26. Jordan
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jordan
The second I stepped off Centre Court, it slammed into me. The noise, the weight, the years of failure I’d carried on my back. And the win. The one I’d been chasing down for years.
Hands clapped my back, voices shouted my name. But it was all a blur, like I was underwater. My mind was racing, my chest ready to split open, because none of it mattered until I saw her.
Tucked just beyond the barrier, half-shadowed in the tunnel light behind one of the media staff, she looked like she’d been through a war.
Her mascara was smudged. Her eyes were shining. Lips trembled like she couldn’t quite believe it. My knees nearly gave out.
“Kate.”
Time stopped for a second as we found each other. She hesitated a little and looked around, as though unsure she was even allowed to be here. That’s when she broke. Her tears started falling again, her bottom lip quivering as she tried to smile.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her hands coming up to cup my face. “You actually did it.”
“I told you I would.” My voice shook. “With you there…how could I not?”
I reached for her without thinking, instinct pulling her into me like I could shield us both from the roar still crashing around the court.
She folded against my chest as if she’d been waiting for that exact place, where she belonged, her hands fisting in my shirt like she needed something solid to hold onto.
Like she was the one who’d just gone five sets, not me.
I buried my face in her hair, still warm from the sun-bathed stands, and breathed her in. Sweat, summer, her. Every nerve in me settled at once, because this, her in my arms, was everything I needed at that moment.
When she finally tilted her face up to me, her cheeks were streaked and damp, her smile trembling at the edges. But her eyes…God, her eyes were so full, so unguarded, it nearly undid me right there on Centre Court.
“Go,” she said softly, wiping her eyes. “Go soak it in. Every second. You deserve it all.” She smiled, holding my shoulders tight.
“I want you with me,” I said, wrapping my hands around her waist.
Her smile wobbled. “You’ll see me later. At home, tonight.”
We both froze.
She hadn’t meant to say it. I could see the panic in her eyes, like the word had escaped before she’d thought it through. Home. God, I wanted it to be true.
She opened her mouth. “I…I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t take it back,” I cut in, brushing her cheek. “Please don’t.”
She laughed, a wet, shaky little sound, and dropped her forehead to my shoulder.
“It just…felt good to say. Sorry.”
“No,” I whispered. “It felt perfect.”
I looked at her, really looked, finding myself struggling to catch up with what I was feeling.
She felt like home.
She blinked, still crying, still smiling, like she couldn’t believe I had words left in me. But she didn’t run from them. She didn’t run at all.
She just leaned in and kissed me. The kind of kiss that anchored you in the middle of chaos. The kind that said you’re mine, and I’m yours. Whatever happens next.
Then she pressed her hands to my chest and gave me a little shove. “Go, Jordan. Go be a bloody champion.”
I grinned like a total idiot as I stepped back, still laced in her fingers. I gave her one last look and finally let go.
As I turned toward the tunnel, my heart scrambled and ached in the best possible way, because she’d called it, our space, our beginning, home.
And I knew, in that moment, that no matter what happened after this…
I would spend the rest of my life trying to be that for her.