Page 33 of Anatomy of Us

“And you?” she asks.

“Me what?”

“Are you alone?”

“I’ve been alone for seven years,” I say, and the words scrape on the way out. “Seven years of running. City to city. Team to team. Telling myself it’s ambition, it’s my career, it’s me chasing the top of my field, it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“It was fear,” I say. “Fear of this. Of you. Of what I feel when I’m with you.”

“Tessa…”

“I’m tired of running. I’m tired of being scared.” My throat tightens. “I’m tired of waking up every morning thinking about you without you next to me.”

“And now?” Zoe asks, quiet.

“Now I stay. No matter what. I stay.” I nod like I have to nail the words down. “And if I can stay in the middle of an internet scandal, a custody lawsuit, and a possible ethics complaint against me… imagine what I can do when things get calm.”

Zoe lets out a short laugh and rolls her eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, looking at our tangled fingers.

“Probably.”

“This doesn’t leave this room until Yvonne gives the okay. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“And if tomorrow you regret it…” She hesitates, like she doesn’t want to keep going. “You tell me. But you don’t disappear. You just tell me and we talk.”

I turn to her and cradle her face, brushing my thumbs over her cheekbones.

“This time I don’t disappear. If I get scared, I tell you. But I don’t run.”

We go quiet, like we’re both sitting with what just happened.

Then she kisses me.

It isn’t like the kiss on the training field. It isn’t stolen, and it isn’t impulsive. It isn’t urgent or wild.

It’s a choice.

She leans in slow and I meet her halfway. Her teeth catch my lower lip with a soft bite. Her hands tangle in my hair.

When we part, she rests her forehead against mine and my heart pounds so hard I swear the whole team can hear it through hotel walls.

“This is crazy,” she whispers.

Wesley makes a small noise in the crib. A little protest, probably dreaming about the circus this week has become. We both laugh, and Zoe gets up and settles him between us.

“Tonight,” she says, shrugging, “just sleep.”

“Just sleep,” I repeat like an idiot.

“Seven years apart,” she murmurs.

“Seven years.”