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Some decisions are made with careful consideration and weighted pros and cons, but the best ones happen the moment you stop thinking and start feeling.

We barely make it through my front door before his hands are in my hair and my back is against the wall, months of careful boundaries dissolving like sugar in rain.

His mouth finds mine with the kind of desperation that comes from wanting someone so completely that proximity becomes a physical need.

“Chelsea,” he breathes against my lips, voice rough with want and something deeper.

“I know,” I manage, already fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. “I know.”

We’re a tangle of urgent hands and half-formed words, mapping each other with the frantic energy of people who’ve been holding back too long. My blazer hits the floor somewhere between the entryway and the kitchen, followed by his shirt and any pretense that we’re going to take this slow.

He lifts me onto the kitchen counter with the kind of easy strength that makes my brain forget how to form coherent thoughts. The granite is cold against my thighs, but his hands are warm, tracing patterns on my skin like he’s memorizing every inch.

“You sure about this?” he asks, even as his fingers work the buttons of my blouse.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

“Good. Because I don’t think I could stop now if you asked me to.”

“Then don’t stop.”

It’s not time-consuming. This time we’re starving for each other, unable to slow down the immediate connection as he enters me and can’t slow down.

He’s racing into me, pressing the right spot, and making me cry out in pure pleasure.

Every touch electric, every kiss a small claim of ownership.

He moves between my thighs with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it, and I arch against him with the desperate need of someone who’s tired of pretending she doesn’t want to be claimed.

When he pulls out, he turns me around and pushes into me from behind. We both freeze for a moment, overwhelmed by the rightness of it. The completeness. Like puzzle pieces that have finally found their proper configuration.

“Fuck,” he groans, head dropping to my shoulder. “You feel—”

“Perfect,” I finish, because that’s what this is. Perfect and necessary and exactly what I’ve been craving without knowing how to ask for it.

I keep myself on the ground as he pumps quickly into me, grabbing my hair, my ass, my waist. The counter edge digs into my hips. It’s fast and desperate and exactly what we both need—confirmation that this thing between us is real, substantial, and it’s not going anywhere this time. Finally.

My moans fill the empty apartment as stars explode throughout my body. He’s moving faster and faster, making me reach a new level of orgasm until he explodes inside of me.

And it feels so perfect.

“Shower?” he suggests eventually, voice still rough.

“Definitely.”

The shower turns into its own kind of worship—slower, more deliberate, all careful touches and whispered confessions. Steam rises around us as he maps every freckle and scar, as I learn the geography of his scars and the places that make him gasp my name.

Then the couch, where we’re supposed to be watching something mindless on TV but instead find ourselves tangled together again, skin against skin, hearts beating in sync.

And again at sunrise, when golden light streams through my bedroom windows and I wake up to find him watching me with the kind of expression that makes my chest tight with possibilities I’m finally brave enough to want.

“Morning,” I murmur, stretching against him.

“Morning.” His voice is soft, contemplative. “Sleep okay?”

“Better than I have in months.” I settle against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “Reed?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want this to be temporary.”

The words slip out without permission, too honest and too vulnerable for six in the morning. But they’re true, and I’m tired of hiding from truth.

His arms tighten around me. “Good. Because none of this is temporary. Not the job, not Seattle, not us. This is it for me, Chelsea. This is forever.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can, and I do.” He tilts my chin up so I’m looking at him. “I moved across the country. I changed everything about my life to be here with you. You think I’d do that for something temporary?”

“People change their minds.”

“Not about this. Never about this.” He kisses my forehead, soft and sure. “You’re it for me. Always have been, even when I was too stupid to admit it.”

I settle back against his chest, processing the weight of his certainty. This level of commitment, this willingness to build a life around someone else should terrify the hell out of me. Instead, it feels like coming home.

“Guess I better clear some closet space,” I tease.

“And bathroom counter space. I have a lot of hair products.”

“Hockey players and their grooming routines.”

“Hey, this face doesn’t maintain itself.”

“Your face is pretty great.”

“Just pretty great?”

“Devastatingly handsome. Better?”

“Much.”

A week later, after we’ve settled into the rhythm of actually living together—coffee in the morning, dinner cooked in my kitchen that’s become our kitchen, slow conversations about everything and nothing—he disappears into the bedroom after we’ve cleaned up from another successful attempt at domestic normalcy.

“Where are you going?” I call from the couch where I’m grading some assessment forms.

“Just grabbing something,” he calls back. “Don’t move.”

He returns with his hands behind his back and an expression that’s equal parts nervous and determined. My heart does something complicated against my ribs because I recognize that look.

“Chelsea,” he says, moving to stand in front of the couch.

“Reed.” I set aside my work, suddenly very aware that whatever’s about to happen is going to change everything. “What’s going on?”

Instead of answering, he drops to one knee, pulling a small velvet box from behind his back. My breath catches, heart stuttering to a complete stop before racing to catch up.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” he says, opening the box to reveal a ring that’s somehow exactly what I would have chosen—classic but not traditional, beautiful but not ostentatious.

“You’re it for me, Chelsea. Always have been, from that first night in Vegas when you dared me to be better than I thought I could be. ”

“Reed—”

“Will you marry me?” he continues before I can form a complete thought. “Not because it makes sense or because it’s the next logical step, but because I can’t imagine building a life with anyone else. Because you make me want to be worthy of forever.”

I stare at him, this man who followed me across the country, who rebuilt himself without losing who he was, who’s offering me everything I never dared to want because wanting felt too dangerous.

“Say something,” he says when the silence stretches too long. “Please.”

“I’m done running,” I tell him, the words coming out thick with tears I didn’t know were falling. “From you, from this, from anything that scares me because it matters too much.”

“Is that a yes?”

“That’s a hell yes.”

His grin could power the entire city. He slides the ring onto my finger with hands that shake slightly, and it fits perfectly. The ring is perfect.

“I love you,” he says, rising to kiss me with the kind of thoroughness that makes me forget my own name.

“I love you too,” I manage when we break apart. “Even when you propose at eight o’clock on a Tuesday wearing sweatpants.”

“Hey, these are nice sweatpants.”

“They’re very nice sweatpants. But next time you want to change the course of our entire lives, maybe warn a girl?”

“Next time?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Actually, I don’t think there will be a next time. This feels pretty final.”

“Good final or bad final?”

“The best kind of final. The kind that means we’re done with uncertainty and ready to start building something permanent.”

He kisses me again, and I lose myself in the taste of promises and the weight of the ring on my finger and the growing certainty that some risks are worth taking.

That some people are worth following across continents.

That some love is worth betting everything on, because the alternative, living without it, isn’t really living at all.