i came here

There’s a weight on his shoulders when he makes it through the door and leaning towards him, arms open, feels like instinct, as is the nuzzle of his face into the side of her neck, seeking something in the space there. Comfort, a place to rest.

“You did well,” she whispers into his locks, wrapping her arms around his back.

He hums in response, shaking his head.

“There was more I could have done.”

She pokes him then in the forehead.

“There’s more you’ll still be able to do. You’re still growing. I know,” she breathes a sigh and moves to place a kiss on his neck, “I know you’ll kick yourself for every single thing that could have been ‘better’ but please…”

Their fingers tangle together.

“Please be gentle to yourself.”

She hushes him when he tries to step into the shower, ushers him into the bath instead though it’s only when she says she’ll join him that he gives in. She knew right away watching the last minute of the game tick by from her seat on the couch in their apartment - that he would be heartbroken. She wishes she could have been there afterwards to tell him everything was still okay. The world had not split in two. He had done his best. It isn’t one player against an entire team.

She can only say it now, during the seconds he gets particularly worryingly quiet, and still some moments she holds back, because she knows he already knows all of that. Kobbie was as calm and collected as one could get but it didn’t mean there weren’t moments of frustration. She knows he knows himself well. Sometimes all you can do to comfort someone fighting their own battles is to let them know they are loved throughout, that they deserve it, and that you will be there to tell them so until they remember it themselves.

It comes easily, because she has forgotten what it is to not love him.

He moves to shed the jersey and she follows the motion, taking the hem of the shirt as he lifts it over his head, even if she had to tiptoe, and pressing light kisses to the skin that it left exposed.

She laughs softly when he mumbles disapprovingly that he’s sweaty - she doesn’t really care.

She pinches his sides teasingly, touch featherlight, and he lets out a chuckle then, “minx” said under his breath before he nudges them both towards the bath.

Later, when they both have bubbles curling like ivy around their bodies, and she is sat between his legs massaging the ache from his thighs, she tells him “I love you” for the first time, as if she has said it before. She has, in her head, several times, and always thought perhaps for him it was too soon to say it. She has no qualms about it anymore. She wanted it to be known, whether or not it was reciprocated.

She wonders though if the heartbeat thrumming in her ears is her own or if she can feel it through his skin.

His hand is around the side of her neck all of a sudden. It curls around the back of her head as he gently pulls her forward to meet the kiss he places on her lips. Just when she thinks he’ll leave it at a peck, he surges back in with a sort of ferocity she wasn’t prepared for, melding their lips together with hunger.

When he pulls away, he’s smiling and she softens for the sweet look on his face. That crooked little smile is so Kobbie it makes her heart clench. Her hands are foamy when they rise up to cup his cheeks affectionately.

“I love you too,” he says, as simply as she does, like breathing air. The words are muffled only slightly from the way she holds him. Her eyes crease at the corners regardless, she can’t help it with the way her returning smile reaches every part of her face.

There’s light dancing within his eyes and the urge to kiss his face a thousand times feels like an endless one. Effortlessly, he pulls her closer, captures her bottom lip with a pull so slow and calmly sensual she feels heat simmer underneath her skin. Kobbie’s affection lingers like chocolate melting on the tongue, like a taste she’d never chase away.

When he presses his forehead against hers, eyes closed, she lets her hands fall to his shoulders, curling gently at the base of his neck. Lets the desire to run her palms over the planes of his chest dissipate to resurface later.

He opens his eyes and looks down at her with a half-moon gaze, lifting her hands from where they’re laid to entangle her fingers with his. With a knowing grin, he swoops down to give her a peck, murmurs, “Later” into the light kiss so that the word settles like a tattoo made of clouds on her lips. Tease.

When ‘later’ comes, and their limbs entwine underneath the bubbles, he breathes a warm sigh into her hair, chest heaving, and whispers a thank you into her ear, leaving behind the losses for the day.