“I know this is the first campaign without Lennix and you feel like you have something to prove, but you don’t. Mateo Ruiz just made the best decision of his life. He chose you. Not your father or your family name or your partner. You seized that opportunity. You set aside your own fears and insecurities to go on that show. You spoke truth to power and called Colson out on his shit. In front of millions.” He squeezes my waist and drops his forehead to rest on mine. “And I’m so incredibly proud.”

There have always been hard-to-reach places in me that only Ezra could find, could touch. Even when we were kids, when I barely understood myself, in a deserted park on a pair of swings, he would ask the right questions or he’d leave me the quiet to figure things out myself. All the times we were there for each other rush back to me on a loop.

And we will strengthen each other.

If only I had known this was possible for us. I would have torn the world apart searching for Ezra Stern.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I whisper, tears burning my throat. “I’m so glad you’re in my life again.”

“I’m glad, too,” he says, his voice husky with the emotions darkening his eyes. “And you’re not getting rid of me.”

“I have no desire to.”

He seems to hesitate for a moment and then continues. “Last night you trusted me with something hard.” He tilts my chin up, searches my eyes. “I don’t just want you when you’re strong. I want you when you’re vulnerable, when you’re lost, when you’re not sure. I see the armor you have to put on to make it in your world. I just want you to know here, with me, you can take the armor off.”

All my life, I’ve had to be the strongest one in every room. It was expected of Joseph Allen’s daughter. It was required in the shark pond of politics. No one wanted to make room for me, so I had to make room for myself.

Fine.