Page 83 of Until We Come Home

“Ow.” I wince, and he stops, easing the pressure off the tender spot.

“Did that hurt?” He raises a brow, confused.

“Yeah, but don’t stop.” I laugh, shoving my foot back into his hands. “It’s the good kind of pain. Those new floor combinations in the studio wrecked my arches today, so that muscle really needs to release.”

He chuckles and resumes the massage, digging his thumb back into the spot, and I melt into the cushions at that perfect mix of pain and relief as he works out the knots one by one. It’s been a long day. Between six straight hours of rehearsals and teaching the youth company, my whole body is spent.

Of course, he’s got a heating pad wedged behind his ribs after his first shift back since getting cleared. Instead of taking it easy, he spent the day on a two-alarm fire downtown and carried a woman down three flights of stairs. Slightly more heroic than me teaching choreography all afternoon, but hey, we all have our own physical battles.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks, laughing and nudging my foot. “You’ve been staring off into space.”

“Was I?” I smile. “I was just thinking about what a pair we are. Both of us all broken down on the couch like a couple of retirees.”

“God knows that’s true. We both have such physical jobs,” he says, shifting the heating pad with a wince.

I settle deeper into the couch. Everyone found out we’re together right away, since Maren and Lark and Jada all texted me the morning after the benefit demanding answers, and the Midnight group chat still hasn’t calmed down. But we saved his mom for a proper FaceTime, and doing that today was easily my favorite part.

I’ve always been close with her—especially since I keep my distance from my own parents for the sake of my mental health—and I call her at least twice a month anyway. She cried and kept saying how happy she was for us, which only made me cry a little too.

I blame the Pisces moon in my chart. Sympathetic crier.

I turn my head toward Mateo, a quiet thought stirring. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he says, turning his full attention to me.

I smile. His intense focus used to intimidate me. I’ve always been the flighty one, the girl who bolted the second a man got serious. Now I bask in it, like sitting in the sun, knowing it’s all for me. And sometimes it makes me wonder about the other woman he loved like this.

“How are you doing?” I ask carefully. “With everything, I mean. With Lindsey.”

Her name hangs between us for a moment. He gives me a reassuring smile, his thumb making a slow pass across my calf.

“I’m doing okay,” he says. “Maybe parts of me will always miss her. Some days more than others. But I don’t know... it’s been a long time. And I think when I visited her grave back in Boston, I was finally able to let her rest.”

I turn that over.

“You know,” I say, “you can talk to me about her. I hope you know that. It might feel strange, but I don’t think it’s weird. She was a huge part of your life, and I’d want to know her, even just through you.”

“I appreciate that,” he says, squeezing my foot. “I really do. But I’m good, really. I feel lighter than I have in years.”

“Good,” I say, smiling back at him.

He sets the heating pad aside and leans over to kiss me, slow and sweet, his hand braced on the back of the couch beside my head. Then he settles into his corner and pulls my feet into his lap again, the show still playing in the background.

“And how are you holding up?” he asks. “With the whole Derek thing. It’s still a breakup, and four years, on and off or not, is a long time. I wouldn’t blame you if some part of you was sad about it, even now.”

I can’t help but laugh. Derek is about as far from my mind as he could possibly be, and if there’s a part of me that’s sad, it hasn’t bothered to show up yet. Plus, I heard from a mutual friend that he’s seeing a couple of girls from the choreography intensive, so he’s clearly doing fine too.

“I think you’ll be relieved to hear I’m not losing any sleep over it,” I say, tapping his thigh with my toe. “My heart’s pretty solidly occupied at the moment.”

His mouth curves into a crooked smile. “I can’t say I’m crushed to hear that.”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and be smug about it,” I tease.

His thumb slides up the inside of my ankle. “Well, from the way you were screaming my name earlier, I figured you weren’t too heartbroken.”

My mouth falls open and I kick him square in the thigh. “You bastard.”

He catches my foot, grinning like he’s never been prouder of anything in his life, and uses it to tug me down the couch toward him. I squeal as he hauls me into his lap, my knees landing on either side of his hips, and then his hand is in my hair and his mouth is on mine and the laughing stops.