The Valkyries had won 3-2, according to the sports notification that popped up. A hard-fought victory that kept their qualification hopes alive. Frankie had scored the winner with two minutes left. Rowan had played the game of her life on defense.
And Camille had watched none of it, had contributed nothing to the victory beyond getting injured and making everyone worry.
She scrolled through her contacts again. Lou's name sat there, three letters that contained multitudes. All she had todo was press call. All she had to do was reach out, admit she was scared, ask for what she needed.
But Lou had made herself clear. She needed space. She was protecting them both by pulling away.
Maybe this was what Camille deserved. Maybe this was the universe telling her that wanting too much always led to losing everything. She'd wanted Lou, wanted a life beyond performance and public image, wanted something real and messy and alive.
And now she was alone in a hospital room, waiting to find out if her knee would ever be the same, while the woman she loved pretended she didn't exist.
Camille set the phone down on the stiff hospital sheets and closed her eyes.
The tears came quietly this time—not the desperate sobs of the ice, but the slow, steady leak of someone who'd run out of ways to fight. She let them fall, let the pillow absorb them, let herself feel the full weight of everything she'd lost.
Not just her knee. Not just her season.
But the hope that had just started to bloom before Lou drove away. The possibility of something real and lasting and worth the risk. The future she'd glimpsed in hotel rooms and whispered conversations—a future where she could be fully herself, fully loved, fully seen.
Now the silence from Lou's end of the phone felt permanent. Final. Like a door closing that Camille wasn't sure could ever be opened again.
17
The Valkyries won 3-2.
The scoreboard might as well have been written in a foreign language.
Lou stood outside Camille's apartment door and told herself that was the only thing that mattered. The team had pulled through despite the chaos, despite the injury, despite the brutal physicality of the Titans' play. Frankie had scored twice. Rowan had blocked three shots that would have tied it in the final minute. They'd survived.
But survival felt hollow when she couldn't stop thinking about Camille being carried off the ice.
She knocked.
The door opened almost immediately—Camille on crutches, her injured leg carefully positioned, her face pale and drawn in ways that made Lou's chest ache. The medical brace wrapped around her knee looked foreign and wrong, a piece of equipment that had no business being part of Camille's athletic body.
"You came." Camille's voice was rough, exhausted.
"Of course I came."
Lou stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. The apartment was dim, curtains drawn against the sunset, and it smelled like antiseptic and something floral—Camille's perfume, maybe, or the candles scattered across every surface. The air conditioning hummed softly, keeping the space cool despite the desert heat outside, and somewhere in the kitchen a faucet dripped in steady rhythm. The space was beautiful in that careful, curated way everything about Camille was beautiful, but tonight it just looked empty. Lonely. Like a stage set after the audience had gone home.
Camille set her crutches against the wall and hopped toward the couch, her movements careful and pained. Lou caught her elbow, steadied her, helped her lower onto the cushions. The contact sent electricity up Lou's arm—three days without touching her, and her body responded like a drought-parched plant finally getting rain.
They didn't speak.
There was too much to say, and none of the right words existed. Mara's warning echoed through Lou's mind on an endless loop: distraction, liability, focus. The fear in Camille's eyes when their coach had confronted them. The way Camille had flinched when Mara said the word relationship, as if the acknowledgment itself was dangerous.
Lou should have kept her distance. Should have sent a text checking in, maybe stopped by tomorrow when emotions weren't running so high. Should have done anything except what she was doing now, which was sinking to her knees beside the couch and pulling Camille into her arms.
Camille crumpled against her.
The sob that escaped was quiet, muffled against Lou's shoulder, but it broke something in Lou's chest that she hadn't known was still intact. She held on tighter, one hand cradling the back of Camille's head, the other wrapped around her waist, anchoring them both against the current that threatened to sweep them away.
"I was so scared." Camille's voice was barely a whisper. "When I went down, all I could think was—what if this is it? What if I can't play again? What if I let everyone down?"
"You didn't let anyone down."
"And then in the hospital, waiting for the scan, I wanted to call you so badly." Camille pulled back enough to meet Lou's eyes, her blue gaze swimming with tears. "But I couldn't. Because if you came, people would ask why. And I couldn't—I wasn't ready?—"
