I can handle a loss on the ice.I can handle a trade.I can handle my mother’s smug phone calls and my father’s “think of the legacy” speeches.
I cannot handle Montoya Wade looking at me like I’m a mistake he refuses to repeat.
The driver opens the door.I roll my shoulders back and build my expression from scratch.
In a few minutes, I’ll be in front of cameras.
I’ll smile.I’ll charm.I’ll say words like opportunity, grateful, and excited to join the organization.I’ll sell a future I’m not sure I’m allowed to have.I’ll be controlled, polished, the version of Callaway Winthrop they paid for.
No one will see the part of me that almost cracked in the dark.
I glance at Monty—just once.
He’s already composed, jaw set, eyes forward, that familiar scowl that makes people step out of his way like he’s got the right-of-way in every room.Of course he is.He’s always been better at acting like nothing touches him, like he doesn’t bleed, like he doesn’t want.
It’s a coping mechanism he learned after his parents died, and he jumped from one house to another in foster care until they found his uncle.An uncle who tried his best but was just as stoic as Monty became.
It makes me want to grab him by the collar.
It makes me want to earn a reaction just to prove he’s human.
I don’t.Smoothly, I step out of the car and leave the ghost of my mouth behind, still hovering where his lips almost were.
Some things don’t have to happen to ruin you.
ChapterTwenty-One
Callaway
Headquarters features all-new paint, glass walls, and bright lights, designed to make a franchise look hopeful on television.The hallway smells like printer ink and expensive cologne and the faint desperation of people who believe two big names can change a team’s fate overnight.
Someone from PR presses a water bottle into my hand with the Orcas logo.It’s cold enough to bite my palm.
Monty doesn’t look at her.
Doesn’t look at me, either.
He’s in full goalie mode—contained, disciplined—built out of control and refusal.A stillness that makes people think he’s calm when I know he’s burning inside.Hands clasped behind his back like he’s afraid they might betray him if left loose.
His suit is charcoal, lean-cut.The shoulders are tailored, but tight enough to whisper about the muscle underneath, the tension in his arms.I know how those arms feel braced beside my head.How they tremble when I push inside him.
I shouldn’t be thinking about that.
Not here.Not now—or ever.
But the fabric shifts as he moves and all I see is the stretch of it across his chest.That ridiculous chest that’s soft to lay on and brutal to take a hit from.His tie is straight.His shirt collar crisp.But there’s something too careful about it all—like armor, like he needed this version of himself to keep from becoming the one I almost kissed in the car.
His hair is neat.Too neat.Like he combed it with intention instead of fingers, like he needed the order to keep from unraveling.Jaw tight.Mouth set in that flat, neutral line he uses when he’s bracing for impact.The face of a man who knows cameras are coming and feelings are not allowed.
He looks like control.
He smells like a bad decision I already made.
God, I hate that he looks this good.Hate the flush of heat that rolls through my gut when I take him in.Because my mind isn’t playing fair.It doesn’t just give me this version.It gives me all of them.
Monty in gear—pads and mask, commanding the ice, breath fogging in his helmet while he watches the play like a god planning judgment.
Monty in a hoodie and sweatpants—sprawled out on a hotel bed post-game, eating terrible takeout, laughing with Vesper over the phone, and ...fuck, wouldn’t it be a dream that the three of us were sharing the same bed?
