“Ramsey, my man,”I say, watching him wrestle with the fencing dummy like it’s got a personal vendetta against him. He’s dragging it down to the gym downstairs as he helps me set up a gym at Reese’s LA home, and he’s not exactly thrilled about it.
Though, to be fair, I suspect he’s never thrilled.
“Why do you need two of these dummies? And for the last time, stop calling memy man.”
“If I only brought one, I wouldn’t get to see you struggle carrying the second one in.” I laugh.
He grumbles, but then I hear the front door open, and I leave him to it. “Thank you! Love you too, Rams!”
When I step into the living room, Reese is standing there like she owns the whole damn world, which she basically does. The phone is pressed to her ear, and she radiates energy that hits me in ways that are illegal in several states.
We’ve carved out the next three days together—Friday through Sunday are marked in stone. Her meticulous planning used to drive me crazy, but now watching her map everything out for us both gets me fucking hard.
Our lives have merged naturally over these past couple of weeks. My stuff is in her closet, and we both have keys to eachother’s places. Yet we still guard this time together—time to be just Reese and Dante.
“Frank,” she barks, “that timeline is completely unacceptable. I need those contracts revised and on my desk tomorrow morning. Thank you.”
Thethank youcomes out like a threat. She’s so fucking attractive. I grin like the lovesick idiot I am.
She ends her call with a crisp “We’re done here” that sends a tremble down my spine and leaves me yearning to be on the receiving end of her attitude. She sighs, stepping out of her new heels. A crash comes from where I left Ramsey, and a string of curses floats down the hallway.
“Dante, you need to stop terrorizing my security team,” Reese says, eyeing Ramsey still battling the fencing dummy in the hallway, but there’s this little quirk to her lips that says she loves it.
“But he finds it so fun.” I shrug, and we gravitate toward each other. “Come here, fighter.”
Her pixie cut is a couple inches longer, grown out in this perfectly rebellious way that makes me itch to comb my fingers through it. She’s wearing her pearls, my ring among the gems right where they belong.
“The way you walk should come with a warning label,” I say.
“I doubt you’ve read a warning label in your life.” Her eyes dance with mischief.
“Very true.” I lean down to kiss her, taking a generous handful of her ass when I do. “I’ve missed you,” I whisper in her mouth, yanking her closer to me. She lets go of CEO mode and melts with a sigh. I kiss her again, deeper this time.
Since we decided to make this thing real on New Year’s Day, everything’s changed.
Sure, it’s only been a month, but we picked up exactly where we left off. What we’ve figured out is that relationships aren’tabout control; they’re about showing up. Sometimes I catch her typing emails at 3:00 a.m., her face bathed in the cold glow of her laptop screen, and I’m hit with this quiet realization. It reminds me of my parents, passing each other in the kitchen in the mornings, swapping shifts like it was some delicate dance while they juggled their careers.
There’s something more meaningful than just being together—it’s in those small, unspoken moments of coordination when I know that being with her is the only thing in my life I’ll never second guess.
We orbit each other like planets in sync, our paths crossing exactly when they need to. Breakfast meetings that work around my training schedule with the youth program and late-night calls while she’s handling events. When she’s buried in scripts with Amara, I’m out on the road, watching Em compete in tournaments, moving through life on autopilot while my mind drifts back to her.
But we make it work.
We text constantly.
Inane shit, really.
What I ate.Protein shake, again.
Whether the sky’s doing that thing where it looks like we’re in heaven.It usually is.
If a PA finally got her tea order right.They never do, and she never complains about it.
Dating someone as driven as me means accepting that sometimes she needs to choose herself more often than she can choose me.The game demands everything too.
So we steal moments where we can.
It works because we both know that the love we have for each other is monumental. Sometimes it means knowing when to push—I’m good at pushing—and when to back off. Still learning that one.
