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“I’m good. I had that design team meeting today, and I still need to put the samples together for Reese. I kind of needed this night to decompress anyway.”

There’s a short pause, just the sounds of voices in the background on his end. Then:

“Don’t wait up for me, okay? You need sleep.”

I smile. “Only if you promise to call me after. Win or lose.”

“We’re gonna win.”

“Okay, Mr. Confidence.”

He laughs, low and boyish, and I can picture it so clearly—his dimple creasing, his dark hair pushed back under his snapback. The image is so vivid it makes my chest ache.

“Confidence is key, baby,” Kingston drawls, and I can hear the shift in his tone—lighter now, teasing. “Besides, how am I supposed to let a team of grown-ass men push me around when I’ve got a woman like you waiting at home with twins in her belly? You think I’m about to embarrass myself in front of the whole arena? Nah.”

I smile, curling into the corner of the couch like I can curl into the warmth of his words. “You’re impossible.”

“And you love me.”

I roll my eyes, even though I’m already smiling. “Unfortunately,” I murmur, but there’s no bite in it. Just a warmth that spreads like sunlight behind my ribs.

And maybe it’s too soon for us to be saying that. Maybe, logically, it doesn’t make sense. We haven’t been back in each other’s lives long enough. We’re still figuring it out, still finding our way. But somehow, when it comes to Kingston, love has never really felt like a decision. It was so easy the first time and the second time is no different.

It’s instinct. Muscle memory. Like breathing.

Because the truth is—I never really stopped. Not after the first time. I’d just put those feelings away in a box in my mind and left them there.

He was my first real love. The kind that hit harder and deeper than it should’ve, the kind that ruined me for every half-hearted version that came after. Even when we drifted, even when life got messy and timelines frayed and the future cracked open in ways I didn’t expect… he never stopped being the bar.

So yeah, maybe we’re still new in this version of us. But loving Kingston doesn’t feel new.

It feels like home.

Like slipping back into a familiar rhythm—one I didn’t realize I still remembered until I was standing in front of him again and everything inside me just…exhaled.

There’s some shuffling in the background—metal clinking, a whistle blowing, some muffled voices—and then his voice is back in my ear, closer now, more grounded.

“I have to go,” he says, and there’s a calm to him that settles something shaky inside me. “But I wanted to hear your voice first. Just for a second.”

My throat tightens, emotion catching me off guard.

“You always know when I need you,” I whisper, clutching the edge of his hoodie closer to my body like it can shield me from everything I didn’t say.

There’s a pause. Not long, but long enough to make me wonder if he hears what I’m not saying.

“Promise me you won’t stay up all night,” he murmurs, knowing I’ve been prone to bouts of insomnia lately that leave me exhausted.

“I’ll try.”

“Promise me.”

“Fine,” I huff. “But only because I already cried in public once today and I can’t risk doing it again if you show up post-game with that smug little smirk and kiss my forehead like you didn’t just score a hat trick or fight someone twice your size.”

He chuckles, deep and rough and mine. “I’ll try to contain my smugness. No promises about the forehead kisses though.”

“Rude.”

“Charming.”