"At midnight?"
"He's in Tokyo. Different time zone." Luca sat up. "He's calling about the contract extension meeting. It's scheduled next week."
Reality crashed back in like cold water.
The contract extension. The captaincy. Everything Luca had spent ten years building. Everything he stood to lose if the wrong person found out about us.
"You should answer," I said quietly.
He looked at me for a long moment—torn between the phone still ringing in his hand and me.
"I am sorry," he said.
"I know." I pulled the sheet up, suddenly aware of the cooling sweat on my skin, the vulnerability of lying naked while he fielded calls about his career. "It's okay. Answer it."
Luca pressed a kiss to my forehead—brief and aching—then stood and walked into the living room, phone pressed to his ear.
"Mark. Yeah, I'm up. What's going on?"
His voice faded as he moved farther away. I lay there in the dark, staring at my ceiling, feeling the warmth of where he'd been slowly dissipate.
The intimacy of moments ago felt very far away.
Through the thin walls, I could hear Luca’s voice. Professional. The mask sliding back into place.
I closed my eyes, wondering how long we could keep doing this. How many times we could reach for each other in private only to pretend we were nothing when the world was watching.
I wondered if love—because that's what this was becoming, whether I was ready for it or not—could survive being locked in the dark.
From the living room, Luca laughed at something his agent said. It was his public laugh. The one he used in interviews and team meetings. Nothing like the sound he had made when he had whispered my name into my hair.
I pulled the sheet tighter around myself, trying not to think about the meeting scheduled for next week. The contract extension that would lock Luca into Chicago for another five years. The captaincy that meant everything to him.
I tried not to think about what he would choose if it came down to his career or me.
8
Luca
The call from my father came at 7:00 AM, three days before the contract meeting.
I'd been awake since five. I sat at my kitchen counter with cold coffee and the contract proposal Mark had sent over. Same numbers we had discussed. Same term length. Everything I had worked toward for ten years, printed on eight pages of dense legal text.
My phone buzzed. Dad flashed across the screen.
I let it ring twice before answering. "Hey."
"Luca. Good, you're up." My father’s voice carried that particular quality it always had—approval measured in increments, never quite full. "Wanted to catch you before practice. Your mother has been asking about the contract."
"Still in negotiations." I set down my coffee mug with too much force. Black liquid sloshed over the rim.
"Mark says it's looking good. Five years. Captaincy locked in." He paused. "We're proud of you, son. You've doneeverything right. Kept your head down, stayed focused. Never let distractions get in the way."
That landed like a punch to the solar plexus.
Distractions.
I thought of Theo three nights ago. Sheets tangled around his waist, looking at me like I had hung the moon. The way he'd said my name when I told him I was falling for him.
