Chapter 36
The Extremely Rude Return of Hope
The arena feels louder tonight, emotionally, not physically.
Every hallway, every camera, every burst of laughter from groups in team jackets moving through the lower concourse seems to scrape directly against old memories before I can stop it.
I tighten my grip slightly on the strap of my bag while stepping through security toward the private event level above the rink.
This is a bad idea.
The thought has repeated steadily through my brain since I accepted the invitation. Calder isn't going to hurt me intentionally.
This place still carries emotional bruises I'm not sure fully healed.
The corridor leads toward the charity gala attached to tonight's playoff fundraiser. Music hums faintly somewhere ahead. Voices overlap warmly through open ballroom doors. Camera flashes occasionally spark against the walls near sponsor banners.
Visibility everywhere.
My pulse reacts automatically. For so long, hockey spaces trained my nervous system to anticipate emotional withdrawal the second attention sharpened around us publicly.
The pattern became physical eventually, crowded room, cameras nearby, Calder caring too visibly, then distance.
Tiny. Subtle. Still devastating every time.
I slow instinctively near the ballroom entrance.
People move easily inside the event space already, players, sponsors, staff, media personalities.
And suddenly memory crashes into me sharply.
The dinner. Standing beside Calder while conversations swirled around us and slowly realizing his body had started emotionally pulling away before I consciously understood why.
The humiliation of that still aches somewhere old and bruised beneath my ribs.
For one dangerous second, I genuinely consider turning around.
Then a photographer near the entrance lifts a camera toward the hallway casually while guests continue filtering past. That old instinctive flare of panic. Not from the camera itself, but from the memory of what visibility used to do to us.
I exhale slowly and force my feet forward anyway.
The ballroom opens fully around me, warm gold lighting, glassware clinking softly, hockey branding mixed awkwardly with expensive floral centrepieces.
A few people glance up as I enter. My pulse spikes hard enough that I almost physically brace for impact.
For the awkwardness. For the hesitation.
For the feeling of accidentally existing somewhere inconvenient.
Instead someone near the bar recognizes me.
"Arabella!"
Another player lifts a hand from across the room in easy greeting. One of the staff coordinators smiles warmly while reaching for a second champagne flute, like Calder bringing me here no longer requires emotional negotiation beforehand.
The tension inside my chest loosens slightly before tightening again. The more normal this becomes, the more terrifying hope starts feeling.
I see Calder. Or maybe I feel him first, something in me still reacts to his presence before conscious thought catches up properly.
He stands near the far side of the ballroom speaking to a cluster of sponsors and team executives when I finally spot him between shifting bodies and warm gold lighting. Dark suit. Broad shoulders. One hand loose around a glass while he listens to someone talking beside him.
Then his eyes lift and land directly on me.
The impact is physical. Everything in him changes instantly. Not dramatically. Just completely. Attention narrowing. Expression softening. Something relieved and almost disbelieving moves openly across his face before he can hide it.
Only this time, he doesn't hide it.
Old Calder always paused here. That tiny terrible hesitation once visibility entered the room, the unconscious recalculation of who's watching, what this looks like, how exposed they are. I used to feel the fear arrive inside him before he consciously realized it himself.
Tonight it never comes.
Calder is moving toward me before the thought fully finishes. No hesitation. No glance around first. No careful emotional restraint settling over him once he realizes people can clearly see exactly where he's going. He just crosses the ballroom immediately.
Someone says something to him halfway across the room and he answers absently without taking his eyes off me once. The entire ballroom blurs strangely around the simple terrifying reality of this: he came toward me first. Instinctively. Not after fighting himself into it. Just naturally.
My pulse pounds hard enough that I can feel it in my throat by the time he finally reaches me.
"Hey," he says softly.
The word lands directly against my ribs. Warm. Open. No guardedness anywhere inside it.
"Hey."
For one suspended second neither of us moves.
Then Calder reaches for me automatically, simple and instinctive, his hand settling lightly against my waist like touching me publicly no longer requires emotional permission from fear first.
The contact nearly undoes me. He doesn't hesitate afterward either.
He doesn't suddenly become aware of cameras nearby or sponsors watching from across the room.
His thumb strokes once absently against the fabric at my waist while relief moves visibly through his face just from being close enough to touch me again, like this is the most natural thing in the world now.
The feeling hurts in the most beautiful possible way.
"You came," Calder says quietly. Not surprised. Still affected by it.
"I did."
Something soft breaks openly across his expression at the answer. No embarrassment follows it. No visible panic about feeling too much in public. Just honest emotion existing naturally inside the centre of his world.
And standing in the middle of a crowded ballroom with Calder's hand warm against my waist while conversations continue all around us without changing the way he touches me at all, Calder chooses me publicly before fear even gets the chance to speak.
How normal he makes it look — not forced, not overly deliberate, just natural in a way that completely destabilizes me.
His hand stays warm against the small of my back as he guides me through the ballroom toward another cluster of people near the sponsor displays.
The touch is light. Easy. No hesitation every time someone turns toward us.
No subtle loosening once attention sharpens.
He just keeps me beside him like this belongs here now.
A former player turned analyst spots us first.
"Hayes."
Then his eyes flick toward me. Old panic surges instinctively through my chest before I can stop it. The memory of Calder's old carefulness around moments exactly like this still lives somewhere physical inside me. I brace automatically for the shift.
Instead Calder says easily:
"Have you met Arabella?"
The world almost stops. Not because of the introduction itself.
Because of how naturally it arrives. No careful phrasing.
No vague distancing language. No emotional neutrality flattening the moment into something safer publicly.
Just Arabella, spoken like introducing me beside him costs him absolutely nothing now.
The analyst smiles and reaches out a hand.
"Congratulations on Worlds. My daughter's obsessed with your free skate."
Heat climbs into my face automatically while I shake his hand.
"Thank you."
Then Calder says something that nearly knocks the breath from my lungs entirely.
"She's pretending the ankle's healed faster than it actually has."
My head snaps toward him instantly.
The analyst laughs.
"Competitive athletes. Psychological illness honestly."
"Seriously," Calder mutters.
Not the teasing, but the openness. The fact Calder references my skating, my body, my habits publicly without instinctively acting like emotional familiarity suddenly became dangerous territory. This used to be the exact fracture point between us.
Someone asks about travel schedules for upcoming away games. Without even thinking about it Calder glances toward me and says:
"We're trying to figure that out around her training schedule still."
My pulse stumbles violently at the word we.
It hits so hard I almost visibly react. Old Calder used to unconsciously split us apart linguistically in public, my season, her skating, separate worlds carefully managed beside each other.
Now he folds me into future planning naturally like the separation between hockey and us no longer exists in his head at all.
A sponsor representative joins the conversation halfway through. Calder introduces me again. No pause. No emotional recalculation.
"And this is my girlfriend, Arabella."
The sentence detonates softly through my entire body.
My girlfriend. Simple words. Still enough to completely wreck me internally.
Because this is the exact thing I spent months quietly starving for without fully admitting it even to myself.
Not ownership. Not spectacle. Just being named naturally by the person I loved without feeling like visibility itself threatened the relationship.
The sponsor smiles warmly.
"I've heard a lot about you."
Heat flashes into my chest. I glance toward Calder automatically. He doesn't look embarrassed. Doesn't tense. Doesn't soften the implication. If anything, amusement flickers briefly across his face.
"Mostly good things, hopefully."
"Debatable," the sponsor says dryly.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
The sound feels shaky around the edges. This entire interaction directly reverses something that once hurt me. The introductions. The inclusion. The complete absence of emotional compartmentalization. Calder no longer behaves like loving me publicly requires surviving something afterward.
This was the missing piece all along. Not loving me harder. Just letting the world exist around us without making me feel like love needed to shrink in order to survive it.