My eyes burn, but I don’t cry. Not yet. I’m still too caught by surprise.

He’s going back to rugby?

Was this always the plan? The surgery, the rehab, the clean return to the sport that almost destroyed him?

My heart beats faster, the panic catching up to my lungs.

Despite all the opportunities, he didn’t say a word. And that’s what hurts the most.

Did he not trust me with the truth? Or was he trying to protect me from it? I don’t know which answer feels worse.

I would walk through anything with him. Even watching the man I love push his body to the edge for a game that’s already taken so much from him.

Did he not think he could tell me?

I came here to help him heal. But now I don’t know what that healing means.

Not for him. Not for me. And definitely not for us.

Chapter 33

Magnolia Steel

Alex props on a sea of pillows, his leg elevated. The pain’s not gone, but it’s easing. He hasn’t gritted his teeth once tonight. That has to be a win.

I help him with the last of his meds, brushing my fingers against his when I hand him the water glass, and something about that small touch makes my chest tighten. These past two weeks have been tender. Healing. Familiar in a way that both comforts and wrecks me. It’s about more than recovery.

It’s been about us.

This isn’t the kind of intimacy you plan for—helping him to and from the bathroom, guiding him in and out of the shower, making sure he’s hydrated and fed.

Real life, unvarnished. No filters.

And it’s been good. So good.

But something’s shifted.

Now I’m lying next to him in the dim bedroom after his pain medicine has kicked in, and my heart won’t stop beating like it knows something I don’t. I should be asleep. But I’m staring up at the ceiling, replaying a hundred tiny moments in my head, trying to make sense of what’s missing.

He hasn’t brought up rugby. Not once.

It’s not only the silence. It’s the weight of it––like he’s carrying something he can’t bring himself to tell me yet. And the longer it goes unsaid, the more convinced I become that whatever he’s planning may not include me.

I turn on my side, studying the sharp line of his jaw in the low light, the way his lashes fan out against his cheeks. His hair’s still damp from the shower, a little unruly at the crown. One hand rests on his stomach, the other rests between us.

I love him so much.