Page 48

Chapter thirty-one

I’m thinking I want to kill them

Chase

T he city’s still quiet.

Sunlight spills across the apartment in hazy stripes, catching on steel and glass, and I stand at my floor-to-ceiling window, mug of lukewarm coffee in hand, watching the morning bleed in.

The T-shirt I threw on still clings to last night’s sweat, and my jaw aches from how tight I’ve been clenching it.

Zoe’s still asleep in the bedroom. I left her curled up on my side of the bed, wearing one of my oldest T-shirts and nothing else, legs tangled in the sheets like they’re grounded here. But I know her too well—she’s not grounded, not really. Last night cracked something open in both of us.

I sip my coffee and think about the message. That fucking photo .

The idea that someone was in the arena, watching her, and close enough to snap a picture. Close enough to know what she was wearing and close enough to believe they had the right to say what they said makes me want to punch a wall.

My fingers tighten around the mug. I want to destroy something, to find whoever’s doing this and make them feel even an ounce of what I felt when I saw her face last night—scared and trying not to be.

“You’re doing your serial killer stare again.”

Her voice cuts through the quiet, dry and a little raspy with sleep. I turn, and she’s leaning against the living room doorway, arms crossed, bare legs peeking out from under my T-shirt.

She walks over, takes the mug from my hands, and sips, then grimaces.

“This is cold.”

“So am I.”

She arches a brow. “Nice. Broody and dramatic. Are we sure you’re not the leading lady in this relationship?”

I want to smile, and I almost do. But then she shifts, nudging her hip into me, and her expression softens.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Didn’t want to.”

She nods once. “You’re thinking about what we do next.”

I meet her gaze. “I’m thinking I want to kill them.”

“I know.”

“But that’s not what we’re doing.”

“No,” she agrees, taking the mug from my hands and setting it down. “We’re going to flag it properly.”

I pause, watching her.

“Not just forward the screenshot and say, ‘FYI, another weird one,’ ” she adds. “This one crossed a line. No more playing it down for optics, no more pretending it’s fine when it’s not”

I step in closer, bracketing my hands on either side of her hips. “You sure?”

She nods. “I’m not interested in being the cool girl who plays it off until shit gets really dangerous. I wanna handle it like I’m not one of those idiots in a movie who goes into the basement after hearing a noise.”

Relief punches through me harder than I expect, and I lean in, pressing my forehead to hers.

“I was gonna call your boss myself.”

Her lips quirk. “You don’t even remember her name.”

“Don’t need to. I’d just start with ‘Hi, I’m Zoe’s sex life. We have a situation.’”

She snorts, then slides her arms around my waist to rest her cheek on my chest, and I feel something in me ease. Not all the way, but enough to keep breathing.

“Can we wait until after coffee to start emailing people?” she murmurs.

“We can wait until after pancakes.”

“You making pancakes?”

“No, but Jake might make us pancakes.”

Her laugh is muffled against my shirt, but I don’t miss the way her arms tighten a little, fingers tracing a lazy circle on my lower back. It’s absentminded, barely-there, but it feels like everything. A grounding wire, a reset button.

“I’ve ordered you another phone,” I say softly. “With the SOS setting.”

She pulls back enough to look at me. “What, like a burner?”

“No.” I brush a strand of hair off her cheek. “Like a backup. It’s preloaded with emergency contacts, location tracking. All you have to do is hold the side button, and it’ll ping me to let me know where you are.”

Her eyes search mine. “You really don’t trust anyone, huh?”

“I trust you… I don’t trust them. ”

She nods, quiet for a beat.

“Okay,” she says finally. “I’ll use it. I’ll keep it with me.”

Relief thuds in my chest as my mouth curls, and I stroke my forefinger down the slope of her jaw.

“My good girl.”

She rolls her eyes, but there’s a blush blooming at the base of her throat that I want to kiss out of her, but I tuck it away and save it for later.

“I want to tell Raines and Storm too,” I say. “Not just about the new message and photo, about us.”

Her head tips. “About us?”

“That we’re not fake.”

Zoe doesn’t flinch, she just slowly blinks, as if she was expecting it or knew this moment was coming, and now that it’s here, she’s weighing every word before she touches it.

“I don’t want to lie to them anymore,” I continue. “Not when PR’s talking about end dates. Not when someone’s stalking you and I’m—” I break off. Swallow. “I’m not letting them think I’ll step away from you at some tidy scheduled endpoint.”

Zoe doesn’t say anything for a second. Her eyes flicker to the window, to the empty mug on the side table, then back to me.

“You’re ready to say it’s real.”

“I’ve been ready to be real about you for years.”

She bites her lip. “I just… I need time.”

I nod, jaw tight.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just…” She lifts a shoulder. “There’s something about keeping it quiet that makes it feel like ours. Something untouched, before we’re sitting in meetings while people decide how to manage us… Before people look at me like I strategized this from the start.”

Her voice is soft, but her eyes are sure, and I know she means it. Not because she’s ashamed, but because she’s still scared to hand it over to a world that will want to twist it into something smaller.

“I get it,” I say quietly.

“I just don’t want to owe anyone an explanation yet.”

“You don’t.”

She leans into me again, cheek pressed to my chest.

“But,” I add, lips brushing the crown of her head, “if we’re keeping it quiet, then I get to fake it exactly how I want.”

She lifts her head, arching a brow. “Excuse me?”

“I’m going to hold your hand in public.”

“You already do that.”

“I’m going to kiss your cheek in the press tunnel.”

“You already do that too.”

“I’m going to introduce myself as your boyfriend to anyone who looks at you for longer than two seconds.”

She stares at me, but her eyes crinkle at the corners. “That’s… excessive.”

“I’ll go full PDA in the Monday meeting room. Get banned from the building and placed on an HR poster.”

“Oh my god.”

“I’ll put your name in my Instagram bio.”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t even use Instagram.”

“I will. Just for this.”

She stares at me, unimpressed. “Stop.”

“And I’m going to call you sweetheart in front of Raines.”

“You’ve already called me baby in front of Raines.”

“Exactly. Time to class it up.”

“Class it up?” she repeats. “You? Pretty sure you have no idea what that even means.”

I hum, ignoring her jab. “Might even throw in a darlin’ if I’m feeling spicy.”

“You’re unbearable.”

“You’re in love with me.”

Her scoff is automatic. “You’re not special, I’m like this with everyone.”

“Mm,” I pull her back into my chest. “Sure you are, darlin’.”

She groans, leaning back to glare at me like she wants to kiss me and kill me, which is fair. But there’s a flicker in her eyes, a quiet stutter of emotion and softness she never lets fully surface unless it’s late, dark, and only me.

She wants this, wants us. Wants to believe this is safe and that love doesn’t come with fine print or deadlines. That if we tell the Storm and Pulse, it won’t slip through her fingers.

She’s just not ready to give it to the world yet.

And I can wait.

I reach for her hand, thread our fingers together.

“You don’t owe me a timeline, Zo. I’m not going anywhere. I just wanna stop pretending you’re not everything to me when you already are.”

Her mouth wobbles with a smile. “You’re making this very hard to resist.”

“Then stop resisting, sweetheart.”

She exhales quietly, then presses her forehead to my chest again and lets out a sleepy little groan.

“We should probably get ready,” she mumbles. “Brunch.”

Right. We’re due at Jake and Charlie’s soon for team brunch. It hits me all at once, how much I want that right now—how much I want her to have that right now. The noise, the chaos, the safety of being surrounded by people who love her and who’d do anything for her.

I press my lips to the top of her head.

“Yeah, let’s go be with our people.”

She sighs. “Ugh, fine. But only if I don’t have to do my own hair.”

“I’ll wash it for you.”

That earns a real laugh. “You will not.”

“I will. I’ll do it right now. I’ll condition you like a princess.”

“You don’t even have conditioner.”

“I do now,” I say, backing her toward the bathroom. “You left that fancy one with the gold writing. Smells like vanilla and danger.”

She snorts. “Seriously though, you want first or second?”

“There is no first or second ,” I say, tugging gently at the hem of her borrowed t-shirt. “It’s together or nothing . ”

She laughs and rolls her eyes when I start the water and test the temperature with the back of my hand, but she lets me anyway.

“After you, sweetheart.”

She steps in first, hissing softly at the heat. I follow a second later, closing the glass door behind us. The steam rises slowly, curling into the quiet like a sigh.

Neither of us say much as she tips her head back under the spray, water streaming over her bare skin. For a minute, I just stand there watching her, committing the sight to memory.

Then I reach for the shampoo, and she cracks one eye open. “What are you doing?”

“Treating you like royalty,” I say simply, squeezing some into my palm. “As promised.”

She huffs a laugh but turns around. I work the shampoo into her hair gently, like she’s fragile, even though I know she’s anything but. My fingers move through the strands with care, massaging at her scalp until she lets out a soft, involuntary sound that makes my chest go tight.

“Good?” I ask, rougher than intended.

She nods slightly in reply. “So good.”

I rinse her hair out under the water, my palm cradling the back of her head like it’s always meant to be there. And maybe it is. Maybe my hands on her, gently caring for her without any premise or expectation, is the closest I’ve ever come to saying the thing I’ve been holding in.

She leans back into me without a word, and I wrap my arms around her under the spray, kiss the pulse point just behind her ear, and close my eyes.

Neither of us says it, but we feel it.

The coffee has gone cold in the living room, and the city outside slowly wakes up. But here, inside this steamy shower, in this quiet condo with its rumpled sheets and unfinished confessions, everything feels exactly where it’s supposed to be.