Chapter 36 #2
The rest of the evening unfolds around us so naturally that it almost becomes difficult to hold onto the old version of reality. Almost. Not fully. Because every few minutes something small happens that reminds me exactly how different this is from before.
A teammate walks past and tosses Calder a beer without looking before offering me one too with casual ease.
"Thanks," I say.
"No problem. You staying for the after thing?"
Not if Calder wants. Not if things are weird. Just assumption, like me existing beside Calder publicly no longer requires emotional clarification first.
"We'll see," I answer.
The word we slips out instinctively. Calder's eyes catch on the word with something warm and almost unbearably soft inside them.
A reporter approaches cautiously near the bar area. Old dread spikes instinctively through me before I can stop it. Because media attention used to change everything between us. I physically brace for Calder to tighten beside me.
Instead he says easily:
"Hey, Jenna."
Relaxed and open.
The reporter smiles politely toward me too.
"Arabella. Congratulations on Worlds."
"Thank you."
No awkwardness follows. No weird carefulness. The reporter asks Calder a quick question about playoff momentum. Then casually asks whether he and I are managing to see each other around scheduling chaos.
Calder answers without hesitation.
"We're trying."
Midway through the two words his attention shifts slightly — a glance toward the far side of the bar, maybe a coach, maybe just movement — and something cold moves through my chest before I can stop it. There it is. The familiar split attention. The unconscious checking.
I go very still internally.
The reporter is already nodding. "Good. Enjoy the rest of the night." She moves on without ceremony, absorbed back into the event.
Calder looks back at me.
His hand is still warm against my waist. Exactly where it was. His expression hasn't changed. Nothing happened.
I stand there for a second with the cold feeling still sitting in my chest and nowhere to put it, because the thing I braced for didn't arrive.
He wasn't checking who was watching. He just looked at something.
People look at things. The old pattern was so ingrained that my nervous system ran the full sequence anyway — saw the movement, named it danger, started protecting itself — before the evidence even finished arriving.
The realization sits strangely. I'm still learning the difference between reading him and haunting myself with who he used to be.
That's it. The world doesn't end. Nobody looks uncomfortable. Calder doesn't pull away like openness became dangerous once attention touched it directly.
My chest aches, but differently than before. The emotional atmosphere around us changed completely the second Calder stopped behaving like loving me publicly was something risky to survive. I'm the one still catching up.
The ballroom starts thinning out slowly as the night stretches later. Music softer now. Conversations smaller and looser around the edges.
Calder and I end up near the quieter hallway outside the main event space almost accidentally. One minute we're standing inside a crowded conversation and the next we've both drifted toward the relative quiet near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.
The sudden stillness feels intimate. My pulse reacts before thought catches up.
Calder leans lightly against the wall beside me, tie loosened, sleeves pushed roughly to his forearms. Exhaustion softens him around the edges tonight.
Not weaker, just open in ways he never used to survive publicly for very long.
Below us the city glows wet and gold beneath recent rain while arena lights reflect faintly across the glass. For a few seconds neither of us says anything. It isn't awkward, just full.
Then Calder looks at me, and God, that expression. No restraint. No emotional management flattening everything safer before it reaches me fully. He just looks affected by me openly, like he finally stopped treating that as dangerous.
"You okay?" he asks quietly.
The question almost makes me laugh because I genuinely don't know how to answer it anymore.
"Yes," I say finally.
And somehow that's true.
"You were different," I say after a moment.
The words leave me before I fully decide to say them. Calder goes still. Not defensive. Not panicked. Just visibly affected. Something vulnerable moves openly across his face before settling again.
"I'm trying to be," he says quietly.
No excuses attached, just truth. The simplicity of it hurts.
A burst of laughter echoes briefly from inside the ballroom behind us.
Neither of us moves away from the windows.
Neither of us pulls back emotionally because other people still exist nearby.
That's the thing that finally begins softening something deep and terrified inside me.
Calder no longer treats vulnerability like an emergency requiring management the second it becomes visible.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly.
Still no self-protection inside it. No expectation either. The apology just exists honestly between us.
My chest aches so hard it almost feels dangerous because he means it now in a completely different way than before. Not I'm sorry this became complicated. I'm sorry I hurt you because I was afraid. The distinction matters so much.
Some ancient tension I've carried around him for months loosens quietly.
Not disappearing entirely. Relaxing. Trust beginning somewhere instinctive again.
Safety was never going to come from Calder loving me less intensely.
It comes from him no longer abandoning connection the second fear enters the room.
Calder's hand brushes lightly against mine between us, tentative this time, giving me space to choose.
I thread my fingers through his before I can overthink it.
The sharp relief that crosses his face afterward is so open it almost physically hurts to witness.
Still he doesn't grip tighter possessively.
Doesn't rush the moment. He just holds my hand quietly beneath the soft light while vulnerability exists openly around us both, calm instead of guarded, visible instead of hidden.
And standing beside Calder while his fingers remain warm around mine without the slightest trace of panic attached to being seen loving me this openly anymore, being emotionally close to me no longer seems to make him lose himself.