She got home before he did, the apartment quiet in the specific way it had rarely been quiet these past few weeks, both of them so consistently out of sync that stillness itself felt unfamiliar. She sat on the couch, waiting, running through everything she wanted to say and everything she was afraid to hear, and found herself, for the first time in a long while, genuinely nervous about a conversation with her own husband.
Cole came in a little after nine, still in his post-game gear, exhaustion written into every line of his posture, and Reese felt a familiar rush of tenderness underneath the nerves — the specific love that hadn't dimmed at all, even through weeks of distance and missed connection.
"Hey," he said, dropping his bag by the door.
"Hey." She patted the couch cushion beside
