Chapter 18
RAFE
Vinny drives in silence, body angled slightly toward the window, scanning reflections and side mirrors like it’s a habit he can’t turn off. It probably is. His foot bounces once every few seconds, controlled energy with nowhere to go.
Seth is beside him in the passenger seat, and Miles is next to me in the back, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, looking annoyingly calm for a man who’s basically been drafted into crisis management at dawn.
I’m pretty sure he’s running on caffeine and spite.
My phone vibrates again. I don’t check it.
If I do, I’ll see another headline, another “sources confirm,” another thread with ten thousand strangers analyzing Ollie’s smile like it’s a moral referendum, and I’ll end up back where I was yesterday—standing in my kitchen with my hands braced on the counter, stomach churning, thinking about how easy it would be to pour something dark and burning into a glass just to make the noise stop.
That thought still makes me feel sick.
It also makes me feel… ashamed, which is ridiculous because shame is one of the oldest triggers in the book, and my sponsor would tell me to name it, breathe through it, and move the hell on.
So I do the next best thing.
I stare out the window and focus on the city passing by.
Minneapolis in February is all hard edges—gray sky, dirty snow piled at curbs, the occasional glitter of ice like the world is trying to pretend it’s pretty. It’s cold enough that everything feels sharper. Sound. Light. Emotion.
Miles nudges my knee with his. “You okay?”
I snort. “Define okay.”
“Still sober,” he says.
“Still sober,” I echo, and it lands like a small victory.
Seth glances back briefly. His eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, then return to the road ahead.
Vinny doesn’t look at me at all. He doesn’t have to. The man has been beside me at my worst nights and my best ones. He reads me the way some people read the weather.
“Rachael’s landing in two hours,” Miles says, checking his phone. “She texted. She’ll come straight to Ollie’s.”
I nod.
Rachael had also been on a flight while my world detonated. She’d been on the phone with me anyway—because she’s a witch like that, somehow still functioning at full capacity while stuck in airport purgatory.
I glance at Miles. “Thanks for coming.”
He shrugs like it’s nothing. “You called.”
I did. Yesterday, right after I saw the statement. Right after that old itch crawled up my spine and whispered one drink like it was a reasonable suggestion.
I’d stared at my liquor cabinet longer than I want to admit.
Not because I wanted the taste—I’ve never cared about taste—but because I wanted relief.
Quiet. A pause button. Then I thought about Ollie, trapped in that loft with cameras outside, reading his parents’ words.
I’d thought about how furious I’d be if I relapsed because his parents decided to lob a grenade into our lives.
So I’d called Miles. He’d answered on the first ring. No hesitation. No questions. Just: “Where are you?” He’d shown up an hour later, calm, grounded, bringing the kind of presence that makes you feel less insane just by being in the same room.
Miles, Drew, Eli—they’re all my brothers in different ways. But Miles has always been the one who knows how to hold steady when the world tilts. The logistics brain. The quiet anchor. He’s the reason we didn’t lose everything more than once.
And now he’s here again.
“This is still unreal,” I mutter, staring at the blur of buildings. “Like I’m going to wake up and it’ll be a bad dream.”
Miles hums. “Bad dreams don’t usually trend.”
I huff a laugh that comes out sharp.
“What’d Ollie say after his call with Eric?” he asks, because he knows I need something concrete to hold on to.
“Eric’s already there, and apparently… he took it in stride.” None of that surprised me. Agents and managers thrive in chaos. They treat disasters like puzzles. They don’t panic. They plan.
“Any update from Rachael?” I ask. Since he arrived at my place yesterday, he’s taken some of the reins—and the pressure—off me.
“She’s still in her ‘I will burn the world down calmly’ era,” Miles says.
That sounds right. I grin despite myself. “That’s her default era.”
Miles nods. “Also, the Eagles issued a support statement.”
My stomach loosens a fraction. “Good.”
“No mention of the marriage publicly,” he adds. “Just support, privacy, asking people to back off.”
“Smart,” I say automatically, then pause. “And the GM’s on his side?”
Miles’s mouth quirks. “Seems like it. According to Rachael, the GM basically said, ‘We care about Ollie’s leadership and his health. The rest is his business.’”
A tight, hot emotion climbs into my throat. Relief, gratitude, and fury that we need relief and gratitude for the bare minimum of decency.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Good.”
Miles shifts slightly, elbow resting on his knee. “So, Ollie really told Eric… everything?”
My heart jolts. “Yeah.”
Miles glances at me. “That’s good.”
It is. Everything is twelve years of secrecy. Eight years of silence. A marriage that existed in the dark. A break that carved both of us open. Rehab. Fear. All the parts we didn’t let anyone touch.
I swallow, my emotion still stuck on the pride I felt yesterday when he spoke to me after his call with Eric.
He did it. Ollie finally did it. The thought keeps hitting me with a strange mix of pride and grief. Pride that he’s choosing truth now. Grief for how long it took us to get here.
My phone vibrates again. This time I glance. It’s Ollie. My chest loosens instantly.
Ollie: They’re still outside. Cass is here. Eric’s upstairs.
Ollie: I’m okay.
Ollie: Hurry anyway.
I type back.
Me: Ten minutes. Don’t look out the window.
Miles watches me text, then leans back. “You’re doing good.”
I scoff. “Am I?”
“You didn’t drink,” he says plainly. “You called for help. You’re showing up.”
My throat burns. I look out the window again because if I look at him too long, I might do something humiliating like cry.
Vinny slows as we approach the building. Even from a block away, I can see the crowd, the cameras clustered like insects around a streetlamp. Paparazzi, obviously. Press. Bloggers. Randoms with phones. And then—fans.
Some waving rainbow flags. A couple holding handmade signs. One with a Steel Saints shirt under a bright scarf.
It’s chaos.
I feel Seth tense in the front seat.
Vinny’s voice is steady. “You sure you want to do it this way?”
“As agreed,” I say.
Rachael’s order. No underground entry today. No sneaking. No giving them the narrative of “they’re hiding.”
We go in through the front like we belong here. Because we do.
Vinny pulls up to the curb, and the cameras go off immediately—rapid-fire clicks like hail.
The shouting starts.
“RAFE! RAFE! ARE YOU HERE FOR OLLIE?”
“IS IT TRUE YOU’VE BEEN MARRIED FOR TWELVE YEARS?”
“RAFE, DID OLLIE CHEAT?”
“ARE YOU MOVING TO MINNESOTA?”
“OLIVER MARSHALL—IS HE YOUR HUSBAND?”
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache. The urge to snap back rises hot and fast. I want to tell them to go to hell and call them vultures.
It’s on my tongue to remind them that a knife was pulled at a charity event, and somehow the headline they care about is a marriage.
But I hear Rachael in my head like she’s sitting on my shoulder:
Do not antagonize. Do not feed it. Calm. Controlled. Let them look like the ones out of line.
Fine. I can do calm. I can do controlled. Hell, I’ve been performing my whole adult life.
I open the door and step out. Instantly, the noise swells. Miles comes out beside me, calm as ever. Seth and Vinny move in practiced formation—subtle barriers, eyes scanning, bodies positioned like shields without making a show of it.
I lift my hand in a small wave and smile. My rock-star persona slides into place like armor.
I’m not smug or cocky. I’m aiming for polite and unbothered. The questions keep coming, and I don’t answer a single one. Instead, I keep smiling and glance toward the fans and give them a second, more genuine wave.
One of them squeals. Another shouts, “We love you!”
I nod once, appreciative, and then my gaze shifts up to the building, to the windows above.
Somewhere up there is Ollie. Freaking out for the last twenty-four hours with this circus outside his door.
My stomach dips.
Miles murmurs, barely audible, “Keep going.”
We move toward the entrance. The press surge, held back by an invisible line of security and the fact that Vinny looks like he could break someone in half if they try it.
At the doors, I pause for half a heartbeat, not because I need to, but because I know every camera will catch it. I tip my chin slightly toward the crowd and offer a final calm smile before stepping inside.
The noise muffles instantly, like someone turned down the volume on the world.
My body exhales. Miles lets out a breath too. Seth speaks to the doorman, low and clipped, while Vinny’s hand lands briefly between my shoulder blades, guiding.
“Almost there,” he murmurs.
Yeah. Almost.
But even with the quiet, even with the lobby’s soft lighting and the smell of polished stone, my heart is already pounding like I’m about to go onstage.
Because I’m not walking into a performance.
I’m walking into the aftermath of my husband’s parents ripping open our life, and I have no idea what Ollie looks like right now.
That scares me more than any camera ever has.
The elevator doors open onto Ollie’s floor, and for a second, I don’t move.
It’s absurd, the hesitation. I just flew halfway across the country. I just walked through a press gauntlet without saying a word. I’ve faced stadiums of fifty thousand people without blinking. And yet stepping into this hallway feels like crossing a line I can’t uncross.