Page 151 of Crazy Pitch
She smiled then, the kind that made everything inside me go still. “I love you too.”
She leaned into me, her head finding its place on my shoulder like it had been waiting for it all along. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer. The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was full, alive. Every second stretched warm and easy, like time had finally decided to give us a break.
We sat like that while the lights dimmed one by one across the field, their glow softening until only the faintest gold lined the edges of the grass.
Ellery tilted her head, watching it, a soft laugh curling out of her. “Looks like a win to me.”
I looked down at her, at the way the light caught in her hair, at the quiet curve of her smile. “Finally,” I said, and meant it.
She laughed again, that low, real kind of laughter that didn’t need to perform for anyone. I couldn’t help but join her. Our laughter tangled in the air, blending with the fading hum of the lights until the whole world felt wrapped in it—peaceful, easy, earned.
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing her in. The scent of rain, of her perfume, of something warm and familiar.
For the first time in too long, I wasn’t thinking about the next practice, the next press headline, or how to keep my life from cracking apart. I wasn’t thinking about what we’d lost. Just what we’d found.
Her hand found mine where it rested on her shoulder, fingers threading through like she’d been doing it her whole life. We sat there, both of us watching the empty goal in front of us, the turf gleaming faintly in the dying light.
There were no cheers, no cameras, no audience left to care. But it still felt like victory—quiet, honest, ours.
As the last of the lights blinked out and the night folded around us, I tightened my arm around her, letting the silence settle again.
“Guess that’s our cue,” I said softly.
She hummed against my shoulder, too content to answer, and I smiled into her hair.
The field was dark now, the noise gone, the world finally small enough to hold in one heartbeat.
And for the first time, it felt like we’d already won.
