Chapter 36 #3
Tall and steady and beautiful in cream and gold and athlete composure, answering my mother’s questions about Stanford and coursework and the ugly logistics of travel schedules with the kind of clean intelligence people either respect immediately or fear a little.
My father asks about volleyball first, which surprises no one.
“What’s your recovery window after a playoff match?”
Stella answers without missing a beat.
“Depends on how ugly the match was. If we go four hard sets, I’ll feel it for forty-eight hours. If we go five, I start bargaining with God.”
That gets another laugh out of him.
“And your degree?”
“International business.”
My mother lifts a brow.
“Plan on working for your father?”
“Doubtful. I want to make my own waves.”
Stella says it like she hasn’t fully decided which mountain she wants to conquer next, only that there will be one.
My mother studies her for a second.
“Admirable. I’d expect nothing less.”
That lands.
I see it land.
Not because Stella’s hungry for approval.
Because my mother is not generous with compliments she doesn’t mean.
Stella’s fingers shift lightly against the stem of her water glass.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
My mother’s smile deepens.
“You should.”
“You’ve had an eventful year, I gather.” It’s my father’s turn again.
Stella goes still for half a beat. I’m already prepared to cut in if she wants me to. She doesn’t need me to.
“Yes,” she says simply.
My mother leans back slightly.
My father nods once like that answer told him everything he wanted to know.
“And how are you finding him?”
“Complicated,” she says. “But sincere.”
My mother’s expression changes at that. “The sincere men are always the most inconvenient,” she says.
I nearly choke on my water. My father makes a noise into his glass that might be agreement.
Stella laughs. And just like that, I know she’s over the hardest part.
Because she’s no longer braced for impact.
She’s just in it. Holding her own. Drinks turn to a quick, early dinner.
By the time coffee is offered and declined and the sky beyond the windows has gone fully dark, the room feels easier.
My mother asks Stella about an ESPN profile she read and mentions a line about “weaponized calm under pressure.” My father wants to know how often the selection committee gets things wrong. Stella, to my deep satisfaction, has opinions about both.
At one point my father says, “You have almost no digital footprint outside athletics.”
Stella blinks.
“I wasn’t aware that was unusual.”
“It is,” my mother says. “And refreshing.”
Stella glances at me.
I grin into my glass.
“Told you they researched you.”
“That’s mildly terrifying.”
“Only mildly?” my mother says. “You’re adapting quickly.”
I watch Stella smile at that, and something low and deep in me settles.
This is what I wanted without quite knowing how to name it.
Not approval as permission.
Never that.
But the worlds in my life looking at each other and not immediately reaching for knives.
When the drinks break up, my mother kisses Stella’s cheek again and says, “Do come see us when things are less rushed.”
My father adds, “And good luck in playoffs. I expect Stanford to be ruthless.”
Stella, astonishingly calm now, says, “That’s the plan.”
I think I fall in love with her a little harder in that exact second.
If that’s even possible.
The drive back to the private terminal is quieter. Stella sits tucked into the corner of the backseat with one leg folded under her and her hand in mine.
For the first few minutes she just looks out the window at Newport slipping past in dark stone and gold light.
Then she turns to me and says, “That was not what I expected.”
I smile.
“Good or bad?”
She thinks about it.
“Devastatingly good.”
That answer gets me.
I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles once.
“Told you.”
She narrows her eyes.
“You are not allowed to act smug after that.”
“I’m not acting.”
That makes her laugh under her breath.
Then, quieter, she says, “Your mother actually liked me.”
“My mother called you excellent. Which is borderline operatic praise.”
Stella leans her head back against the seat and exhales.
“I need like three business days to process this weekend.”
“Denied.”
“Rude.”
“We have practice Monday.”
She groans.
“I know.”
And there it is.
The end of the dream pressing in from the edges.
Not because what happened gets smaller when we leave Newport.
Because reality resumes its usual ugly speed.
Playoffs.
Film.
Classes.
Travel.
Training rooms and nutrition plans and early alarms and all the rules our bodies still belong to.
She must feel the same shift, because her fingers tighten in mine.
“It can’t just be this,” she says softly.
I turn toward her.
“It won’t be.”
“This weekend was…” She laughs once, shaking her head. “I don’t even have a word.”
“Good.”
She looks at me.
“That’s not enough of a word.”
“No,” I admit. “But it’s still true. We are more than just who we are at Stanford. After we both leave the game—we have a whole world to fall into. Family. Friends. And I can’t wait to do it all with you—together.”
The town falls away behind us.
The road opens up.
The terminal lights appear ahead through the dark.
I’m not ready to leave.
Not the suite.
Not the sea.
Not the version of us that existed in that room outside of schedules and obligations and half the world watching.
But maybe that’s the point.
We aren’t just a weekend now.
We’re what happens after.
The cabin is warm when we step back onto the jet, and I immediately realize I have one final indulgence left in me.
Waiting on Stella’s seat is a folded navy hoodie.
She picks it up and laughs softly.
“Seriously?”
My mouth lifts.
“It gets cold on the flight.”
She holds it up.
It’s thick, soft, expensive, and embroidered at the chest with a simple silver crest and the words Royal Oaks Regatta Club in small old-school script—some vintage Newport thing I found in a boutique and absolutely did not need to buy.
Except I did.
Because I’m me.
Because this weekend made me worse in all the best ways.
She glances down at herself, then at me.
I’m already wearing the charcoal version with the same silver stitching.
Her stare sharpens.
“You bought us matching East Coast rich-kid hoodies?”
My smile turns lazy and a little dangerous.
“I bought us travel clothes.”
“These are coordinated.”
“These are warm.”
She narrows her eyes.
“You’re impossible.”
I reach over, tug the hoodie gently from her hands, and help pull it over her head before she can keep arguing.
It swallows her just slightly.
Looks devastating anyway.
And by the time it settles over her skin, it already smells faintly like me.
The jet ride home is the opposite of the flight out.
No blindfold.
No teasing.
No altitude seduction that almost gets us into trouble.
Just fatigue.
Warmth.
The soft afterglow of a weekend that changed the shape of something neither of us can pretend away anymore.
We work a little at first.
Laptops open.
Messages answered.
One paper Stella wanted to revise before Monday.
A film note I had to send back to staff.
But it’s perfunctory.
Tidy.
Just enough to step back into our lives without getting blindsided by them.
Eventually she closes her computer, rubs at her eyes, and looks over at me.
“I don’t want to go back.”
The honesty of it almost hurts.
I shift closer in the wide leather seat and open my arms. She comes immediately, curling into me under the cashmere throw the flight attendant left earlier, head against my chest, legs folded under her.
“I know.”
“Newport was better.”
“By most metrics.”
She smiles sleepily against my shirt.
“My metrics are mostly hot tubs and emotional whiplash.”
“Strong system.”
A beat passes.
Then she tilts her face up and asks, “Are we okay now?”
The question isn’t small.
It holds everything.
The history.
The old wound.
The weekend.
The fear that magic sometimes disappears the second real life returns.
I look down at her.
“At no point this weekend,” I say slowly, “did I drag you across three states, a private terminal, my family, and an ocean-view suite just to become unclear with you again.”
That gets the tiniest smile.
“Romantic.”
“Accurate.”
Her fingers slide under my sweater to my side, warm against my skin, and I have to exhale once before I can think straight.
“I mean it, Stells.”
She studies me for one long second.
Then nods and lays her head back down.
“Okay.”
And somehow that one quiet okay feels bigger than any vow people make by shouting.
The cabin lights dim.
The engines hum low and steady.
Somewhere beneath us, states pass in darkness.
She falls asleep first.
Playoffs plus emotional devastation plus no real recovery window would do that to anyone.
I ease the laptop from her lap, set it aside, and shift us both farther down into the wide leather bench until I can stretch out properly with her in my arms. The cashmere throw slides over us.
Her body molds against mine instinctively, warm and trusting, and when I roll to my side, she follows without waking all the way.
By the time I settle, she’s tucked against me fully—my arm under her neck, the other curved around her waist, her back fitted to my chest like this is the shape we were always supposed to sleep in.
Spooning her thirty thousand feet over black water and sleeping states should feel absurd.
Instead it feels inevitable.
My mouth brushes the back of her shoulder.
She makes a tiny sleepy sound and reaches back until her hand finds my wrist where it rests over her stomach.
Then she keeps it there.
Even asleep, she wants proof I’m still holding on.
That nearly wrecks me.
I kiss the soft curve below her ear and look out into the dark beyond the window, Stella warm and drowsy and wearing my stupid matching hoodie, the little gold bracelet catching a faint thread of cabin light against her wrist.
Mine.
The engines hum.
Her breathing evens.
The jet cuts west through the night.
And with her curled into me like this, halfway between Newport and real life, I think maybe this is what peace feels like when it finally stops running from you.
We land before dawn.
Campus is still mostly dark by the time the SUV drops us near the athletic complex, the air colder than it should be for California and sharper after two days of East Coast salt.
Monday has the decency to arrive ugly.
Stella stands beside me on the curb with her duffel over one shoulder, hair pulled back, face scrubbed clean of everything but exhaustion and contentment and the kind of quiet daze that usually follows a weekend you know you’ll be measuring things against for years.
We look at each other.
Neither of us moves first.
Because the truth is, this part sucks.
There’s no pretty way around it.
Not goodbye, exactly.
But re-entry.
The second we step back onto campus, we become people with schedules again.
Athletes.
Students.
Public versions of ourselves.
Tristan and Stella in Newport get tucked away somewhere private and warm for a few hours.
At least outwardly.
I take her duffel from her shoulder and set it down just so I can get both hands on her waist.
Her palms flatten briefly against my chest.
“You hate this part. too.”
“Yes.”
She smiles a little.
“Good.”
I kiss her forehead first.
Then her mouth.
Slow.
Sleepy.
Real.
“Practice,” I murmur against her lips.
“I know.”
“Then film.”
“I know.”
“Then probably ice baths and suffering.”
Her eyes narrow.
“You’re not making this more appealing.”
I smile despite myself.
“Trying to remind us we still live in the world.”
Her hand slides to the back of my neck.
“I like the other one better.”
“Me too.”
A beat.
Then, because I need her to hear it before the day gets between us, I say, “Weekend’s over. We’re just starting.”
Something shifts in her face.
“I know,” she whispers.
I kiss her once more, then force myself to step back before I change my mind and drag her into the nearest building like a criminal.
She shoulders her bag again.
Takes two steps backward.
Still watching me.
I point toward the complex.
“Go be terrifying.”
Her smile turns sharp.
“Go score thirty-two again.”
I huff a laugh. “Bossy.”
“Always.”
Then she turns and heads toward the side entrance, long legs eating up the distance, not looking back until the very last second.
She lifts her hand once before disappearing inside.
I stand there a second longer in the blue-black almost-morning with my own bag at my feet and the whole weekend still warm in my blood.
Then I pick it up and head for my side of the building.
Monday can have us back.
It just doesn’t get to have us apart again.