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I stared at the ceiling, one hand on the curve of her back, thinking about all the ways this industry takes without asking.

The way it turns light into labor. Passion into product. The way tours stretch time and fame steals privacy. How the very thing that makes them love you is what keeps you away from the people you love.

She’d been carrying it. Performing through exhaustion. Smiling through isolation. Holding herself together in interviews and on stages and hotel beds while I convinced myself she had it handled.

But I knew better now.

Love doesn’t ask for perfection. It shows up. In real time. And tonight, so did I.

THIRTY-TWO

The light through the curtains was golden, touched with dusk.

He stood by the window, his braids crisp, his muscular torso shirtless, hands in his pockets, looking out over Florence like he hadn’t just caught me mid-collapse and carried me back to myself.

Like hehadn’t just flown across an ocean because my voice cracked through the phone line.

I watched him from the bed, chin resting on my arm, completely bare beneath the sheets. Tender in places he took ownership of.

“You always this dramatic?” I teased, voice still thick with sleep.

He turned, that slow grin stretching. “Only when it’s worth it.”

I sat up, letting the blanket slip to my waist. “You think I’m worth an international flight?”

He crossed the room in a few strides, leaned down, kissed my shoulder.

“I think you’re worth my life.”

My throat caught. My whole body stilled.

He meant it.

And I believed him.

I reached for his hand. Pulled him down beside me.

We lay on our sides, knees touching, foreheads brushing, the quiet folding in like silk. I kissed the corner of his mouth. Then his jaw. His neck. His shoulder. His collarbone. Like prayer.

“You still tired?” I asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

I rolled him onto his back and straddled him—slow, smooth, no rush.

His hands found my waist like they’d missed me. Like they were afraid I might fade.

I bent and kissed him. Soft. Deep. Full of everything I hadn’t said since we parted.

It wasn’t desperate. It was deliberate. A claiming. A confirmation.

We kissed until my thighs were trembling, until he was hard beneath me and whispering my name into my mouth like it was sacred.

I reached between us. Guided his thickness, that sweet dick of his, inside me. And when he moaned, I did too.

I rode him like the only truth that mattered was here. This. Us. Now.