My heart stutters. “Then why?”
“Because you’re the only person I can’t afford to lose.” The words land hard. Because I know exactly what he means. I’ve been living the same truth from the other side. “Everyone else—teammates, friends, even family sometimes—I can hold them at a distance. I can protect myself. But you were already in. You were already past every wall I built before I even realized I was building them.”
“Bennett—”
“And I thought if I let this happen—” He gestures between us. “If I let us become more, and then I screwed it up the way I screw everything up, I’d lose you completely. So I kept it... contained.”
The vulnerability in his words cracks my chest open.
“You’re not going to lose me,” I say softly.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that I’ve been here. I know that I watched you at your absolute lowest two days ago and my only thought was ‘how do I help.’ I know that whatever happens next, I’m not walking away just because it gets hard.”
He stares at me like I’ve handed him something precious and fragile. And maybe I have. Maybe we both have. Maybe that’s what this is—two people handing each other their hearts and trusting the other not to drop them.
“This changes everything,” he says.
“I know.”
“We can’t go back to pretending we’re just friends. We can’t unknow what it feels like to—” He stops, jaw working. “This.”
“I know that, too.”
“And I don’t know how to do this.” He gestures at the space between us, the mat, the whole impossible situation. “I don’t know how to be in something that matters without destroying it.”
“Then we figure it out together.” I reach for his hand, lace my fingers through his. “That’s kind of been the whole point of this, hasn’t it? Learning how to feel things without falling apart?”
“I thought it was about emotional kindergarten and Post-it notes.”
“Same thing.” I squeeze his hand. “Come on. We should get out of here before someone finds us and Shep has new material for his livestreams.”
We stand. I brush off my jeans, try to fix my hair, fail completely. I look like I’ve been thoroughly kissed. There’s no hiding it. My lips are swollen, my hair is a disaster, and I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my waist. Bennett watches me with an expression I can’t quite read—something between wonder and terror.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “Same time. We’ll figure out what this looks like going forward.”
“I can’t tomorrow. Four day road trip.”
I move toward the door, then pause. “Oh, okay. And Bennett?”
“Yeah?”
“For the record?” I let myself smile—the real smile, the one I’ve been hiding. “I’ve wanted to do that since we were fifteen.”
The confession costs me nothing. I’ve already given him everything that matters.
His face does something complicated. “Fifteen?”
“Fifteen. See you when you get back, Hothead.”
I open the door. I make it three steps down the corridor before I have to stop and lean against the wall.
My hands shake. My heart races. Every nerve ending in my body fires like he’s touching me.
We kissed.
After years of waiting, of wanting, of telling myself it would never happen—we kissed.
