Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~11 min read
Chapter 16: I Love You
POV: Rory
Rory – THE MAKEUP
Rory wakes up Saturday morning to her phone buzzing with a text from Henrik—the first contact since their fight about the trade rumor three days ago—and her heart does something complicated in her chest before she even reads the message because she’s been miserable without him, has spent the past seventy-two hours replaying their argument and wondering if she destroyed the best relationship she’s had in years by prioritizing journalism over warning him first.
*Trade rumor was false,* Henrik’s text says. *Management confirmed I’m staying. Can we talk?*
Relief floods through Rory so intensely that she actually has to sit up in bed to process it—relief that Henrik isn’t being traded to Vancouver, that he’s staying in Chicago, that maybe they still have a chance to fix whatever broke between them in his apartment when she chose her career over giving him advance warning about something that would upend his entire life.
*I’m sorry,* Rory texts back immediately. *I should have told you off the record before verifying. Should have prioritized you over the story. I was wrong.*
Henrik’s response comes fast: *I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have made you choose between your job and us. That wasn’t fair. Can I come over? Need to see you.*
*Yes,* Rory sends. *Please.*
Henrik shows up at her apartment twenty minutes later looking like he hasn’t slept well either—hair disheveled, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie instead of his usual carefully curated athlete aesthetic, dark circles under his eyes that match the ones Rory saw in her mirror this morning—and the moment she opens the door he pulls her into a hug that feels like coming home after being lost.
“I’m sorry,” Henrik says against her hair, arms tight around her waist. “I was hurt and I lashed out and I made it about choosing between me and your career when it should have been about figuring out how to navigate complicated situations together. I was wrong.”
“I’m sorry too,” Rory says, breathing in his familiar scent—something clean and masculine that she’s come to associate with safety. “I did prioritize my job over warning you. I treated you like just another source instead of someone I care about. And I need to figure out how to balance those things better because you’re right—sometimes the personal should come first.”
They stand in her doorway holding each other for a long moment, and when they finally separate enough to actually look at each other, Henrik cups her face gently and says, “I don’t want to fight like that again. Don’t want to go days without talking to you. Don’t want to make you choose between your career and us.”
“Then we need better rules,” Rory says. “About how to handle conflicts when work and personal intersect. About communication and boundaries and not letting hurt feelings fester for days.”
“Okay,” Henrik agrees. “Let’s make new rules. Better ones.”
They migrate to Rory’s couch and spend the next hour actually talking through what went wrong—Henrik admitting that he felt betrayed when she knew about the trade before telling him, Rory explaining that her journalism ethics training makes it almost impossible to give sources advance warning about stories even when those sources are people she loves, both of them acknowledging that they need a framework for handling these collisions between professional obligations and personal loyalty.
“What if we had a signal?” Henrik suggests. “Like if you learn something professionally that affects me personally, you can’t tell me the details but you can give me a heads-up that something’s coming. That way I’m not blindsided.”
“I can do that,” Rory says. “And what if you promise to tell me when you’re actually hurt instead of shutting down and going silent for days? Because that silence was worse than the fight.”
“Deal,” Henrik says. “Communication instead of silence. Even when it’s hard.”
They sit in comfortable silence for a moment, both processing the conversation and the relief of having navigated their first real fight without it destroying the relationship, and then Henrik says quietly, “I missed you. These past few days. I know it was only three days but I missed you constantly.”
“I missed you too,” Rory admits. “Which terrified me because it meant I’m in deeper than I was ready to acknowledge. But Henrik, I need you to know—I’m in. I’m actually trying here. And when I thought the trade was real, when I thought you might leave Chicago, I realized how much I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” Henrik promises. “Lose me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying in Chicago and I’m staying with you and I’m going to prove that I’m worth the risk you’re taking.”
“You already have,” Rory says, and she realizes she means it—Henrik has already proven through consistency and patience and genuine care that he’s different from Carlos, that not all athletes are going to hurt her. “I’m falling for you. Have been for weeks. Probably since you held my hand in the doctor’s office. Maybe before.”
“I’m already gone,” Henrik says with a smile. “Completely in love with you. Have been since you told me to fuck off in the coffee shop parking lot. Maybe before that too.”
“We’re doing this backwards,” Rory observes. “Crisis first, then sex, then feelings, then actual dating. Normal people do it the other way around.”
“We’re not normal people,” Henrik says. “We’re complicated and messy and figuring it out as we go. But Rory, I don’t want normal if normal means not having you.”
She kisses him instead of responding with words—soft and slow and different from their previous kisses because this one carries apology and forgiveness and the promise of actually trying instead of running when things get hard—and Henrik responds with the kind of careful attention that makes it clear he’s not just kissing her but telling her through touch what he can’t quite articulate with language.
“I want you,” Rory says when they finally separate, breathless and flushed. “Not just physically. Though definitely that too. But I want all of it. The complicated mess of dating you. The risk of getting hurt. The possibility of something real.”
“Then have me,” Henrik says simply. “All of me. Complicated and flawed and completely yours.”
They make their way to Rory’s bedroom with intention that feels different from previous times—not crisis-driven or purely physical but emotional, a way of reconnecting after days apart, of proving through intimacy that they’re choosing each other despite the complications—and when Henrik lays her down on her bed with hands that are gentle and reverent, Rory feels something shift in her chest that might be the last of her walls finally coming down.
“I love you,” Henrik says as he’s undressing her slowly, carefully, like she’s precious instead of just desired. “I need you to hear that. Not just that I’m falling or that I care, but that I actually love you. Completely. Terrifyingly. In ways that make me want to be better than I am.”
“I love you too,” Rory whispers, and saying it out loud feels like jumping off a cliff trusting that Henrik will catch her. “I’m scared of it. But I love you. And I’m choosing to trust that you mean it when you say you’re staying.”
They make love instead of just having sex—slow and thorough and with the kind of eye contact that makes vulnerability feel less terrifying, with Henrik telling her through touch and whispered words exactly how much she means to him, with Rory letting herself be completely present instead of holding pieces of herself back in case this ends badly—and when they’re both satisfied and tangled together in sheets that smell like them, Rory thinks that this is what she’s been missing, what Carlos never gave her, what she didn’t know she needed until Henrik showed her that intimacy could be both physical and emotional at the same time.
“That was different,” Rory says when her breathing has finally regulated, head resting on Henrik’s chest while his fingers trace patterns on her shoulder. “From before. Better.”
“Because we love each other now,” Henrik says simply. “Because we’re actually building something instead of just enjoying chemistry and crisis bonding. Because you let me in. Really in.”
“That’s terrifying,” Rory admits.
“I know,” Henrik says. “But you’re brave enough to do it anyway. That’s one of the things I love about you—you’re scared but you don’t let the fear stop you from trying.”
They spend the rest of the afternoon in Rory’s bed talking about everything—about the trade rumor and how Henrik found out it was false, about Rory’s article and how it actually helped pressure management to clarify the situation, about what happens next now that they’ve admitted they love each other and want to actually try making this relationship work despite the professional complications.
“We should probably talk about going public eventually,” Henrik says carefully. “Not now. But at some point. Because hiding you is getting harder and I’m starting to resent having to pretend we’re just professional acquaintances when I’m actually in love with you.”
“I know,” Rory says. “I resent it too. But I need time to figure out how to handle the career implications. Maybe talk to my editor about requesting reassignment to a different team so we can be open about dating without it compromising my journalism.”
“Would you do that?” Henrik asks. “Give up covering the Frost?”
“For you?” Rory considers. “Maybe. If it meant we could actually be together publicly instead of secret. But I need to think about it. Need to make sure I’m not repeating the pattern from my marriage where I sacrificed career for relationship.”
“This is different,” Henrik says firmly. “You choosing to request different coverage so we can be public about dating—that’s you making a professional decision that happens to accommodate our relationship. It’s not me asking you to sacrifice. It’s you choosing what matters more.”
“And what if the Frost beat is what matters more?” Rory challenges. “What if I’m not ready to give it up even for you?”
“Then we stay secret longer,” Henrik says without hesitation. “And I wait. Because you’re worth waiting for. Your career is important and I won’t ask you to compromise it.”
Rory kisses him for that answer—for being patient, for understanding, for not demanding that she choose him over her ambitions—and they make love again because apparently they have weeks of sexual frustration from three days apart to work through, and by the time evening arrives and they’re ordering takeout because neither of them wants to leave the bed, Rory feels more settled in this relationship than she’s felt about anything in years.
“Thank you,” Rory says later when they’re eating Thai food in her bed and watching a documentary about space exploration that Henrik claims is fascinating and Rory finds mostly boring but watches anyway because he’s excited about it. “For fighting for us. For not giving up when I chose my career over warning you. For being patient while I figure out how to balance everything.”
“Thank you for letting me in,” Henrik responds. “For trusting me enough to say you love me. For trying despite being scared. For being exactly who you are instead of who you think I want you to be.”
They fall asleep tangled together with the documentary still playing and Thai food containers scattered across the nightstand, and Rory dreams about futures where she and Henrik don’t have to hide, where loving him doesn’t complicate her career, where she’s brave enough to choose both instead of feeling like she has to sacrifice one for the other.
When she wakes up Sunday morning to Henrik’s arms still around her and sunlight streaming through her bedroom window, Rory thinks that maybe they can actually make this work.
Maybe loving an athlete doesn’t have to end in betrayal.
Maybe she’s allowed to have both career and relationship.
Maybe Henrik really is different.
She’s starting to believe it.
🔥
END CHAPTER 16
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