Page 27

NOW WE LEAP

STELLA

When Ruth called me last week to photograph tonight’s event, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

Not because I was desperate for work, but because I’ve started to realize… I actually like these gigs.

They’re not like the high-adrenaline shoots I built my reputation on. There’s no need to climb rooftops or balance on ledges to catch a moment mid-action. No split-second decisions that might make or break a headline.

This? This is slower. More intentional. And honestly? Kinda lovely.

Ruth mentioned it was a networking event tied to a nonprofit she supports and that HEA was sponsoring.

Fancy enough for people to dress nicely, low-key enough that I wouldn’t need to boss anyone around to get the right angle.

The setting, ArtHouse Gallery, did most of the work for me.

Between the warm lights and eclectic mix of people, it’s been… easy.

Peaceful, even.

Which is maybe why the nerves are hitting harder now.

Because peace doesn’t mix well with unresolved feelings.

Especially when the person you can’t stop thinking about is somewhere in this room and you haven’t talked to him yet.

The buzz of the gallery hums around me with soft conversation, clinking glasses, the low thrum of music in the background. But I’m standing by my camera bag near the back entrance, pretending to reorganize my gear for the fourth time.

Anything to avoid looking for him.

Anything to avoid facing what I already know.

“You planning to move in with that bag, honey?”

I startle, spinning around to find Ruth standing behind me, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

Busted.

“I’m just…” I gesture weakly to the bag. “Packing up.”

She lifts a brow like she knows exactly how full of it I am.

Ruth steps closer, looping her arm through mine in that effortless way she has of making you feel safe even when she’s about to wreck your defenses.

“You wanna tell me why you’re hiding from the man you’re in love with?” she asks, voice low, kind but firm.

I flinch, because hearing it out loud, love feels like someone pulling a thread I’ve been desperately trying to hold together.

I swallow hard. “Why is he even here, Ruth?”

She pats my hand. “Because I made sure he was.”

My head jerks back. “You… what?”

“I might have nudged him onto the guest list,” she says with a wink.

“Well, the gym was always on the list, but his wonderful marketing guru may have caught a ‘mysterious twenty-four-hour bug’ and couldn’t make it—someone had to to represent Squeaky Bum Climb. Fate needed a little... encouragement.”

I stare at her, heart pounding.

“You saw something,” I whisper.

She nods. “I did. And I still do. You two lit up a room, Stella. Most people spend their whole damn lives looking for that kind of spark. It’s not something you let go without a fight.”

My throat tightens.

“I don’t know if I can,” I say, voice barely above a whisper. “What if it’s too late?”

She squeezes my arm. “It’s only too late if you let it be.”

I blink fast, trying to clear the sting from my eyes.

Ruth’s expression softens even more. “Last I saw, Luke was wandering your section of the gallery. Looked like a man trying to memorize every piece of you he could find.”

The air whooshes out of my lungs.

“He’s still here?” I croak.

Ruth smiles. “He’s not hiding, darling. He’s right where you left him. The question is, are you brave enough to go find him?”

I press my hand to my chest, trying to calm the wild beat of my heart.

Because for the first time in a long time, the answer isn’t a reflexive no.

It’s a maybe.

It’s a hope.

It’s a beginning.

I nod, and Ruth beams like she already knew I would.

“Go get him, sweetheart,” she says. “Love like this? It’s worth the leap.” She winks at me and turns and walks away.

The hallway to the private gallery space is quieter now, tucked just out of sight from the buzz of the event. My steps are slow, measured. Partly because I don’t know what I’ll find. Mostly because I already know.

Luke.

He’s standing in front of his photo like it’s a puzzle he’s been trying to solve.

He hasn’t moved.

One hand is tucked into his pocket. The other runs through his hair, fingers pausing like they’re anchoring him to the moment. His body is still, too still. I feel it from here—the tension, the weight. The way he’s holding himself upright like the floor might shift beneath him at any second.

And despite the hundred conversations I’ve had with myself about how this could go, none of them prepared me for the sight of him. I thought I had more time to prepare for this.

It hits me in a way that nearly knocks me off-balance.

God, I missed him.

I linger at the edge of the doorway, hand on the frame, watching him watch my work—watching us , before we ever even knew what we were building.

His voice breaks the silence—low, steady, without turning.

“I found it.”

My throat tightens. “You found it,” I whisper back.

He still doesn’t turn. “It found me.” Another beat passes before I step farther into the room.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say.

Luke’s shoulders rise slightly with a breath. Finally, he turns. His eyes find mine. They’re guarded. Not cold. But not open and ready to forget, either.

Not yet. So I do the thing I came here to do. I open myself first.

“I told you I don’t do relationships. What I didn’t tell you was why.

” I exhale, fingers curling around the strap of my camera bag.

“My dad... he thought love was a spark, not a flame. He fell hard and fast. And then he’d fall again—every time something shinier came along.

I stopped counting the marriages after number three. ”

Luke doesn’t interrupt. He listens. Really listens. And it only makes the truth spill faster.

“My mom loved him so much; she never recovered. She’s still stuck in the version of the past that broke her, always rewriting it like maybe one day it’ll change.”

I shake my head. “And Harper? She held onto Lilly’s dad for years, far longer than she should have. Always hoping he’d show up and love her the way she deserved. But he never did.”

I swallow hard.

“And watching all that? It convinced me of one thing: that love either fades or fails.”

Luke’s expression doesn’t shift, but I feel the breath he lets out. Heavy. Real.

“I’ve spent years believing that staying only leads to heartbreak. So I made a rule. Never stay. Never get too close. And then…”

I laugh once, soft and broken. “Then I met you.”

Luke’s eyes flicker.

“And I didn’t just start to believe in love,” I say. “I started to want it.”

The silence between us sharpens.

“I used Claire as an excuse. But the truth is, it wasn’t about her. It was me. I was afraid of what this meant. What you meant.”

His jaw works, but he doesn’t speak.

“I panicked,” I say simply. “And I broke something I didn’t want to lose.”

I take one small step forward. “I fell hard, Luke. And fast. And it scared the shit out of me.”

His eyes close for just a second. When they open, they’re softer. Not unguarded, but less locked.

“I don’t want to run anymore,” I finish.

Luke doesn’t say anything at first. He just stares at me like he’s trying to decide if he can trust this moment.

Then he steps closer.

His hand lifts, gentle and slow, and brushes a strand of hair from my cheek.

“What changed?” he asks, voice quiet, laced with something that sounds like hope.

I smile, tears thick in my throat. “You. Us. Everything.”

He nods once, like he needed to hear it out loud.

“What now?”

My heart stutters. I shrug, but the smile that comes with it is real. “Now we leap.”

He doesn’t hesitate this time. Luke leans in, pulling me to him like he’s done it a hundred times before. Like he never plans to stop. And I rise on my toes, meeting him halfway.

Our kiss isn’t urgent or fiery, not this time. It’s something better It’s a promise.

It’s a beginning.

He leans his forehead against mine, our breathing uneven, our bodies too close in a space not meant for this kind of heat. His smug smirk brushes against my lips like a dare, and it shoots straight through me.

“You missed me,” he says, voice low and rough.

I inhale sharply, fighting the pull. “You sound real confident for a guy I told to get out of my bed.”

His hand slips to my waist, fingers splaying wide. “And yet here I am... and you’re the one who came back.”

I lift my chin, daring him. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Oh, Trouble.” His thumb drags a slow, teasing circle just above my hip. “Too late.”

I try to come up with something clever. Something biting. But then he dips his mouth to my neck, not kissing, just close enough that I feel the heat of his breath and my thoughts scatter like ash.

“You gonna stop me?” he asks.

I don’t.

And then his mouth crashes to mine, hungry, hot, and full of every second we lost between goodbye and this.

It’s not soft or tentative, not this time. It’s heat and hunger, a tangle of emotion that’s been simmering since the moment I first walked into his life and flipped it on its axis.

I gasp into the kiss, my fingers fisting in the front of his shirt as he backs me against the gallery wall, careful to avoid the actual art, but not much else. His hand curls around my waist, pulling me flush against him, and my body answers like it’s been waiting for this moment.

Maybe it has.

“Still scared?” he murmurs against my mouth, breathless.

“Terrified,” I whisper back, my lips brushing his with every word. “But I don’t want to be.”

He groans softly, dragging his mouth down the line of my jaw, to the place beneath my ear that makes my knees threaten to buckle.

My fingers tighten on his collar.

And just when it starts to feel like we might take this further, right here, right now, he pulls back.

Not far. Just enough to rest his forehead against mine.

“We should go,” he says, voice husky. “Before Ruth shows up with a camera crew and a confetti cannon.”

I laugh, breathless and a little wrecked. “She probably knows better than to come looking.”

Luke grins, but there’s a flicker of mischief in his eyes. “You say that like she hasn’t orchestrated this entire night.”

“Point taken.”

He kisses me again, softer this time. Like a promise.

Then he laces his fingers with mine and pulls me toward the exit, past rows of art and strangers and maybe fate itself.

Because this time, we’re not running.

We’re walking out together.

It’s late. Well past midnight when I wake, tangled in the sheets with Luke beside me. His hand is resting across my stomach, fingers loose, breathing steady. He’s here. Really here. And somehow, I didn’t run.

Carefully, I slide out of bed and pad down the hall. The house is dark except for the soft glow from the porch light bleeding in through the living room curtains. I make my way to the kitchen, barefoot, quiet, the floor cool beneath my toes.

The glass is cold in my hand as I sip, but it’s not the water that grounds me.

It’s the stillness.

The peace.

The faint echo of laughter in this hallway. The crooked art on the wall that Lilly made in preschool. The scuff on the linoleum where Harper dropped a skillet and nearly broke her toe.

This isn’t just a place I’ve been living in.

It’s a place I’m starting to belong to.

And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like a girl passing through. A runner with her bag half-packed.

I feel like someone staying. Someone reclaiming her roots.

And in the quiet, I let myself want it all.

The house. The man. The life.