Page 141 of Unmanageable

The wiper blades are doing that slow, rhythmic click-slap against the windshield, clearing away a September mist. Scottie is sitting in the passenger seat with her legs crossed at the ankle, her attention entirely focused on the glowing screen of her phone.

“If the cap management team thinks they can retroactively apply the performance bonuses from the twenty-four season to the current active escrow pool, they are legally brain-dead,” she mutters. Her voice drops into that low, flat hiss she uses when she’s about to shorten someone’s career.

I glance over at her as we stall at a particularly stubborn red light.

“God, I love it when you talk dirty to me,” I say, my hand shifting to rest on her thigh. “Tell me more about the work of an agent.”

“This is your turn-on? We really need to get you out of the rink more, O’Connell. Your bar for excitement is dangerously low.”

“My turn-on is you,” I say, my thumb tracing the hem of her skirt.

The light turns green and we start moving again, the city traffic a blur of taillights reflecting on the wet pavement. I keep my hand where it is, finding comfort in the solid warmth of her beneath my palm.

“I was thinking about your apartment,” I say suddenly, pulling the car into the left lane.

She blinks, looking over at me. “My apartment? What about it?”

“I hate that apartment,” I say.

There is no bite in the words—only a strange, wistful honesty that catches her off guard. She shifts in her seat, her back pressing against the leather of the door as she looks at my profile, her brow furrowed in concern.

“It’s beautiful, Scottie,” I continue, keeping my eyes on the road. “It’s perfect. It looks like a magazine spread for people who have never spilled red wine. But it’s quiet. Too quiet. Even when I’m there, I feel like I’m visiting a museum. I feel like a guest. A very lucky, very well-fed guest who gets to sleep with the curator, but a guest nonetheless.”

“Finny…”

“My place isn’t much better,” I say, my voice gaining momentum as I pull the car into the underground parking garage of her building.

I put the car in park, but I don’t take my hand off her leg. My hand stays on her thigh for another second before I finally lift it, turn it palm-up, and lace my fingers through hers.

“It doesn’t feel like a home, Scottie. It feels like a holding cell.”

I turn fully in my seat, needing to see her face, to see if she’s reading this correctly.

“Move in with me,” I say. “Or I’ll move in with you. I don’t care whose name is on the deed or who pays the HOA fees. I just want our shoes in the same closet. I want to stop having to pack a bag to see the woman I love.”

She looks at me, her lips parting slightly.

“I want you to have a home. With me,” I say, my voice dropping. “I want to wake up and see your meanest face before you’ve had your first gallon of caffeine. I want to hear your heels clacking on the hardwood at six in the morning because you’re already plotting a hostile corporate takeover. I want the chaos, Scottie. I want the laundry and the groceries and the boring Tuesday nights. I want all of it. Because if I have all of that, it means I have all of you.”

Scottie stares at me for a long, breathless moment. A tear—just one small drop—catches the gray light near her eyelash before she blinks it away with a small, frustrated shake of her head.

“Finny,” she whispers. “We’ve been together for what… like five minutes? Isn’t this way too fast? Normal people go to restaurants and argue about movies for six months before they start looking at floor plans.”

The truth was that neither of us had any idea how to measure the relationship anymore.

Officially, we’d only been together a matter of weeks. On paper, it looked reckless. Fast. The kind of timeline that would make normal people raise their eyebrows.

Except nothing about us had happened on paper.

We’d spent weeks tangled up in each other’s lives long before either of us had admitted what this was—long drives, hotel rooms, hospital waiting areas, shared breakfasts, shared disasters. By the time we finally put a name to it, it felt less like starting a relationship and more like acknowledging one.

Telling our friends had only confirmed it. There had been no shocked silences. No dramatic reactions. No one asking, Wait, since when? Instead, we’d been met with a collective response somewhere between relief and exhaustion.

Nico had actually laughed so hard he nearly choked on his drink. Even Dean—who usually questions everything—had looked at us, shrugged, and acted as though we’d merely announced the weather.

No one was surprised. The only people who had somehow managed to miss it were the two of us.

I look at her for a long, silent moment, feeling the weight of the moment pressing down on us.