Page 15 of Split Decision

"My mother will survive."

"She would not survive." The corner of her mouth pulls up. "She has a Pinterest board, Luke. There are subcategories."

I laugh despite myself. She does too, water running down her face, one hand braced on my arm.

"I love you," she says when she stops laughing, and the way she says it—steady, like it's the simplest fact in the world—hits me somewhere I wasn't defending. "We'regetting married. That's real. It doesn't start on a specific date. It's already happening."

I look at her.

"But I want?—"

"I know what you want." She puts her hand flat on my chest. "You want to know I'm yours while you're gone. You want every other person in both our orbits to know it too." She holds my eyes. "You already know that I am. You have always known that."

She's right. I know she's right.

It still sits in my chest a little—the wanting of it, the not-having-it-yet. She sees that too, because she's Andi, and she reaches up and kisses me once, slow and deliberate, the kind that meansI see yourather thanI'm sorry.

"After," she says against my mouth.

"After," I agree.

We stay under the water until it runs cold.

But the hurt is clean. It's just love and timing not quite lining up.

The dark thought—the one I push back before it forms fully—is that every plan we make right now has an asterisk attached. The Commission review is sitting in its procedural holding pattern. The youth center board'squiet capitulation to Marin's recommended separation. The coordinated pressure we've both felt building, week by week, since those first headlines broke.

We've agreed to spend six months apart on opposite sides of the country. Whoever is running this operation against us will soon know that. And they will use it to their advantage with every opportunity available.

I don't say this out loud. I add it to the list of things I'm carrying rather than putting it down.

ANDI

December has its own rhythm—shorter days, colder mornings, the city tilting toward the kind of warmth that only comes from manufactured light and forced occasion.

I’ve started waking up early to have breakfast with Luke before the gym. The mornings belong to us then. The house is quiet enough that every sound feels deliberate—the spoon against his bowl, the coffee maker clicking off, the chair legs shifting on the floor.

We treat it like something intentional now. His oatmeal and fruit, my coffee, the same spot at the table. Some days we talk. Some days we just sit there, close enough to feel the presence of the other, not performing, not preparing,just existing before the rest of the day reaches in and takes its share.

This morning, he asks how the rehearsals are going.

"Better every day," I tell him. "My voice is building endurance it's never had. Danielle—the vocal coach—says I have unusual natural control for someone who learned by ear rather than training." I wrap my hands around my mug. "Travis thinks we should record the duets before the tour starts. Get them released in advance so the audiences already know them."

"Good idea," Luke says. He means it. There's no edge in it, no inventory of what it means that I'm spending hours a day in close professional collaboration with Travis Malone. We've had the conversation. He trusts me. That trust is one thing I'm taking with me on the road.

"Your name is starting to circulate," I tell him. "Mack said the Commission review becoming public actually worked in your favor—your name got attached to a controversy, which means it got attached to the news cycle. People are looking you up."

He makes a face. "Not the way I'd choose to build a following."

"No. But it is what it is." I look at him across the table. "Once you get to Vegas and the fight prep picks up,they're going to want access. Interviews. Features. Syndi is going to earn her keep."

"She already does," he admits. "She's better at this than I give her credit for."

I think about a conversation I overheard once near the gym entrance—Syndi on the phone, her voice carrying the meticulous tone of someone navigating two obligations at once. I filed it away. There's nothing to do with it yet.

"Be careful with her," I say.

Luke looks up. "Syndi?"