Page 108 of Between Love and War
I blink, trying to process. “Careful?”
“I know how you are about these things,” he says, voice warm but unshakably steady. “So I’ve been letting you dictate the pace. Letting you decide when it’s okay. Because I didn’twant to rush you. Or scare you off. Or make you think I only wanted one thing.”
My throat tightens.
“So you don’t…” I whisper. “You don’t regret it?”
He shakes his head once. Firm. Certain.
“No, Katie,” he says. “I haven’t regretted a single second with you. Not one.”
And just like that, I start crying again. Because this is it. I think I love him.
Which is ridiculous. I’ve known him for months.Months. People will say it’s too soon, that I’m infatuated, that I’ve just inhaled too much of his stupid heartthrob fumes. People will think I’m stupid.
But it doesn’t feel too soon. I feel like I’ve been navigating my life with the volume turned down, and suddenly he just… turns it up.
And, God help me, I’m already picturing things. I’m picturing him at Sunday markets holding a basket of vegetables. I’m picturing him reading a book next to me on a rainy afternoon. I’m picturing his hand on my back in a crowd, his hoodie on my chair, his toothbrush in my bathroom. All of that boring stuff.
And yeah, I know how this goes. People leave. Things change. The whole team moves on to another city and I’m left clutching a hoodie that smells like him until it doesn’t.
But the horrifying, wonderful truth is… I’d still risk it.
So maybe Iambeing stupid.
“We don’t have to figure it out right now,” I say with a smile. “But,” I continue, dreading the next words. “Your training will start soon. And you’re moving out of Magnolia Heights soon.”
He looks down at his feet. “Yeah,” he says. “Heather even said they’re scheduling a friendly comeback match for me since I missed the final parts of the season.”
And even though my chest tightens at the reminder, I know I wouldn’t stop him for the world. I will not be the one to hold him back. So even when I picture him in my kitchen, or on my couch, or next to me in an imaginary altar, the scene shifts… and he’s under the stadium lights, in his element. Where he belongs.
When we arrive back in his house, the sun is setting. I don’t know why I go inside with him. Maybe because I don’t want the day to end. Maybe because I don’t wantusto.
His living room still smells a little like clean laundry, and he sets his keys down on the table near the door. “Come back out with me?” he asks.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want this day to end yet,” he says, echoing my thoughts.
Michael Lee is on an honesty roll today. I don’t know if I like it. No, Ido, but every single thing he says makes my chest ache a little.
The screen door squeaks as we step out. It’s cooler now, the sky tinged pink and deepening blue. Crickets chirp in the bushes. His backyard is mostly grass, but the half-court he had installed gleams under the overhead lights. It looks like something from a commercial—sleek, polished, regulation lines—but also a little ridiculous against the sleepy small-town backdrop.
He rolls the basketball toward me.
“You’ve spent months with me during Little League. Do you still not know how I am with sports?” I ask, bewildered.
Michael chuckles. “Just wanna spend more time with you, Katie.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s play then.” If he’s gonna be honest, so will I.
He raises his eyebrows as if to question my sanity. “Basketball?”
“Kinda.”
He spins the ball slowly in his hands, then walks to the free-throw line and shoots—of course, it swishes in, perfect arc, perfect form. He doesn’t even look surprised.
“Show off,” I say.
