"And what do I represent?"
"Headlines. Cameras. The kind of attention that destroys people." Lou met Camille's eyes, letting her see the truth behind the words. "I've spent my whole career in obscurity, playing for teams no one watches, building something real with people who understand what it means to earn every inch of ice time. You come from a world where image is everything. Where relationships are strategic and public and designed to sell magazines."
Camille was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer than Lou had ever heard it. "You mean Mario."
"I mean everything. The sponsors, the press, the constant performance." Lou's grip tightened on her stick. "People like me, we're invisible. And when you show up, with your famous ex and your magazine covers and your perfect fucking hair, you bring all that visibility with you. You make it impossible to hide."
"Maybe hiding isn't the answer."
"Maybe hiding is the only thing that's kept me safe."
The words hung between them, heavier than Lou had intended. She hadn't meant to say that much. Hadn't meant to reveal the fear beneath her resistance, the years of careful invisibility that felt increasingly fragile with every practice they shared.
Camille leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her expression open in a way Lou hadn't expected. "Mario and I were never real. I know that's what everyone thinks—the golden couple, the fairy tale—but it was strategy from the start. His team wanted visibility in certain markets. My team wanted association with his brand. We were two people performing a relationship that made sense on paper."
"That's supposed to make me trust you more?"
"No." Camille's smile was rueful, self-aware. "But it might help you understand that I'm not what you think. I know how to play the game—I've been playing it since I was seventeen and my first agent explained how marketable I could be. But that doesn't mean I like it. And it doesn't mean I don't know the difference between what's real and what's performance."
Lou studied her face, looking for the tells she'd spent years learning to read. The careful mask Camille wore for cameras was gone. In its place was something rawer—exhaustion, maybe, or the particular vulnerability of someone who'd spent too long being what others wanted.
"The breakup," Lou said slowly. "Was that real?"
Camille laughed, but there was no humor in it. "The breakup was the first real thing I'd done in years. I ended it because I couldn't breathe anymore. Because every morning I woke up next to someone I didn't love and performed happiness for people I'd never meet. Because I was twenty-eight years old and I didn't know who I was under all the layers of image management."
Her voice cracked slightly on the last words. Lou watched as she pressed her palms against her thighs, steadying herself. The gesture was so human, so far from the polished media persona Lou had been expecting, that something loosened in her chest.
"That sounds exhausting," Lou said quietly.
"It was." Camille's laugh was bitter. "Imagine waking up every day and having to remember which version of yourself you're supposed to be. Which smile you're supposed to wear. Which answers you're supposed to give to questions you've answered a thousand times before. After a while, you start to lose track of where the performance ends and the real person begins."
Lou could imagine it. Could imagine the slow erosion of authenticity that came from constant public scrutiny, the way hiding could become so habitual that you forgot you were doing it. She'd built her own version of that wall—different in scope but similar in purpose.
"The press made it into a scandal. Mario's team spun it as his decision, because his brand couldn't handle looking rejected. I let them, because fighting would have meant more attention, more cameras, more of the visibility you're so afraid of." Camille met Lou's eyes. "I came to Phoenix Ridge because I wanted to play hockey without all of that. Because I wanted to remember why I started this sport in the first place—for the ice, for the game, for the feeling of being good at something that mattered."
Lou didn't know what to say. The woman in front of her was nothing like the tabloid celebrity she'd expected. Nothing like the polished, performing star who'd arrived with designer luggage and a perfect smile.
"I'm sorry," Lou said finally. "For judging you before I knew you."
"You weren't wrong. Not entirely." Camille's smile was gentler now. "I am all those things you said—the headlines, the cameras, the performance. But I'm also trying to figure out who I am without them. And that's terrifying."
The honesty of it hit Lou in the chest. She recognized that terror—the fear of being seen for who you really were, the vulnerability of dropping the mask you'd worn so long it felt like skin.
"Phoenix Ridge is a good place to figure things out," Lou said. "No one's watching. No one cares about any of us."
"You care."
The words were simple, but they carried weight Lou wasn't prepared for. She looked at Camille—really looked at her—and saw something she hadn't expected to find. Someone genuine beneath the polish. Someone seeking the same things Lou had been chasing for years: authenticity, connection, a place to belong that didn't require constant performance.
"Yeah," Lou admitted. "I do."
Something had shifted between them. The tension was still there—that charged awareness Lou had been fighting since the first moment their eyes met—but it was layered with something new. Understanding. Recognition. The beginning of something Lou wasn't ready to name.
She watched as Camille tucked her hair behind her ear, a gesture that seemed unconscious rather than calculated. Without makeup, without the careful styling, her face seemed younger somehow. More open. The kind of face Lou could imagine waking up next to.
The thought ambushed her with its specificity, itsdangerous intimacy. She pushed it away, but not before it had planted itself somewhere deep.
Camille stood, gathering her things with movements that seemed reluctant. Her bag was designer—Lou recognized the label from magazines she'd never admit to reading—but she handled it carelessly, without the precious attachment of someone who valued possessions for their status. "I should go. Early practice tomorrow."
