I look up, his eyes find mine, and I can see him checking in, assessing where I am mentally. Then something in his expression settles. “Do you want to keep going?” he asks.
I glance around the empty course. My gun is somewhere on the floor behind me where I dropped it.
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.” I'm not letting this ruin the game.
He retrieves my gun from where it fell and hands it back before reclaiming his own. Neither of us mentions the flare again as we head back into the course in opposite directions.
We call the game after another twenty minutes. There’s no formal score, just the mutual agreement of two people who are exhausted, sweaty, and have accomplished what they came for.
There’s a low observation platform at the edge of the course, a wooden deck overlooking the full layout of the facility. We end up there with our gear off and water bottles from the supply bag Adrian apparently packed, because of course he did.
I drink half of mine in one go. He’s already gone through most of his.
The course below us is empty and still. I can see every barrier we hid behind, every place I ran, and the corner where the flare hit. From up here it looks smaller than it felt.
“Did you plan this as a distraction?” I ask. I’m looking at the course, not at him.
“No,” he says.
That gets my attention. I glance over at him. His hair is damp at the temples, and there’s a faint smear of blue paint above his left eyebrow from the ricochet that caught him in round two.
He looks less polished than he usually does.
Less like the version of himself that exists in press photos and production meetings.
More like a person.
“I planned it because you've been so afraid,” he says without apology.
“Ever since the morning your presentation became something other people knew about, everyone started circling you and treating you like there was a problem to manage. Including me, sometimes.” He turns his water bottle slowly in his hands. “And I hated watching you make yourself smaller because of it.” His gaze moves back to the course.
“You are not small. You've never been small. I wanted to give you a day where you remembered that.”
I don't say anything.
“You catch scheduling overlaps in thirty seconds,” he continues. “You solve problems at seven in the morning that three other people would have missed entirely. You argue about knives with Bash and win, which I want you to know is genuinely impressive. And today you shot me in the chest from five feet away without hesitating and then laughed until you couldn't breathe.” The corner of his mouth lifts.
