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For one second neither of us says anything.

Then she holds up her phone with one of the clips open and says, softly, “You’re insane.”

I look at the screen.

At myself at the podium.

At the caption.

At the line about loving her badly.

Then I look back at her.

“No,” I say. “Just late.”

Her mouth trembles at the edges.

Almost a smile.

Almost tears.

She drops the phone to her side and steps into me so fast it feels like impact.

I catch her automatically.

One arm around her back.

One hand at the back of her neck.

She buries her face in my chest and just breathes for a second.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says against my shirt.

I put my mouth in her hair and close my eyes briefly.

“Yes,” I say. “I did.”

Her hands fist in the back of my warm-up top.

And then, quieter:

“You said it in front of cameras.”

I ease back just enough to look down at her.

At the dark eyes.

The fierce mouth.

The woman I once failed under softer pressure than this.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

The question isn’t disbelief.

It’s deeper than that.