“Next week,” I say. “Feels like it crept up overnight.”
She laughs. “That tracks. Everything important does.”
We talk about nothing consequential. About the venue. About how strange LA can feel even when you’ve lived here for years. About traffic, which somehow always becomes a shared language. She doesn’t flirt. She doesn’t probe. She just… talksto me, like a normal person having a drink at the end of a long evening.
It’s a relief I didn’t realize I needed.
We’re standing closer than strangers usually do, but it’s the kind of closeness that comes from not having to perform. It’s comfortable and easy. At one point, she leans in to hear me better over a swell of conversation behind us, and I lean in, too, without thinking.
That’s when I feel it. The subtle shift in the room. A photographer moves through the space again, quiet and efficient, catching moments that look natural because they aren’t staged. I don’t turn toward the camera. I don’t straighten. I don’t change my expression.
I already know how to look relaxed.
The flash goes off once. Then again later, when I’m laughing at something Candice says, my head tipped slightly toward hers.
By the time I’m back in the car, the city settling into familiar streets and stoplights, my phone buzzes against the console. A notification. I glance down at it at the next red light. It’s a photo. Me and Candice, mid-conversation, bodies angled toward each other, close and unguarded. We look comfortable and friendly. At ease in a way that reads effortlessly from the outside.
The caption is neutral.
Monarchs rookie Oliver Marshall attends team sponsor dinner ahead of preseason.
No speculation. No assumptions spelled out. Just implication hanging quietly in the space between pixels.
I swallow and lock my phone, setting it face down.
Thankfully, the drive back is quiet. The city slides past in familiar traffic patterns that don’t ask anything of me. By the time I pull into the garage and take the elevator, the noise of the evening has settled into something manageable.
In the suite, Rafe is waiting. He’s on the small couch with his guitar resting beside him, not playing it, just there like he’d set it down and forgotten why. The lamp in the corner throws soft light across the room, catching the edges of the minimalist furniture. I can’t wait to get an apartment of my own.
He looks up when the door closes behind me, his expression easing as soon as he sees me. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I answer, dropping my keys onto the bedside table. The sound feels too loud in the quiet.
I toe off my shoes and cross the room, sitting beside him. He leans into me without thinking, shoulder fitting under my chin like it’s muscle memory. I rest my hand at the nape of his neck, thumb brushing warm skin, and feel my body finally unclench.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“How was it?” he asks eventually.
I exhale. “Fine.”
He hums softly, not convinced but not pushing yet. “Fine likefine, or fine like you’re going to tell me the real version in a minute?”
I snort quietly. “Sponsor dinner. Polite. Everyone very invested in preseason optimism.”
“That sounds… thrilling.”
“It was exactly as thrilling as it sounds.”
He shifts so he can look at me, one knee still tucked under him. “Anyone memorable?”
I think about Marco, hovering just close enough to count as friendly. About Kirk’s laugh carrying too far across the room. About Dan’s wife offering me a seat at a table that felt warm and safe and entirely incompatible with the way my life actually looks.
“Mostly normal,” I say. “Which I think is the point.”
Rafe studies my face, eyes sharp even when he’s trying to be casual. “That didn’t answer the question.”
“They talked a lot about preseason,” I add instead. “About how it’s not like Summer League. Less chaos. More scrutiny.”
