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“And I will if that's what you genuinely want, but you don't have to deal with whatever this is alone.”

The words came out more forcefully than I intended, and Ash stared at me.

For half a second, I thought he was going to tell me.

I saw the same war cross his face that I'd seen earlier in the hotel room, except this time he got closer. His mouth opened, his gaze dropped to the phone in his hand, and his fingers tightened around it before he looked at me again.

Then he asked the last question I expected.

“What are we doing?”

It took me a second to catch up. “You and me?”

“Yes, you and me, because you keep doing this.” His voice wasn't loud, but emotion thickened every word. “You spend weeks making sure I understand that you don't want me anywhere near you, then Vegas happens, and since then you've sat beside me on the plane, remembered my goddamn coffee order, invited me here, and spent the evening acting like this is normal.”

The words landed harder than I expected.

I’d thought the problem was Vegas—the sex, waking up together, all the things we'd done that neither of us could pretend had been accidental—but looking at him now, I finally understood that none of that frightened him as much as this did.

Pizza. My apartment. Arguing about my agent. Sitting close enough that our knees kept touching without either of us moving away.

Normal.

The possibility that this wasn't one night we could blame on Vegas and playoff adrenaline, but something we might actually keep.

The uncomfortable truth was that maybe it scared me more too.

“Would that be so terrible?”

Ash gave another humorless laugh, although this one sounded more tired than bitter. “You don't do normal, Max. Everyone knows that. You don't date, and you leave with someone knowing perfectly well that three weeks later you probably won't remember her last name.”

The accusation hit a nerve, partly because I understood exactly how it looked from his side and partly because he still believed something about Melanie that had never been true.

“That isn't what happened with her.”

“I know you've said that, but this isn't really about Melanie anymore.” Ash dragged a hand through his hair and turned away, taking two restless steps before stopping. “It's about me having no idea what I'm supposed to expect from you.”

He turned back, and the anger I expected wasn't there.

What I saw instead was worse.

Fear.

“I don't know how to do this halfway.”

Something in my chest tightened because I understood that better than he could possibly know.

Neither did I, because halfway was exactly why I'd never done it at all. I’d wanted bodies without expectations, nights without mornings, and affection without attachment, and I'd gotten remarkably good at convincing people that was enough. Being lifebound had made that easier than it had any right to be; attraction did most of the work for me, and I'd spent years taking advantage of the distance it allowed me to maintain even while I told myself I was protecting everyone involved.

Ash had never been like that.

He'd never made anything easy. He challenged me, irritated me, watched me too closely, and somehow made me want things I had spent fifteen years teaching myself not to want. Even before Vegas, even before I'd admitted what was happening between us, Ash had demanded something from me that no one else ever had.

Maybe that should have told me something years ago.

“I’m not asking you to do this halfway.”

His expression changed so quickly that I knew he hadn't expected that answer. “Then what are you asking?”