Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
DREW
Jace’s family had no shame.
None.
Zero.
The woman who gave birth to him cried into a dish towel when Isa and I came back inside. His grandmother hugged Isa like she’d personally ended a war. One of the cousins slow-clapped until Jace threw a pillow at his head.
“Texas and the snow,” the kid said, grinning at me like he’d just been handed blackmail for life. “Legendary.”
“Say that again and you’re sleeping outside,” I told him.
“It’s my house.”
“I’ll buy it.”
Isa elbowed me. “Do not threaten teenagers with real estate.”
Jace’s mom pressed mugs of hot chocolate into our hands like the entire emotional crisis required marshmallows. “You two look frozen.”
“We’re fine,” Isa said, visibly shaking.
“No athlete says that and means anything but catastrophic denial,” I said.
She looked up at me.
My chest did that stupid thing again.
Because she was standing in Jace’s kitchen in my hoodie, snow melting in her hair, the bracelet I gave her on her wrist and the ring she gave me heavy on my hand.
No midnight.
I kept looking at it. Couldn’t stop.
The engraving sat against my skin like a promise and a threat and a miracle I didn’t know how to trust yet but wanted to.
Jace leaned against the counter, mug in hand. “So. Are we pretending no one saw the legal documents, or are we discussing how Texas brought a prenup to a love confession?”
Isa lifted her chin. “It was not a prenup.”
“It was prenup-adjacent.”
“It was a financial waiver.”
“Hot,” Jace said. “Nothing says romance like asset protection.”
I pointed at him. “Out.”
“This is my kitchen.”
“Out emotionally.”
He grinned.
Isa’s cheeks went pink, but she didn’t look away from any of them.
That killed me a little.
The girl who had frozen while her mother called me a prize had crossed half the country, stood in snow, said she loved me in front of a family of strangers, handed me a ring, and then survived Jace’s circus without hiding.
She was trying.
For me.
For us.
And I was still mad.
I was.
I was still hurt in places I didn’t know how to bandage.
But under all that was something bigger, louder, stronger.
I wanted her.
Not the way I’d wanted her before. This was worse.
This was want with the door unlocked.
Want with her heart finally in her hands.
Want with the word love alive between us and no fake rules left to hide behind.
Jace’s mom must have seen something on my face because she suddenly clapped her hands.
“All right, everyone. Give them space.”
Jace opened his mouth.
His mother pointed at him. “Especially you.”
“I’m supportive.”
“You’re nosy.”
“I can be both.”
Isa laughed.
The sound went right through me.
Jace’s mom turned to us with a soft smile. “Guest room at the end of the hall is yours. Extra blankets in the trunk. Towels in the bathroom. And if anyone bothers you, tell me.”
Jace’s cousin whispered, “Don’t bother them, they’re about to—”
Jace slapped a hand over his mouth.
Isa’s eyes went wide.
I looked at the ceiling.
“Family,” Jace’s mom said brightly. “Such a blessing.”
“Is it?” I asked.
She patted my arm. “Tonight it is.”
Then she herded them all away like a woman with practice controlling chaos.
For three seconds, the kitchen was quiet.
Isa stood beside me, holding hot chocolate with both hands, looking up through damp lashes like she suddenly remembered we had to exist after the grand gesture.
That was the thing about big moments.
They exploded.
Then they left you standing in the smoke with the person you’d just handed your whole chest to.
“You okay?” I asked.
She gave me a look. “You have asked me that six hundred times since August.”
“And you’ve lied about five hundred ninety-nine of them.”
Her mouth curved.
Then faded.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Scared.”
My grip tightened around my mug.
“Of me?”
“No.” She looked down at my ring. “Of how much this matters.”
I couldn’t breathe right.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
Her eyes lifted.
Not polished.
Not performing.
Just Isa.
My Isa, if I was brave enough to think it.
“I meant what I said,” she whispered.
“I know.”
Her face changed. “You do?”
I set my mug on the counter. Then hers.
Then I took her hands because if I didn’t, I was going to pull her against me too fast and scare myself with how badly I needed to feel her close.
“I know you meant it,” I said. “I just don’t know how to stop hurting yet.”
Her eyes filled instantly.
“Don’t cry,” I said, rougher than I meant to.
“I’m not.”
“Texas.”
“I’m evolving.”
That got a laugh out of me. Small. Not enough. But real.
She stepped closer. “I can wait.”
“For what?”
“For you to stop hurting.”
The words landed deep. Too deep.
I stared at her, at this girl who had taken forever to come to me and then flown through snow with a ring and a legal document like love was a war she’d finally decided to win.
I lifted her hand and pressed my mouth to her bracelet.
“You’re here,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You said it.”
“I love you.”
My eyes closed.
God.
I didn’t know if I would ever get used to hearing that.
I hoped not.
When I opened them, her face was soft and certain. Still scared. But not running. Not hiding. Not calling it fake.
“You ready to give me all of you?” I asked.
Her breath caught. “Yes.”
“Don’t say it because you think I need it.”
“I’m saying it because I need you to know.”
My jaw worked.
The hall behind us creaked, and Jace’s voice floated from somewhere around the corner. “Not to interrupt whatever emotional staring contest is happening, but Mom says stop freezing in the kitchen. Also, if you two have sex in her guest room, she requests emotional maturity and no broken furniture.”
Isa went scarlet.
I turned my head slowly. “Jace.”
“What?”
“I’m going to kill you tomorrow.”
“Respectfully, you’re too emotionally fulfilled tonight.”
Isa covered her face with both hands.
I heard Jace’s retreating laugh. A door shut. Then another.
Then the house finally settled.
Snow tapped softly against the windows.
Isa lowered her hands, still blushing. “I cannot believe your friends and their families know this much about my life.”
“Baby, you proposed with a ring and legal paperwork on their deck.”
“I did not propose.”
“You did something proposal-adjacent.”
“Everyone keeps saying adjacent.”
“Because it was adjacent.”
She pointed at me. “I can still leave.”
I looked down at her. No smile now.
“No,” I said.
Her breath stopped.
I reached for her coat zipper and dragged it down slowly. “You can’t.”
“Drew.”
“You came all this way.” I pushed the coat off her shoulders. It fell onto a kitchen chair behind her. “Told me you loved me.” My hands moved to her waist, over my hoodie. “Gave me a ring.” I leaned down until my mouth hovered near her ear. “Brought legal documents into a snowstorm.”
She shivered.
Her hands fisted in my shirt.
“My girl.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
This time I didn’t try to take them back.
Isa heard the difference.
Her eyes lifted to mine, dark and bright and wide with everything we hadn’t done yet.
“Am I?” she whispered.
My chest ached.
“You tell me.”
She swallowed.
Then reached for my hand— the one with the ring—and pressed it to her heart.
“Yes.”
That was it.
The last thread of control snapped.
I kissed her.
Not like the beach. Not like my couch.
This kiss was slower. Deeper. Final in the best way.
Her mouth opened under mine with a little sound that moved straight through my blood. I backed her against the counter and held her face in both hands because I wanted to feel every second of her choosing me.
No fake.
No rules.
No midnight.
Just Isa.
Her fingers slid into my hair, tugging once, and I groaned into her mouth.
“Room,” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
I lifted her carefully.
She laughed against my lips. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
“You love saying that.”
“I love you.”
She went still in my arms.
There it was.
Full.
Clear.
Not whispered into her hair while she slept. Not slipped in an airport. Not buried under jokes or almosts.
Her eyes filled again, but this time she smiled through it.
I nudged the guest room door open with my shoulder. “I love you, Isa Calloway.” She grabbed my face and kissed me so hard I nearly walked us into the dresser.
The guest room was warm and dim, a lamp glowing near the bed, snow moving silently beyond the window. Someone had left extra blankets folded on the trunk and a plate of cookies on the nightstand because Jace’s family was unhinged but apparently thorough.
I set Isa on her feet beside the bed.
For a second, we just stood there. Breathing. Looking.
The humor faded first.
Then the fear.
Not all of it.
Enough.
My hands rested on her hips. Her fingers stayed curled in my shirt.
“I need you to hear me,” I said.
She nodded.
“If we do this, it’s not because you gave me a ring.”
“I know.”
“Not because you flew here.”
“I know.”
“Not because you’re trying to prove something.”
Her expression softened. “Drew.”
“I mean it.” My voice was rough now. “I’ve wanted you since that beach.
I wanted you when you were looking at Vale.
I wanted you when you hated me. I wanted you when you wore my jersey and when you cried over your leg and when you fell asleep on my couch.
” I swallowed. “But I didn’t want part of you.
Not like that. Not enough to take your body while your heart was still locked somewhere you wouldn’t let me touch. ”
Her hands slid to my jaw.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Her thumb brushed my cheek. “And I hated you for it.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I noticed.”
“I wanted you so badly I almost started arguments just so you’d stop being noble.”
“That tracks.”
“But you were right.”
Those words hit harder than they should have.
She stepped closer until her body touched mine.
“You were right to wait. Not because I didn’t want you. Drew, I wanted you so much I thought I might die from it.”
My whole body reacted.
She noticed. Of course she noticed.
Her mouth curved.
“But I wasn’t ready to give you the truth,” she said. “And you knew that. So you protected us.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
Us.
She said us like it belonged to her now.
When I opened them, she pulled the hoodie over her head.