Chapter 13
Calum wasn’t kidding about having things left to see. Once he’s back in London, he meets me early in the morning on Tower Bridge where he shows me his to-do list.
“Sightseeing?” I look up from the calendar on his phone. “That’s what you’ve been doing every morning after your torture sessions?”
“No one tortures me.” His hand brushes mine on the way across the bridge where he pauses to take in the view.
“But yeah. I’ve been sightseeing with Pat ever since I got here.
It’s a Trelawney tradition each December.
Or it was when we were kids. The whole fam would come up to town and pick one place each to visit. ”
That doesn’t explain why he’s doing the same now. I’d ask, only he laughs, happy for a reason that I catch with my camera.
“The year that Pat picked Tower Bridge was when we found out that Dad isn’t great with heights.
” He points up at tourists who walk fifty feet above us.
“He managed a few steps on the glass walkway before he couldn’t go any further.
Dad had to close his eyes.” His grin doesn’t exactly fade.
Somehow it condenses. “I told him I’d do all the seeing for him.
All he had to do was hold on to me. I’d get him to safety. ”
Today, he doesn’t hold on to me like he once did to his father, but he does lead me along the far side of the river where we pass the same door I’ve watched him exit from across the water.
“Wait. You aren’t going in?”
“Nope. I’m finished with that.” He hustles me past. “Unless they call me back.”
Considering how grey those visits left him, his glance back at the doorway looks hopeful.
Perhaps that’s because hockey players are masochistic.
It seems that way when he steers me to a nearby gym, where his brother tests Calum’s endurance in private.
For someone who is meant to be all heart, Patrick sure cracks a mean whip.
Whatever weight Calum lifts, his brother asks for one more rep, and I can’t help thinking that if anyone saw him crush each and every target, his GM and head coach would summon him back in a heartbeat.
I usually chase after the truth. Today I stand in a weights room and cover the lens of my own camera. “You sure you want me to document this?” Calum is as sweaty now as when he shared my bed. This footage could leave him as naked.
He towels his face. “Will it help you?”
To win my contest? It might. This luxe fitness facility is one hell of a contrast to where Reece gets physical on French beaches.
“Go ahead and keep recording.” Calum reminds me of a contest rule he hasn’t forgotten. “Because you need unique footage, right? Content that hasn’t ever been seen. Will the judges come to a final decision before the New Year?”
I shake my head.
“Then by the time anyone else gets to watch me doing this, I’ll be back in the States.
” That sounds like he really has given up trying to slip his golden handcuffs.
“Might as well face it. Nothing will stop that happening after Christmas. I should have shut the idea down as soon as Jack had it.” His voice drops.
“But then none of this would have happened. I can’t regret it. ”
That feels private. Gentle. So are his fingers peeling my hand from my camera.
“You held fast for Reece. Never gonna forget it.” He sets a red light blinking. “Go ahead, Valentin. Video every single minute.”
So that’s what I do until he has to leave again that evening. I fill a whole SD card with Calum recreating past Christmas visits to this city, and he doesn’t do it alone—Patrick flanks him every step of the way, and his husband joins us.
This time, elfin eyes don’t narrow at my camera. Seb actually smiles to see me. I guess that means I’m out of danger, and I do feel safe until Calum leaves the city later for another of those meetings to keep his side of a hockey bargain.
He tells me goodbye at Kings Cross station. I’m not ready to hear that word. Apparently, he isn’t ready to say it, because he rushes to add, “Wish you could come with.”
“It’s okay. I always knew your evenings were off-limits.”
“Listen.” He almost snags my hand, and he probably could risk it here where people are in too much of a rush to take any notice.
He doesn’t do it. Calum shoves his hands deep in his coat pockets, then leaves to play ambassador for ice hockey far away from London.
Before his train has even pulled out, my phone pings.
Big & Bad: What if not all my evenings were off-limits?
Big & Bad: Want to come to one of those with me?
Big & Bad: Y/N
I restrain myself by only typing Y once. He sends back a smiling selfie with a final message.
Big & Bad: Work on your win x
That’s what I do for what turns out to be an extended absence. He’s missing from the marina for days. At least Dad doesn’t need me to give any test drives, but that freedom to dive into my edits does lead to a discovery—I’m in more danger than I ever faced aboard a lifeboat.
I’m not saying a storm swamps the marina.
I’m battered by this footage of Calum. He soaks up London sights, gazing the same way he did at me before leaving.
I’m punched in the chest each time his gaze finds me, and it happens a lot.
Frame after frame also highlights the same determination YouTube showed me in hockey replays, only in this brand-new content, he’s determined for me.
I have evidence to prove it. Hours of it.
Days after he left, I listen to Calum through my headphones while replaying footage of a visit to Covent Garden.
“Want me to heckle the street performers?” He’s full of loser ideas.
“Look at that one on stilts. I could steal one from him. Use his stilt to do some trick shots with the coins he’s collected. Send them flying over the crowd.”
My mic caught another offer in the food hall at Harrods.
“I could drop a ton of cash here if you wanted. Buy all the cheese, then throw it in the river.”
If I’d said yes, that extravagance could have made for a good contrast with the people who have nothing that Reece works with.
Today, I press Pause, but I don’t see someone rich and thoughtless frozen on my laptop screen.
I witness the same expression over and over.
It’s in each clip I layer into my entry.
Again and again, Calum’s expression shifts to . . .
Hungry.
I see it most clearly in what I recorded in a Kensington restaurant where that sightseeing trip ended with a goodbye supper. Calum still looked hungry after Patrick and Seb headed off to get their Cornish Christmas started early.
Now I sit alone on my bunk and spot more of Calum’s hunger, only not for Penny’s one-star cinders. My laptop shows him hug his brother goodbye, then chases him for another the same way he once did with her, and I have to walk away from that rawness.
I need some distance from it.
A distraction.
I find one in Dad’s sales booth. “What are you doing?”
Dad tells me without any booming or bluster.
Without barking at me or issuing any orders.
He simply shows me his phone where a marine disaster plays out.
“I’m looking for the video where Reece Trelawney listed the names of all the children saved by that foundation he works for.
I know I watched it. Now I can’t find it.
I need to if I’m going to paint their names on the boat your Trelawney has selected.
He wants some upgrades added to it by Christmas, but he also placed an order for me to build another. ”
I’ve heard a lot from my father lately. This is a first for relief.
“I can’t lie, Valentin. It’s a weight off my mind.
I was starting to worry about more than whether I could cover the team’s Christmas bonus.
Really didn’t want to leave a layoff under anyone’s tree.
” He holds out his phone again. “Help me find that list of names so I can get the boat back to the yard and start painting?”
After so long of needing his help, it’s weird to be the one who gives it. Even stranger to hear him say, “Good thing I subscribe to your channel, or I wouldn’t have got the notification to watch that video.”
“You’re a subscriber?”
“Of course I am. How else would I know if you needed me?”
Part of me wants to tuck that away to unwrap later. The rest of me wants to share it, and much later that evening, I get to do just that.
It’s close to midnight when I follow the directions Calum texts to me, and I pilot a speedboat through a rare snow flurry.
It leaves a night-dark London picture-postcard perfect and extra festive.
I’m still shaking snow from my hair when I reach a hotel kitchen that, by rights, should be winding down after a dinner service.
Chefs are still busy, and I can’t help sniffing air untainted by any ashes.
“You made it.” Calum stands up from a table set for three people.
This restaurant is top tier. One of the city’s finest, complete with this chef’s table set right inside the kitchen.
I whistle under my breath at seating usually reserved for celebs, which I suppose makes sense—Calum is one stateside, even if ice hockey flies under most British radars.
“So, this is where you spend your evenings?”
“It is tonight. You can record it.”
I can’t help sniffing again. The food smells amazing.
Familiar. And not just because this kitchen is meal prepping for Christmas dinners.
There’s a whole production line in progress, but there are also scents of Christmases past that I’d all but forgotten.
Calum explains why. “I wanted to make up for all that subpar pasta at Penny’s.
” He takes the seat opposite me, then stands abruptly with more ease than any sports fan would believe meant he was still badly injured.
“Robin. Hey. Thanks for bringing forward our meeting.”