Chapter 19
OLLIE
It’s surreal, sitting around my larger dining table, holding Rafe’s hand like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
The table is the same one I’ve eaten a thousand solo dinners at.
The same one I’ve signed contracts on, planned offseason schedules, read scouting reports and pretended my life was orderly because the surface looked clean.
It feels too small for what’s happening now.
Too domestic for the scale of the fire outside.
The building is quiet for the moment, but I can still feel the press downstairs like a low-grade vibration in the bones of the place.
Rafe’s hand is warm in mine. His thumb keeps rubbing over my knuckles like he’s checking I’m real, like contact is the only thing keeping him from snapping into two pieces.
Eric sits across from us, posture straight, shoulders relaxed in the way of someone who’s worked long hours without stopping to notice he’s tired.
Rachael is beside him, one leg crossed over the other, phone face down on the table like she’s actively refusing to let the world interrupt her while she triages it.
She has a legal pad in front of her, but she hasn’t written much.
She doesn’t need to. Rachael’s brain is basically a filing cabinet with a bloodhound’s sense of smell.
Miles is in the kitchen, moving around the open-plan space like he belongs here.
He has an apron on, which is ridiculous and somehow exactly right.
The smell of garlic hits the air, then oil warming in a pan, then something herby and bright.
He’s humming under his breath, not quite a song, more like the sound a person makes when they’re trying to keep the atmosphere from tipping into catastrophe.
The whole setup feels like a strange collision of worlds—my career life, Rafe’s public life, our secret life, all mashed together in my loft like the universe is finally done letting me compartmentalize.
Rachael leans forward slightly, elbows on the table. “Okay,” she says, calm and precise. “We all agree on one thing. We cannot let Ollie’s parents define the narrative.”
Eric nods once. “They’ve created a moral framing around this. That’s what’s dangerous. Not the marriage itself—the implication that he lied to fans and teammates as a character flaw.”
I increase my grip on Rafe’s hand without meaning to.
His jaw flexes, his gaze fixed on the table like he’s imagining it as my father’s face.
I swallow. “They didn’t just out the marriage,” I say, voice steadier than I feel. “They outed… context. They made it sound like I’ve been running a con.”
Rachael’s expression softens a fraction. “And that’s why we address it,” she says. “Not with a defensive apology tour. With boundaries. With facts. With clarity.”
Rafe’s thumb pauses over my knuckles. “And without giving them more oxygen than they deserve.”
“Exactly,” Rachael replies. “We don’t get pulled into debating your parents’ morality. We don’t explain their worldview. We don’t dignify it.”
Eric lifts his brows at me. “Did they say anything else beyond the statement?” he asks. “Private messages? Calls? Any attempt to contact you?”
“No,” I say, and the word comes out sharp. “They haven’t spoken to me in years. I don’t even know if they have my number.”
“That’s important,” Eric murmurs. “It reinforces the point that this wasn’t concern. It was control.”
I glance at Rafe, expecting him to be angrier, but what I see in his face is… something worse than anger. A kind of contained violence, like he’s holding himself still by sheer force because if he moves too quickly, he might break something.
“Rafe?” I ask quietly.
He blinks, focusing back in. “Yeah.”
Rachael watches him. “You okay?”
He exhales through his nose. “I’m fine.”
Rachael doesn’t call him on the lie. She just nods like she’s banking it for later.
Miles calls from the kitchen, “Pasta or rice? I’m making executive decisions in a house that isn’t mine.”
Eric turns his head, startled, like he forgot there was dinner happening.
Rafe’s mouth twitches. “Pasta.”
“Pasta,” I echo, grateful for the normalcy.
Miles points a wooden spoon at me without looking. “You don’t get a vote. You’re in crisis mode. Crisis mode eats carbs.”
Rachael gives a small, surprised laugh.
Eric’s expression flickers in a way that makes me think he’s trying not to smile too broadly. Like he’s recalibrating his assessment of Miles as more than “helpful bandmate.”
Okay. Noted.
Rachael taps her finger lightly on the table. “All right. Here’s the bigger question,” she says, shifting gears. “What are we doing about your relationship publicly?”
Rafe’s hand tightens around mine, and I hold my breath. Because this is the part that feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.
Eric’s gaze stays on me, steady. “The marriage is public now,” he says. “At least as a fact. The timeline is the part that’s making the media feral.”
Rachael nods. “They’re already building a story: secret marriage, hidden relationship, betrayal of fans, betrayal of team culture, deception. If we don’t respond at all, that story calcifies.”
Rafe leans back slightly, eyes narrowing. “You want us to correct the details.”
“I want you to control what you can,” Rachael says. “You don’t need to overexplain. You don’t need to justify why privacy mattered. But you do need to draw a clean line between what’s public and what’s none of anyone’s business.”
Eric folds his hands. “We can release a joint statement that confirms you’re married and asks for privacy. We can say you separated for a period of time and have reconnected recently, without giving dates. We can say you won’t be doing interviews.”
My stomach twists. “If we say we separated, won’t they… dig? Ask why? Ask who did what?”
“They’ll ask anyway,” Rachael says. “But acknowledging a separation can actually blunt the sensationalism. Otherwise, they’ll frame it as an ongoing lie for all these years. A separation introduces nuance. It’s a pressure valve.”
Rafe’s gaze snaps to her. “And it also implies there was a reason.”
Rachael holds his stare. “There was a reason, Rafe.”
He goes still, and my heart stutters.
Rachael’s voice remains calm, not cruel. “If you want the story to be ‘they protected their private life,’ then we need to show it was complicated, not deceitful. Privacy isn’t a crime.”
Rafe looks down at my hand like he’s grounding himself.
While I might have been the one to call it off and Rafe’s stint at rehab did its rounds in the media, without a doubt I know he’s thinking about just how bad it got. My own fear back then attempts to raise its head.
Fuck, if I’d just come out then, none of this would be happening. I’m the reason for this shitshow. The party line of “in your own time” feels weak.
I swallow hard. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for,” I say quickly, too quickly. “We can keep it vague. We can—”
Rafe’s head lifts. His eyes are sharp. “Stop.”
The word lands with more bite than I expect. I blink, and he squeezes my hand firmly.
“Stop acting like you’re asking me for permission to exist,” he says, voice losing some of its control. “Stop treating yourself like a liability.”
Eric’s brows lift slightly.
Rachael goes very still, listening.
I swallow. “I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” Rafe cuts in. His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Every time you say you don’t want to pressure me, what I hear is you giving yourself an escape hatch. You’re already bracing to disappear again.”
My throat closes. “That’s not fair,” I manage.
Rafe’s expression shifts, the anger under it softer than it looks. “Maybe it’s not fair,” he says quietly. “But it’s true.”
The room holds its breath.
Miles, in the kitchen, turns the heat down on the stove like he can feel the tension spiking.
Rachael speaks gently. “Ollie, what are you afraid of?”
The question is careful. There’s no accusation in her tone.
I stare at the table because looking at Rafe’s face feels like staring into a mirror that knows all my worst impulses. “I’m afraid,” I admit, voice low, “that the more I ask for, the more I’ll ruin it.”
Rafe’s thumb starts moving slowly again over my knuckles, the touch reassuring.
Eric nods once, like he expected that answer.
Rachael’s expression softens. “And what do you want?” she asks.
I lift my head slowly. “I want… to be married to him,” I say. The words feel too small for the truth. “I want to be with him in a way I didn’t let myself want before.”
Rafe’s throat works. His eyes go dark for a second, but not with anger. With something that looks like grief pressed into longing.
“And what does that look like in the real world?” Rachael asks, practical again. “Are you living together? Traveling together? Are you attending games and shows? Are you ‘dating’ publicly? Are you a married couple in public now?”
My heart hammers.
I don’t answer immediately, because the honest answer is I don’t know. I’ve spent so many years building plans that kept the truth at arm’s length that imagining the truth in daylight feels like trying to picture a color I’ve never seen.
Rafe inhales slowly. “We’re not moving in together tomorrow,” he says. “We’re not doing some big bullshit interview. But we’re also not hiding.”
I nod quickly. “Yes.”
Rachael looks between us. “Define ‘not hiding.’”
Rafe glances at me, then back to her. “It means if we get photographed, we don’t deny it. We don’t spin it. We don’t say ‘just friends.’ We don’t feed the machine with half-truths.”
Eric nods. “Good.”
“It also means,” Rafe adds, voice firming, “we decide what boundaries look like. We don’t let TMZ decide. We don’t let Ollie’s parents decide. We decide.”
Something in my chest loosens. A fraction. Like hearing him say we in that voice is a hand steadying me.