He searches my face in return. “You?”
I hold his gaze. I take stock of my breathing, of the steadiness in my hands. I’m not spiraling. I’m not reaching for escape. I’m not looking for an exit.
“I’m good,” I say.
Vinny watches us both for another beat, then nods. “All right. Practice in ninety minutes. I’ll handle the rest.”
He steps out of the kitchen, leaving the air a little quieter.
Ollie’s hand slides to my waist, grounding and deliberate. “She doesn’t get to shake this,” he says.
I study him—the set of his shoulders, the certainty in his eyes. “No,” I agree.
And this time, I believe it.
We’re leavingthe practice facility late morning. I insisted on coming today. If I’m honest, I’ve been insistent about a lot of things since Vinny mentioned she’d been spotted near the perimeter earlier in the week. I don’t frame it as anxiety. I frame it as presence. As being involved. As not letting anything catch me off guard again.
Ollie hasn’t commented on it, though I know he’s aware. He doesn’t love when I linger around his workplace, especially now that the press treats any shared oxygen between us as content. But he hasn’t asked me to back off either. There’s something steadying about walking beside him through the mundane—him finishing drills, me sitting in the stands pretending to answer emails. It feels normal. And right now, normal is currency.
Vinny pulls the SUV around to the curb. There’s a modest press cluster near the barricade—two local sports reporters, a couple of freelance photographers, maybe five fans bundled inteam hoodies and knit caps. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Cameras rise out of habit when Ollie steps into view.
And then I see her.
Across the street.
She isn’t animated. She isn’t screaming or waving her arms. She’s just standing there, hands inside the pockets of a long dark coat, jeans tucked into boots, hair pulled back in a harsh ponytail. If you didn’t know the backstory, if you hadn’t seen the footage from the gala or the headlines that followed, you’d think she was just another person hoping to catch a glimpse of a player.
Tammy Deacon.
The name has been repeated often enough in news alerts and legal briefs that it should feel familiar. It doesn’t. I don’t like saying it. I don’t like thinking it. Names give weight. Names grant legitimacy. In my head, she remainsher. The woman. The incident. A shadow I refuse to invite further into our orbit.
Security notices her at the same time I do. Two arena guards straighten and begin crossing the street with the practiced calm of men who don’t want to escalate something unless they have to.
She doesn’t run. She doesn’t even shift her stance. Her eyes lock onto mine, steady and unblinking. “I just want to talk,” she calls.
Her voice isn’t shrill or desperate. It’s measured, almost conversational, and that unsettles me more than hysteria would have. There’s conviction there. A belief in the legitimacy of her presence.
Ollie’s hand slides automatically to the small of my back.
The touch is subtle—no dramatic gesture, no tug to move me behind him—but it’s firm and protective. Possessive in a way that sends a pulse low through my body despite the circumstances. It isn’t insecurity. It’s claim.
“You need to leave,” Ollie says, his tone even but carrying easily across the distance.
She gives a short laugh, not loud enough to draw the crowd’s attention yet, but sharp enough that I hear it. “You think you can just erase me?”
Heat climbs behind my ribs. “I don’t know you,” I snap back before I can filter it.
Her gaze flicks fully to me. There’s no embarrassment there. No doubt. “You did.”
The implication hangs in the air, deliberately vague and therefore infinitely more dangerous. It suggests history without specifics. Promises without proof. It’s narrative bait, and she knows it.
The guards reach her then. One positions himself at her side, the other a half step behind. She doesn’t fight them. She doesn’t pull away.
“You promised things,” she says over her shoulder, her eyes never leaving mine as they begin guiding her back toward the sidewalk.
Ollie stiffens beside me. I feel it in the tension of his hand at my back.
“That’s enough,” he says, sharper now.
