The world gets smaller.
My skates scrape.My breath fogs the inside of my mask.Sweat cools along my spine.
Callaway’s shoulder brushes mine again—barely there—and my body reacts like it’s been waiting for contact all night.Like I’m too fluent in him.Like I can feel him even through padding and fabric and the rules I keep stacking between us.
He turns his head slightly, mouth close to my ear.
“You know,” he says, quiet and dangerous, “you can’t ignore me forever.”
My grip tightens on my stick.
“I can,” I answer, because lying is easier than admitting the truth.
Callaway laughs, low, warm, and it threads through me in a way I don’t know how to stop.
“You won’t,” he says, like he’s certain.Like he’s already seen the ending.“We’re becoming a family.”
The word hits me so hard I almost stop.
Family.
My throat goes dry.I keep moving because stopping would mean I have to look at him.It would mean I have to face the way that word makes something inside me crack.
We’re becoming a family.Him, Ves, the baby, and ...well, me.
Can I do it?Family means staying.
Family means you don’t get to disappear when it starts to hurt.
Family means there are expectations and traditions and holidays and people asking questions you don’t know how to answer without bleeding.
It also means having Vesper.
Vesper with her eternal sunshine and the way she jokes like it’s a shield, as if she can laugh her way out of fear.Vesper who is carrying a baby and pretending she’s fine because that’s what she does—she turns panic into punchlines and hopes nobody notices her hands shaking.
And the baby.
A baby I already said I’d be there for, because I meant it, because I can’t stand the thought of her doing this alone, because I can’t stand the thought of anyone touching her life with dirty hands.
Because I love her and the baby being a part of her makes me already love them.
But family?
Family is bigger than protection.
Family is attachment.
Family leaves you.You lose them and then you’re left alone without a compass or a place to call yours.
Callaway says it like it’s inevitable, like it’s already true, like I don’t get a vote.Like he’s claiming us with a single sentence and expecting me not to jet out of this place.
Fuck, can I even do it?I should’ve thought about the implications.
This isn’t the time to think about all that.I keep my eyes forward, because if I look at him, I might see the hope in his face.I might see that bright, reckless devotion he carries so easily.I might see him imagining a future like it won’t terrify me.
What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
ChapterTwenty-Seven
