But I know better.
Her shoulders draw in. Her whole body reacts, like it’s bracing for something that already happened and might happen again if she blinks wrong. The air between us shifts.
I step a little closer, grounding us. “Hey,” I say gently. “It’s only a screen.”
She swallows, then lets out a shaky breath. “I know. My brain just remembers faster than I do.”
“That tracks,” I say. “Brains are rude like that.”
That earns me the tiniest huff of a laugh.
She looks back at me, steadier now, and her smile returns—small, real, a little brave.
“So if we’re going to replace the memory with a new one,” she says. “Let’s please make it a really good one, okay?”
Something warm and ridiculous spreads through my chest atthat. Delight, maybe. Or relief. Or the realization that I actually get to be the one holding the steady ground for once.
“Deal,” I say. Then, gently, “Hey. Look up again.”
Her brows knit instantly. “Sawyer?—”
“I’ve got you,” I say, already grinning. “Promise.”
She hesitates, then tips her head back.
The jumbotron flickers to life.
And there we are.
Huge. Inescapable. A close-up of the two of us standing far too close, my hand still wrapped around hers, her expression caught somewhere between panic and disbelief.
“Oh my—” She gasps, half-horrified, half-laughing. “Why are we that big…and what is my hair doing?”
“I mean,” I say, glancing up, “I think we look great.”
She lets out a startled laugh that echoes around us, her shoulders loosening as she looks from the screen back to me. “I’m going to pass out. Or hide. Or both.”
“Too late,” I say softly. “You’re famous.”
She swats lightly at my arm, still laughing, and the sound of it does something dangerous to me. The kind of laugh that pulls you in. The kind that makes you want to be the reason it keeps happening.
On the screen, she turns toward me.
Standing here beside me, she does the same.
For a second, everything lines up—the quiet, the cold, the two of us framed together above and below. Her laughter fades into something softer, her breath slowing as she realizes how close we are.
“You did this for me,” she murmurs.
“Maybe,” I admit. “But I wanted to. I wanted you to be able to walk in here and know you’re more than okay.”
“You are constantly surprising me, Sawyer Stockton.” She shakes her head as she takes in the arena, laughing. Her eyes flick to my mouth. Then back to my eyes.
This distance between us narrows without either of us havingto move, the pull is that great. However, I lean in, because I want to. So that she can feel it, too. Enough that she knows exactly where this could go.
“We need to give you a really good memory,” I murmur, my voice low and rough around the edges.
She swallows, her smile turning nervous again, but this time it’s the good kind.
