Chapter 14
RAFE
We leave Ollie’s loft through the underground. That doesn’t matter. They’re waiting anyway.
By the time Vinny pulls the SUV around, there are cameras clustered near the exit ramp like birds that learned how to use lenses instead of wings. Someone must’ve tipped them off when the contractor vans left. Or maybe they never left at all.
The second the car noses toward daylight, the shouting starts.
“Rafe! Are you together?”
“Ollie! When did this start?”
“Are you confirming a relationship?”
The flash of cameras bounces off the windshield even in afternoon light.
Vinny mutters, “Eyes forward,” though none of us are looking at them anyway.
Ollie’s hand finds mine before we even clear the garage. It’s instinctive, his grip firm. It’s that there’s no hesitation that has me swallowing hard. I still can’t believe he’s doing this, that he’s here after all this time.
I look at our hands like I don’t quite recognize the image. Twelve years ago, this would’ve been unthinkable in public. Eight years ago, it would’ve been a fantasy.
Now it’s just… happening.
He doesn’t squeeze too hard. Just enough to anchor.
When Vinny stops briefly to let a pedestrian cross, a photographer lunges closer to the car window, crouching to get a clear shot of our hands intertwined. Ollie doesn’t let go. Neither do I.
The drive back to my house is quiet at first. Not strained, just… absorbing.
Ollie’s leg starts bouncing halfway across the bridge. I notice immediately. He’s holding it together—shoulders squared, gaze steady—but his lips are pressed closely together, and there’s a faint tremor in the hand still wrapped around mine.
“Still with me?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah,” he says, a fraction too quick.
I don’t push. Instead, I slide my thumb slowly over his knuckles, grounding.
“They were loud,” he adds after a beat.
“They’ll get louder,” I say honestly.
He exhales. “I know.”
I watch the city roll by outside the window. The Bay is calm today, deceptively peaceful. Everything looks normal. That’s the thing about public storms—they don’t change the skyline.
Inside the car, though, my chest feels like it’s hosting its own weather. We just had sex. We just decided to date. We just held hands in front of half the Bay Area press.
And I’m here preaching “slow” like I didn’t just break my own rule within hours.
I’m full of it.
The truth is simpler and more dangerous.
I love him.
I never stopped.
Every time I said “protect your heart,” what I really meant was “don’t let him have it again.” But it’s already his. It always has been. And I hate that part of me is already imagining tearing up the divorce papers. Calling the lawyer. Pretending those months of hesitation never existed.
That’s reckless. That’s the old me. The one who ran headfirst into a Vegas chapel and thought intensity was the same as permanence. I can’t do that again. I won’t. Not because I don’t want him, but because I want him enough to do it right.
Vinny pulls into the drive. The gate slides open smoothly.
This time, there are no cameras. Privacy swallows us whole again.
The second the car door shuts behind us, Ollie exhales like he’s been underwater. “Jesus,” he mutters.
“Yeah.”
He looks at me, and there’s something vulnerable there—raw from the press, from the sex, from the years of not doing this. “You sure about this?” he asks quietly.
“About what?”
“All of it.”
I hold his gaze. “No.”
That startles a laugh out of him.
“But I’m sure about you,” I add.
That quiets him again.
Inside, the house feels different now. Charged. Like the walls absorbed what happened earlier and are still processing. It’s just the two of us. Lindy and Phil took Amelia out for the afternoon—exploring, they said. Giving us “space.” Which is generous and slightly terrifying.
I toss my keys into the bowl and head for the kitchen. “You hungry?”
He nods. “Starving.”
“Good. You can chop.”
He blinks. “Excuse me?”
“Dating,” I remind him. “We cook together.”
A slow grin spreads across his face. “Okay.”
We fall into it easily. Too easily, maybe.
I hand him a knife and a cutting board. He rolls up his sleeves like he’s preparing for a press conference instead of slicing vegetables. There’s something absurdly domestic about it and ridiculously comforting.
He stands beside me at the counter, shoulder brushing mine occasionally. The contact is light and casual. It sends electricity through me anyway.
“You realize,” he says after a few minutes, “this is the most normal thing we’ve done in almost a decade.”
“Normal’s underrated,” I reply.
He snorts softly.
We talk about nothing for a while—his walkthrough, Carol’s design plans, Amelia’s verdict on how “her” bedroom should be decorated—black and green apparently. The kid’s in a Wicked phase.
But underneath it all, I’m hyperaware of him.
The way he moves in my space. The way he reaches across me for the salt without thinking. The way his fingers rest on my lower back when he squeezes past.
My body responds like it’s been waiting.
I focus on the onions. “You were shaking in the car,” I say finally.
He stills. “Just adrenaline,” he says. “And… maybe everything catching up.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
He looks at me then. Really looks. “I know,” he says quietly. “That’s the new part.”
I swallow. “Are you scared?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “Of screwing this up again. Of the League fallout. Of disappointing people.”
“Of me?”
He exhales slowly through his nose. “Of hurting you.”
That lands deeper than anything else today. I set the knife down. “I’m not made of glass,” I say.
“I know,” he replies. “But I broke you once.”
I don’t argue. Because we both know he did. And I let him.
“It’s different this time,” I say instead.
He nods slowly.
The rhythm of cooking resumes. Oil hisses in the pan. The smell of garlic fills the air.
It feels like a beginning disguised as dinner.
“So, retirement,” I say after a while.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“End of season. After playoffs.”
It’s February, All-Star week. He has, what—three months? Four if they go deep? The timeline hits me harder than I expect.
Three months left of him being who he’s always been. Of arenas chanting his name. Of that version of his life. And then what? Then us? The thought both steadies and terrifies me.
“What are you going to miss?” I ask.
He considers that. “The game. Not the noise. The actual game.”
“Good,” I say. “Noise is overrated.”
He smiles faintly. “I’m serious about the charity,” he adds. “Not as a vanity project. As work. I want to sit in meetings. Push policy. Show up.”
“I know.”
“I’m committing a week a month in person,” he continues.
He’s already shared some of this, but I listen like it’s the first time, because if this is real, if we work out, then these future plans affect me, right?
“While there’s just the program in San Diego at the moment, I’m hoping there’s chance for expansion at some point. ”
“You’ll be good at it,” I say, and I mean it. A week a month from each other I can handle. And if not, there’s no reason why I can’t join him.
He glances at me. “You don’t think I’ll get bored?”
I almost laugh. “You? With purpose? No.”
He absorbs that.
“Thanks,” he says quietly.
I reach past him for a plate, and my hand brushes his hip. Neither of us moves away.
Chemistry hums under the surface. Not frantic. Not urgent like earlier.
Alive.
We plate the food, sit at the island, and eat. At one point, he reaches across and wipes a smear of sauce from my lip without thinking. The touch lingers half a second too long.
I meet his eyes. There’s a question there and an answer. We don’t push it. Not tonight and not after everything.
Later, when the sun starts dipping and the light turns gold across the windows, I lean back in my chair and watch him talk—hands moving, voice animated—about paint swatches and flooring choices.
He’s excited. About a home. About a future. About work that matters.
And about us.
I feel something inside me loosen in a way I haven’t let it in years.
I still need to protect my heart. I still need to see consistency.
Time. Follow-through. But watching him here, sleeves rolled up in my kitchen, talking about building something real?
I can hear the shred of paper as I imagine tearing them up.
The front door opens with a burst of cold air and Lindy’s voice drifting in ahead of her. “Okay, but next time, we’re picking somewhere indoors,” she’s saying, laughter threaded through her words. “I can’t feel my face.”
Phil follows her in, Amelia curled against his chest, pink hat half askew and fast asleep. Her small hand is fisted in the front of his sweater like she fought sleep and lost.
Ollie’s whole face softens the second he sees them. “You wore her out,” he says, already stepping forward.
Phil grins quietly. “She insisted on seeing the sea lions. Apparently they’re ‘very important.’”
“They are,” Ollie says gravely.
Lindy rolls her eyes affectionately. “She lasted ten minutes at Fisherman’s Wharf before declaring it ‘too fishy’ and demanding hot chocolate.”
I step into host mode automatically, easing into something I know how to do. “Let me get you something warm,” I say. “What’s everyone drinking? Wine, beer, soda? I have an impressive collection of teas.”
I catch Ollie’s eyes flick to me—brief but sharp. Concern. Not about the alcohol itself. About me.
I hold his gaze for a second and say evenly, “I don’t drink, but I’ve got options. I’m good with it in the house.”
His shoulders drop a fraction.
Lindy nods immediately. “Chamomile tea for me, please. I need to relax after bribing a five-year-old with marshmallows.”
“Ollie?” I ask.
“Soda’s good.”
Phil gently shifts Amelia in his arms. “You got alcohol-free beer?”
“I do,” I say without hesitation. “Fridge.”
He gives me a grateful look.
I don’t ask. I know what it feels like to have every choice dissected. Every habit questioned. Every abstention treated like a confession.