Page 125 of Changing the Playbook
Now his eyes open, that warm brown that makes my chest tight. Even in the gray light, I can see him cataloging data—the tension in my shoulders, the way I’m holding myself carefully separate despite being naked in his arms—and readying himself to give me whatever I need right now.
“Come here,” he says.
“I’m right here.”
“No, you’re not.” He shifts, propping himself up on one elbow. The sheet slips down to his waist, revealing the constellation of bruises I left on his chest last night when everything felt desperate and necessary. “You’re somewhere else. Somewhere that’s making you look at me like I’m already gone.”
The accuracy of it steals my words, as I realize this is what happens when you let someone in this deep. They learn to read your catastrophizing like scripture, and Mike already has a PhD in me. And, as he takes in more of me, his eyes narrow slightly, that tiny crease appearing between his brows.
“Coffee?” I say, desperate to change the topic, because I know that any further scrutiny right now will lead to a place Idesperatelywant to avoid.
“Sophie.”
“I could make that French press you like. Or we could go to that place on Maple that does the lavender lattes you pretended not to love last week?—”
“Sophie.” Firmer now, his free hand coming up to cup my jaw. His thumb brushes the corner of my eye where apparently my fucking body has decided to betray me, not listening when I shouted at it to make that stupid tear go away. “Talk to me.”
The gentleness undoes me. Because I wantthisto be Mike—patient, steady, present Mike who shows up and stays up and holds up everything that threatens to collapse, and who makesme believe in futures. But I know it’s temporary, for me at least, a mirage that is enticing for a while but ultimately barren.
Because he’s going soon.
“I need…” My voice cracks, and I have to swallow past the glass in my throat. “We need to talk.”
Something flickers across his face—not fear exactly, but a sharpening of attention—and he goes stiff. But he doesn’t pull away from me, and he doesn’t close off. He just waits, giving me space to detonate whatever bomb I’m building, kind and considerate as always.
I sit up, needing distance to think straight. The sheet pools around my waist and I catch him noticing, the way his eyes track the movement before returning to my face. Even now, even in this moment, he wants me. The knowledge makes everything harder and easier simultaneously.
“I love you,” I start, because that’s the foundation everything else is built on.
“I love you too,” he says, with no hesitation, like breathing.
“No, I mean—” I rake my fingers through my tangled hair, searching for words big enough. “I love you in a way that terrifies me. Like you’ve rewired my entire nervous system and now everything routes through you first. Is that completely fucked up?”
“Is it fucked up that hearing that makes me want to kiss you until you can’t breathe?” His voice drops. “Because if it is, we’re fucked up together.”
“Mike, I’m trying to be serious.”
“So am I.” He sits up too now, matching my position, and the symmetry of it—both of us naked and vulnerable in the gray dawn—feels significant. “But go on.”
“After this week, after watching Mom hooked up to tubes again.” My voice hitches, and I have to pause, breathe through it. “All I could think about was you.”
“Sophie—”
Fuck, why is this so hard? “I kept thinking about how you were there. How you knew exactly what everyone needed without being asked. How you made Hazel laugh with that stupid magic trick until she forgot to be scared. How you held my hand in that exact pressure that keeps me grounded.”
“That’s what you do when you love someone,” he says simply, but I catch the slight tension in his shoulders now, like an athlete reading a play developing.
“Is it, though?” The words taste bitter. “Because Jimmy said he loved me, and when shit got real—when Mom got diagnosed and I needed to move here—he calculated the inconvenience and decided it wasn’t worth restructuring his five-year plan.”
“I’m not?—”
“I know you’re not.” I cut him off because if I don’t get this out now, I’ll lose my nerve. “You’re better in every way that matters, which is why I can’t do this.”
His brow furrows. “Do what again?”
“Fall so deep that when you leave, it destroys me.” I sigh. “Because you will leave, Mike. Some team is going to draft you and offer you everything you’ve worked for, and then you’ll be gone and I won’t survive it.” The words strangle themselves in my throat. “Mike, I need you, or I need to walk away from you, I?—”
“Hey.” He reaches for me, but I hold up a hand.
