Page 128 of Good Graces

“You have to submitsomething,” Warren says quietly.

“I don’t know.”

“I do.”

“What if I lose again?”

“Then you lose again.” He steps around the chair until he’s facing me. “But at least you’ll know you tried.”

I study him for a second, my eyes narrowing. He’s serious. No teasing grin, no smart remark. Just Warren looking at me like I’m capable of more than I believe I am. Like I’m someone worth betting on.

“I’ll think about it,” I say finally.

“Mmm-hmm.”

His gaze flicks up toward the shelf above my head, and something shifts in his face—barely a flicker, but I catch it.

Curious, I turn and reach for the book he’s looking at. It’s thick, the cover soft with wear and the corners bent in just enough to suggest it’s been read again and again. The spine is cracked and sun-faded, the title stamped in silver foil worn down to a soft shimmer:Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson.

Something about it stops me. Not just the poet, though obviously, I know her well. It’s the book itself. I’ve seen this exact copy before. Propped in the corner of his desk. Page-side down beside his glove box. Once, half tucked into his gym bag, the edge of a dog-eared page peeking out.

“Hey,” Warren says quickly, stepping closer. “Don’t—”

I flip it open, skimming past the table of contents. The pages are worn, too, corners bent, almost every poem marked up with underlines and notes in that sharp, slanted handwriting of his. Some are so full of scribbled comments I can barely make out the text.

“You . . . you’ve actually been studying this? Like, full-on annotating?”

He snatches the book from my hands. “Don’t make a thing of it.”

“Warren, baby,” I say softly, still staring at the pages. “You didn’t just search up these quotes. You memorized them. You . . . you did all this for me?”

His fingers flex. “I just wanted to get it right,” he mutters.

And he did. He got it right every single time. Not just the words but the feeling. The delivery. He always knew when I needed to hear those lines—when I needed to be reminded that hope was a thing with feathers or that paradise could fit inside my palm.

He always knew when to soften his voice, when to make me laugh. And I thought it was just instinct. Thought he was winging it, that he just had some uncanny sense of what I needed.

But no. He worked for it. He cared enough to sit down with this book, to underline the parts that made him think of me, to scribble thoughts in the margins like he was trying to crack some impossible code.

He’s always been like that. Steady. Deliberate. Always thinking two steps ahead. Even when I was too stubborn or scared to see it.

God, I love him. I love him so much I can’t even breathe for a second.

I step forward and press my mouth to his, soft and slow. He kisses me back, his arm curling tight around my waist, hand curling into my hair. When we break apart, I can still feel his breath against my lips.

“Okay, I’ll submit something for the contest,” I tell him. “If you do something brave for me, too.”

“You mean like visiting my dad at Oakview after he embarrassed the shit out of me?” he deadpans. “Shouted incoherent nonsense at a meet in front of my entire team, our rivals, and my coach.”

I laugh because I know he’s half joking. But I also know he’s right. Thatisbrave.

We’re heading to Oakview in an hour, and Warren’s been quietly gearing up for it all day, bracing for whatever version of his dad is waiting on the other side of that visit. And that’s more than just brave—it’s generous. It’s gutsy. It’s Warren.

“Something else,” I say. “Something more for me.”

“You want me to come train at Emberline?”

“Ugh, no.” I wrinkle my nose. “Boxing’s my thing, and you wouldn’t be any good at it anyway.”

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