I stay where I am for a moment, breathing him in. His heartbeat is still fast under my palm. Mine is finally starting to settle. The urgency drains out of the room slowly, replaced by something quieter.
I brush my thumb along his jaw. “All good?”
He nods once, eyes still half lidded. “Yeah.” A beat. “You?”
“Yeah.”
We stay tangled together, skin cooling, sheets twisted around our legs. It’s comfortable and familiar.
Ollie is the one who breaks the silence.
“I fly back tomorrow,” he says quietly.
There it is. Reality.
I hum once, because I knew that. Of course I knew that. He has practice. A team that doesn’t stop just because his personal life detonated in public.
“I didn’t forget,” I say.
“I know.” His fingers trace idle lines along my ribs. “We just… didn’t talk about it.”
“No,” I agree.
Because we’ve been too busy reconnecting. Too busy proving we still fit.
He shifts slightly so he can see my face properly. “I asked you for time,” he says, voice steady now. “To prove myself. To show up. That doesn’t work if you’re the one doing all the traveling.”
I study him. “You’re saying you don’t want me to come?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It sounds like it.”
He exhales. “I’m aware that asking you to bounce between cities while I finish the season feels… unfair.”
I almost laugh. “You think I can’t handle a flight?”
“That’s not it.” He rubs a hand over his face. “You have your own life. Your music. Your family. Your sobriety. I don’t want to drag you into my schedule chaos.”
I prop myself up on one elbow. “You didn’t drag me into anything,” I say. “I walked back into this.”
He watches me carefully.
“I can be out there in a week,” I add. “I’ve got a few loose ends in SF, but I can shift things around.”
His eyes flicker with something like hope and guilt tangled together.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
“I want to.”
Silence drifts between us.
“I could stay a few days,” I continue. “See how it feels. Maybe catch a home game. Maybe a couple of away games if it lines up.”
He stares at me like I’ve just offered him oxygen.
“You’d do that?” he asks, and there’s no bravado in it. Just raw gratitude.