Page 63

Chapter forty-three

Under my skin, right where you’ve always been

Zoe

I t’s raining. Of course it’s raining.

Not the romantic kind either. Just this flat, miserable drizzle that streaks the windows and makes everything look grayer than it already feels. The kind of rain that seeps into your bones and ruins your hair and your plans and probably your entire life.

I stare out at it from my doorway window, one hand gripping my travel mug, the other fishing through my front closet for the coat I already know isn’t there.

“No, yeah, sure,” I mutter to myself. “Let’s make my first day back in the office even more cinematic. Why not add some pathetic rain-soaked outfit to the mix?”

I push aside a denim jacket, a raincoat that somehow doesn’t actually keep water out, and a puffer I only wear when it’s threatening snow. Nothing.

Because the only coat I want—the one that’s warm and fitted and won’t make me look like a sad marshmallow—is sitting in Chase’s closet at his condo, right where I left it.

I check the time. 8:50 a.m.

Morning skate started twenty minutes ago. He won’t even be home, and I still have the key card.

I blow out a breath, running the idea over in my head. This isn’t a big deal. I’ll be in and out, won’t even text him until later. I’ll make a joke about how he missed seeing me and tell him I stole my coat back like a coat-stealing ninja.

It’s not weird, it’s totally fine. He wouldn’t want me to get wet—well, at least not like this.

I smirk at my ridiculous, filthy brain and try to stop myself from imagining all the ways he would want to get me wet.

Zoe. For fuck’s sake. Work. Press releases. Suits and traffic and capitalism.

I grab my purse and head out the door.

I can do this.

***

Chase’s condo door clicks open, and for a second, I just stand there.

It’s dark. Quiet. The lights are off, and the air smells the same—clean, slightly citrusy, unmistakably him .

My stomach clenches at the familiarity of it all. The want of it all.

I step inside, shoes wet against the hardwood, the sound too loud in the silence. My heart thumps in my chest, a little more urgently than it should be, but I ignore it.

This isn’t an emotional crisis, no. This is merely weather-based logistics.

I drop my keys and bag on the hallway console out of habit, which makes me flinch, then head down the hallway. Every step feels louder than it should, almost as though I’m trespassing on a life that I shut out and am now crawling back to.

In and out. Coat-stealing ninja. Easy.

I make it to his bedroom and pause at the doorway.

The sheets are different. Newer, I think, but the same color.

A deep charcoal gray he said was “low maintenance,” but that I knew he picked because it didn’t show sweat or remnant hockey blood or anything remotely human.

The room smells like his shampoo, his aftershave, like heat and memory and comfort.

I train my eyes on the closet and walk over slowly, opening it. My coat’s hanging on the inside hook where I left it. I reach for it, fingers brushing the soft fabric—

And then I hear it.

The soft creak of a floorboard. A shift of movement.

My breath catches just as the ensuite door swings open, and there he is.

Chase.

Fresh from the shower, wet hair pushed back, water glistening on his collarbones, and a towel slung low around his hips. Barefoot. Bare-chested. Very, very here.

We both freeze.

“Zoe?”

I shriek and nearly throw the coat at him.

“Oh my god! I thought you were at morning skate,” I blurt, backing up as though physical distance is going to undo the last ten seconds. “I swear I’m not breaking in—I just… left my coat, and it’s raining, and—” My eyes drop to the towel again. “Yeah. You’re very… naked.”

His brow lifts slightly, clearly finding my dismay silently hilarious.

“I mean, I see the towel,” I clarify. “You’re technically not naked. But also, like, barely. What is that, like tea-towel size?”

He crosses his arms over his chest, one eyebrow arching higher. “You’re judging my towel?”

“I’m judging nothing ,” I say too fast. “You can wear whatever you want in your own home. I just—I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“I live here,” he says, deadpan.

“I know that, but it’s morning skate,” I snap, as if that explains the entire universe and justifies me breaking and entering.

“I took the day off.”

I blink. “You took the day off? You never take days off.”

He shrugs, still frustratingly casual. “Coach told me to rest.”

“Right,” I mumble, eyes darting anywhere but back to his chest. “Rest.”

I’m still holding the coat like a shield, and my heart is hammering so loud I’m surprised he can’t hear it.

And he’s just standing there. Like this isn’t weird or monumental or that we’re not two people that haven’t seen each other in two weeks and are tiptoeing around a cliff edge.

“You, uh…” I gesture vaguely at him. “You gonna put clothes on or…?”

He grins. “Does it bother you?”

“I—no— yes —I don’t know. You’re—God, Chase, could you just—”

He turns casually, heading toward the dresser. “Sure. But you’re gonna have to deal with at least ten more seconds of towel time.”

I groan and bury my face in the coat, muffling my voice. “I’m in hell.”

He laughs low and warm, and I can hear drawers opening, fabric rustling, and my own brain imploding.

And I can’t help myself, because this man’s body is beauty and grace, and I’ve been starved of it for longer than I care to admit. So I glance up.

He’s pulling on a T-shirt, arm lifted, ribs stretching, and that’s when I see it.

A new tattoo, just below his left ribcage.

Small and subtle, but very fucking familiar.

“What’s that?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

He looks over at me. “What’s what?”

“That.” I nod toward his ribs. “That’s a tattoo.”

He pauses with his shirt half-on, caught mid-motion.

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

He doesn’t say anything else, just gulps and lifts the hem of the T-shirt, revealing it fully.

A small, delicate carnation.

“What is it?” I already know the answer, but I need him to tell me himself.

He meets my eyes, and there’s no grin now. No jokes.

“You know what it is,” he says, so quietly I barely hear it.

The T-shirt hem is still bunched up in his hand, his skin still damp from the shower, but I can’t look at anything else.

It’s so soft. So subtle. So fucking beautiful.

White ink, curling into petals just under his ribs, inked so close to his heart it might as well be part of it.

I swallow hard, the burn rising behind my eyes. “But… why?”

His mouth twitches just slightly. It’s not a smile, more like a crack in resolve.

“Because I wanted a piece of you with me,” he says. “To keep under my skin, right where you’ve always been.”

The silence stretches between us, full and fragile and impossible.

“The way I feel about you, Zo… it’s not always loud. It’s not for show or attention.” He pauses, his voice sounding thin. “It’s just… pure.”

My hands curl into the coat like it might hold me together, keep me from falling apart right here in front of him. But it doesn’t.

Because I’ve spent weeks trying to find the version of me that’s worth something again, and here he is, telling me he’s seen it all along. And not only that, he inked it into his fucking skin.

Buried it in his blood. Confessed it in carnations. Told me I’ve been casually nestled under his ribs this whole damn time.

It’s not too much, it’s not pressure, it’s not a plea.

It’s just love, quiet and permanent.

Pure.

And I don’t know what to do with that, don’t know how to breathe around it. Not when I still feel like my own skin doesn’t quite fit. Not when he’s showing me something so beautiful and all I have are pieces.

And certainly not while I feel like crying in front of him, when all he’s ever seen of me for weeks now is broken Zoe.

“I—I have to go,” I mumble, voice barely holding. “To work.”

It’s a lie, and we both know it.

But I turn anyway, clutching the coat as I rush out the door.