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It’s quiet—the kind of quiet that feels earned.

The kind that only exists after too many nights of not enough sleep, too many hours of hearts stretching thin across time zones and hospital corridors and backstage dressing rooms.

Reese is already outside.

Barefoot in the grass. Standing still like she’s listening for something only she can hear. The hem of her hoodie flutters in the breeze, her arms crossed over her chest like maybe she’s trying to hold herself together—but softer than before. Less like bracing. More like breathing.

I step off the porch and cross the yard, the grass cool beneath my feet, dew slick and alive. When I reach her, I don’t say anything. I just drape half the blanket around her shoulders and hand her the monitor.

The boys are asleep. For once.

She looks at me, then back at the horizon where the sun is barely beginning to glow.

“I’ve been writing again,” she says, voice soft like the morning.

I don’t rush her.

“Not songs,” she adds quickly. “Not yet. Just… thoughts. Feelings. Things I can’t say out loud but need to get out of my head before they eat me alive.”

“Are you showing Thorin?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not ready. It’s not that I think he wouldn’t get it. I just… I don’t know what it is yet. It feels private. Like a breath I’m still trying to catch.”

My chest tightens in the best kind of way. The way it does when someone you love starts turning a corner and doesn’t even realize they’re doing it.

“That’s okay,” I say. “There’s no timeline. No one’s waiting on a finished version of you.”

She leans into the blanket between us. “Still feels good, though. To write. Like I remembered how to breathe.”

We stand like that a while. Barefoot. Braless. Silent. Two women who’ve walked through fire and come out singed but standing.

Then the crunch of gravel draws our attention.

The kind of sound that doesn’t belong to a stranger. It’s too familiar. Too lived-in.

I turn toward the porch just as two figures come into view at the top of the driveway.

Fletch.

Thorin.

I blink once, twice, like I don’t trust what I’m seeing.

Fletch has wildflowers clutched in one hand and his duffel slung over his shoulder. He looks like hell—hoodie wrinkled, dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes—but his face lights up when he sees me.

And beside him, Thorin is slower. Shoulders heavy. But when his eyes find Reese, it’s like every part of him exhales.

Reese doesn’t move. Not at first.

She just stares at him, mouth slightly parted, like she’s scared it’s a dream she’s going to wake up from.

Then she drops the blanket and runs.

I do too.

I don’t care about the cold or the damp or the way my heart’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. I run to Fletch like the world depends on it. And maybe it does. Maybe this moment—this breathless, barefoot, sobbing kind of kiss—is the thing that holds it all together.

He catches me midair, arms locking around my waist, flowers dropping to the dirt without a second thought. I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in—tour sweat and leather and something uniquely his that feels like home.