I wince.“Please stop profiling my sleep schedule.”
Cally’s expression softens.“He’s right.You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“Excuse me?”I blink.“Are we all just casually chirping me to my face now?”
“You’re standing out here with your bags like you’re auditioning for a breakdown,” Monty adds, not unkindly.
My mouth drops.“Okay,rude.”
Cally steps closer, closing the gap with practiced ease.“We have a car.Heat.Food.You’ll sit down, breathe, and then we’ll talk.”
“We?”I repeat, because I’m too tired to process the idea of “we” being a thing that includes both of them.
Monty’s jaw locks.
Cally’s smile stays, but it’s tighter.“Unless you have a driver and a big-ass SUV, we’re using my vehicle.”
“I swear to God,” I mutter.“If either of you throws a punch in front of the arrivals pickup zone, I will call a ride-along and ghost both your numbers until I recover emotionally.”
Monty scoffs.“So ...forever?”
“Exactly,” I snap.“Now, agree to a truce or I walk.”
“He’ll go back to his life soon, then it’ll just be you and me,” Cally states.
Monty frowns.I frown, then grin.
“Oh, neither one of you knows ...do you?”
“Know what?”they ask in unison.
I gesture between them.“You got traded.”I point at Cal.“You.”Then Monty.“Meet your new teammate ...Go, Orcas.”
Their reactions hit like dueling car crashes.I, of course, don’t wait for their full reaction.I start walking toward the exit, muttering under my breath, “Maybe they should just kiss and get it over with.”
God help me if they ever find peace.Or worse—team chemistry.
ChapterNine
Alberto
She drops it—You got traded.Meet your new teammate—like it’s a fun fact, like it isn’t the detonation of a nuclear fucking bomb.Like she didn’t just rip open something we were all pretending wasn’t bleeding.
She points at Cal.
Then at me.
“Go, Orcas,” she mutters, like this is a goddamn game show and not the slow, spiraling undoing of my grip on her.
And then the cherry on the fucking sundae—she mutters, “Maybe they should just kiss and get it over with.”
I blink.Callaway blinks.
The silence between us is instant and brutal.My pulse doesn’t just spike—it detonates behind my ribs.
I look at him.
Really look at him.
