Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
He falters, and for a moment, I sense he might even shed a tear. I step into Grizz fast and wrap my arms around his torso, hard, pressing my face into his chest like I can anchor him there by force alone. It’s not delicate or cautious.
It’s desperate and instinctive.
For a second, he freezes. Arms locked at his sides, breath shallow, like his body doesn’t know what to do with comfort when it isn’t earned through endurance.
Then—slowly—he exhales. His shoulders sag a fraction. His hands lift, hesitant, unsure, before settling against my back. One arm comes around me, then the other, and he pulls me in.
Just enough to let his weight rest against mine, like he’s borrowing my steadiness because he’s run out of his own. His forehead drops toward my hair, his grip tightening. It doesn’t come off as possessive but rather needed.
And for this one moment, he lets himself be mine.
I hold him and don’t say a word.
I don’t try to fix it. I don’t offer perspective or silver linings or gratitude for what remains. I just stay, arms locked around him, heart breaking open wide enough to hold everything he’s never been allowed to put down.
And I know, with absolute certainty, that I want to help him mend these scars.
And I will.
Chapter 22
Grizz
It’s been a couple days since Daisy and I got back from Saskatchewan. New York feels harsher than it did before, but it has nothing to do with sirens or traffic or the endless churn of people moving too fast. It’s as though the city noticed I left and decided to remind me exactly where I am the second my feet touched Manhattan concrete again.
We haven’t spent a night apart since we returned.
Sometimes it’s my place, sometimes it’s hers, and sometimes there’s no conversation at all—we just end up together, shoes kicked off wherever, bodies finding each other like they’re meant to even when everything else feels uncertain. I don’t talk about it. I just register the warmth of her next to me, the way she breathes when she sleeps, the instinctive curl of her body toward mine.
Now I’m standing in my bedroom, duffel bag spread open across the bed, staring down at it with the strange sense that’s gnawing at me.
We have a road game in Pittsburgh and it’s time to pack.
This should be automatic by now. Jam clothes in suitcase, zip, leave, repeat. I’ve done this hundreds of times without thinking, but tonight my hands slow when I reach for a clean T-shirt, because my brain gets stuck on a detail so stupid and small—Daisy folding it last night without a word, smoothing the fabric, setting it on top of my bag like it mattered.
I drop the shirt into the bag and zip it closed.
Daisy’s at her place tonight and I told myself it was fine, that space is healthy, that it doesn’t mean anything beyond two people needing their own beds once in a while. I want to believe that logic but fuck if I don’t miss her.
I pick up the phone and shoot her a text. You still awake?
The reply comes seconds later. Barely. Packing-induced existential dread?
I smile and respond. Pretty much.
I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on my knees, phone warm in my hands, aware of how different the room feels without her in it.
And that’s when the realization lands. This is what I do now. When something’s off, when I can’t sleep, when a game doesn’t sit right in my bones, when my dad’s name creeps into my head without warning, when I can’t tell whether I’m losing my edge or finding something else, I don’t grind it out alone anymore. I don’t drown it in noise or muscle through it out of habit.
I reach for Daisy instinctively, like my brain already decided she’s the place where things settle and make sense. The fact that I don’t question it is what scares me.
Comfort was never a certainty I trusted growing up. It was conditional, only ever earned, and just as easily revoked. You didn’t go looking for reassurance but rather you handled it. You swallowed it. You got tougher and quieter and learned how not to need anyone.
And now here I am, built like a wrecking ball and paid millions to be unshakeable, unraveling slightly because I want to hear her voice before I get on a plane.
I text her again. I keep thinking I forgot something.
The three dots appear, disappear, then come back. You packed everything, even the stuff you usually forget. I watched you do it. Supervised packing serves you well, Grizz.
A quiet laugh slips out before I can stop it, the sound foreign in the stillness. I meant… something else.
This time she takes longer. Emotional or logistical?
I stare at the screen. Both.
Another pause. You want me to come over?