Portland.
The word hits like a door slamming open to a memory I don’t want to walk into.Oregon.Juniper Ridge.The lake.The rink.The boys who used to be mine before everything went wrong.
“Why the Orcas?”I ask, forcing my voice to stay level when my pulse won’t.
“Because they’ve got the pieces,” Cally says.“They’re close, Ves.They’ve got a core that’s good enough to get into the dance, but not good enough to finish it.They need a captain who can drag a team through the ugly parts and keep them believing when it starts to go sideways.”
My fingers tighten around the cup.“They want you to be that.”
“They want the version of me they can sell,” he says, bitter.“They want my name on a jersey in a new city.They want a leader who makes the room bigger.”
Then his voice drops.Lower.More honest.“And they’re offering the Cobras exactly what they want.”
“What’s that?”I ask, even though dread already crawls up my spine.
“Probably a couple of key players,” Cally says.“A top prospect.A pick.Maybe more.Enough to set Colorado up for next season if this one doesn’t go their way.”
I swallow hard.“So they’re gambling.”
“Everyone gambles,” he says flatly.“The question is who gets shoved across the table.”
The car pulls up to my building and my stomach drops again, because it’s real now.Because my apartment is right there—my little pocket of independence.My proof that I built something that isn’t Juniper Ridge.
I don’t move.I just sit in the backseat with my coffee and my phone and my heart hammering.
“Cally,” I say quietly, “are you okay?”
He laughs once, harsh and humorless.“Fuck, no.”
The word punches straight through me.
“I’m not okay,” he repeats, and this time it’s stripped bare.“Because if I get traded to Portland, it’s Oregon, Ves.It’s your home.It’s too close to Juniper Ridge.It’s too close to ...”He stops.His breathing turns rough.“It’s too close to everything we fucked up.”
My pulse stutters.
“Cally—”
“Don’t,” he says, and there’s pain in it, real pain, the kind he never shows the cameras.“I’m trying not to say your name like it’s a threat to my control.”
My fingers go numb.
Standing outside the window, the driver opens my door.Cold air sweeps in.
I stay seated, staring at the city like it’s a wall.
“Listen,” Cally says, voice low, urgent, like he’s leaning closer through the phone, “I’m calling because your dad matters.And I can’t—” He cuts himself off, swallows it.“I can’t do this thing where we pretend we’re fine.Not right now.”
My throat burns.
I force myself to speak.“What do you want from me?”
A beat.Two.
And then, softer than I expect, like it costs him to ask, “Tell me you’ll let me help and won’t be fighting me every step of the way.”
That shouldn’t make my eyes sting.
It does.
