Page 115 of Off-Limits as Puck

“Chelsea—”

“I know I’m ridiculous. All this running. It’s just like shut up and get on with it. We don’t make sense on paper. I know every rational reason this is a terrible idea.” I lean forward, needing him to understand. “But watching you today, with those kids, seeing who you’ve become... I realized I can’t continue living like this. I want to stop running from the only relationship that’s ever felt real. I want to figure out how to love someone without losingmyself. I want...” I pause, gathering courage. “I want to try being us without all the external pressure and family expectations and professional complications.”

“Just us?”

“Just us.”

Reed sets down his coffee and runs a hand through his hair—nervous gesture I remember from therapy sessions when he was working through something difficult.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks.

“Please.”

“I’ve been in therapy. Real therapy, not just anger management. Working through family stuff, relationship patterns, why I always choose chaos over stability.”

“And?”

“And my therapist thinks I use intensity to avoid intimacy. That I pick fights and create drama because it’s easier than being vulnerable.”

“Do you agree?”

“About the fights? Yeah. About the drama? Probably.” He meets my eyes. “But not about you. With you, the intensity wasn’t avoidance. It was the opposite. It was me trying to get closer to someone who felt like home.”

I take a moment, meeting his eyes. “Even when I was running?”

“Every time you ran, I wanted to chase you. Not because I enjoy the drama, but because losing you felt like losing the best part of myself.”

My heart plummets into my stomach. Because that’s exactly how I felt. Like some essential piece of me was missing every time I walked away from him.

“I was so angry,” I admit. “After Chicago. Not just at the situation, but at myself for wanting you more than I wanted safety. For choosing feeling over logic even when I knew it would cost me everything.”

“Are you still angry?”

“Sometimes. But mostly I’m tired. Tired of pretending I don’t miss you. Tired of building a life that’s perfectly functional and completely hollow.” I pause. “Tired of punishing myself for falling in love with someone who saw me as more than my achievements.”

“Is that what I did?”

“You saw Chelsea, not Dr. Clark. You wanted the messy, imperfect person underneath all the professional polish. No one had ever wanted that version of me before.”

We sit there, two people who’ve made expensive mistakes trying to figure out whether we can afford to make better ones. The hotel room feels smaller somehow, like proximity is making possibility more real and more terrifying.

“Chelsea,” Reed says quietly, “I need you to know something.”

“Okay.”

“I never stopped wanting you. Through all of it—the suspension, the trade, the therapy, the volunteer work—you were always there. Not just the memory of you, but the hope that maybe someday we’d figure out how to do this right.”

The words hang between us like a bridge I’m not sure I’m ready to cross. Not because I don’t want to, but because crossing means admitting this isn’t just about closure or forgiveness. It’s about the possibility of choosing each other again, with full knowledge of what that choice costs.

I laugh despite the tears threatening at the corners of my eyes.“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Really?”

“I’ve dated a lot of practical men.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Terribly. Turns out I’m not actually attracted to emotional stability.”

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