Page 503 of Bad Prince
Then nods and lays her head back down.
“Okay.”
And somehow that one quiet okay feels bigger than any vow people make by shouting.
The cabin lights dim.
The engines hum low and steady.
Somewhere beneath us, states pass in darkness.
She falls asleep first.
Playoffs plus emotional devastation plus no real recovery window would do that to anyone.
I ease the laptop from her lap, set it aside, and shift us both farther down into the wide leather bench until I can stretch out properly with her in my arms. The cashmere throw slides over us. Her body molds against mine instinctively, warm and trusting, and when I roll to my side, she follows without waking all the way.
By the time I settle, she’s tucked against me fully—my arm under her neck, the other curved around her waist, her back fitted to my chest like this is the shape we were always supposed to sleep in.
Spooning her thirty thousand feet over black water and sleeping states should feel absurd.
Instead it feels inevitable.
My mouth brushes the back of her shoulder.
She makes a tiny sleepy sound and reaches back until her hand finds my wrist where it rests over her stomach.
Then she keeps it there.
Even asleep, she wants proof I’m still holding on.
That nearly wrecks me.
I kiss the soft curve below her ear and look out into the dark beyond the window, Stella warm and drowsy and wearing my stupid matching hoodie, the little gold bracelet catching a faint thread of cabin light against her wrist.
Mine.
The engines hum.
Her breathing evens.
The jet cuts west through the night.
And with her curled into me like this, halfway between Newport and real life, I think maybe this is what peace feels like when it finally stops running from you.
We land before dawn.
Campus is still mostly dark by the time the SUV drops us near the athletic complex, the air colder than it should be for California and sharper after two days of East Coast salt.
Monday has the decency to arrive ugly.
Stella stands beside me on the curb with her duffel over one shoulder, hair pulled back, face scrubbed clean of everything but exhaustion and contentment and the kind of quiet daze that usually follows a weekend you know you’ll be measuring things against for years.
We look at each other.
Neither of us moves first.
Because the truth is, this part sucks.
