Chapter 22 #2
“You promised things,” she says over her shoulder, her eyes never leaving mine as they begin guiding her back toward the sidewalk.
Ollie stiffens beside me. I feel it in the tension of his hand at my back.
“That’s enough,” he says, sharper now.
It isn’t shouted. It doesn’t need to be. There’s command in it, the same authority he uses when calling plays in a loud arena. The same tone that stops teammates mid-argument.
The guards escort her toward a patrol car idling half a block down. A few cameras pivot, trying to catch the angle without leaving their assigned positions. The press cluster murmurs, sensing something but not quite close enough to capture it cleanly.
Vinny leans closer to me, his voice pitched low enough that it won’t carry. “We’re adjusting routes.”
I nod automatically, but my attention isn’t on logistics. It’s on Ollie. He hasn’t stepped back. He hasn’t glanced at me for direction or looked to Vinny for cues.
He stepped forward. Between me and her. And he’s still there now, his shoulders squared, eyes steady as he watches the patrol car pull away.
There’s no fear in his expression. No visible adrenaline spike. Just calculation and resolve.
I turn slightly toward him. “You can stand down.” I shoot him a gentle smile.
He glances at me, and for a split second, the hard edge softens. “I’ll try. She shouldn’t be anywhere near you, though,” he says, unable to keep the bite out of it.
“She wasn’t near me,” I reply calmly. “She was across the street.”
“That’s near enough.” He studies me, something almost amused flickering in his eyes despite the situation. “You’re hovering again.”
“Yeah,” I admit. Because even though this is about me, she’s here, at his work.
His mouth twitches faintly. “I’m fine.”
Vinny opens the SUV door. “Let’s move.”
As we slide into the back seat, I look again through the tinted glass. The street’s already rearranged itself into something that passes for ordinary. Fans still hold up their phones. Reporters angle for footage as if nothing unusual just happened. Traffic inches forward. The patrol car is gone.
It looks contained.
My pulse doesn’t agree.
The SUV merges into traffic, Vinny speaking quietly into his phone’s headset as he adjusts our route while I replay the way she stood—still, composed, convinced she belonged in our line of sight with absolute conviction.
By the time we reach Ollie’s place, that certainty follows me inside.
Later, when the building quiets and the city settles into its early-spring hush, every sound feels amplified. The elevator hum makes me lift my head. The radiator clicks and I track the rhythm. Tires moving through slush below seem closer than they are.
I’ve dealt with this before. Obsessive fans aren’t new. Fame distorts attachment; people build narratives about you that have nothing to do with who you are. I know how this works.
I’m not frightened for myself. What unsettles me is proximity.
The memory of steel catching light. The way she looked at him. The fact that she didn’t appear unhinged today—she looked deliberate.
I lie awake, staring into the dark while Ollie’s breathing evens out beside me. I catalog the sounds and remind myself that security is layered, that restraining orders exist, that she was intercepted before she got close.
My body still refuses to settle, hypervigilant.
Beside me, Ollie shifts and drapes an arm over my waist without waking, instinctively anchoring me. His palm is warm and solid against my stomach, heavy in a way that reassures instead of traps.
I exhale slowly and cover his hand with mine.
If she’s trying to wedge herself into our story, she’s going to find there isn’t room.
Morning comes anyway.
Ollie’s already up when I walk into the kitchen.
He’s standing at the counter in gray sweats, one hand wrapped around a mug, the other scrolling through something on his tablet.
There’s coffee brewing. Bread in the toaster.
A sports channel murmuring quietly from the television mounted in the corner.
It’s ordinary.
Painfully, beautifully ordinary.
He looks up when he hears me. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
He passes me a mug without asking how I take it. Black. Always black. The familiarity of that small thing settles something in my chest that didn’t quite rest overnight.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Define sleep,” I say before taking a sip of coffee.
He huffs. “That bad?”
“Just light. Nothing dramatic.”
He watches me for a beat longer than necessary, like he’s measuring whether I’m minimizing it. Then he nods once and lets it go. That’s new too. Eight years ago, he would’ve pushed. Or retreated. Now he just files it away.
“My shoulder’s good,” he says, rotating it slightly like he’s proving it. “They’ll tape it anyway. Coach is paranoid.”
“He should be,” I reply. “You’re valuable property.”
He snorts. “Don’t say that.”
“Asset? Investment? Franchise cornerstone?”
He points at me with his toast. “I hate when you use business words about my body.”
I grin. “You’re the one with the contract worth nine figures.”
“Still hate it.”
He finishes his toast and checks his watch. “Practice till noon. Media after. I’ll probably be out by one thirty.”
“I’ve got a session I might dial into,” I tell him. “West Coast time, so late afternoon here.”
Ollie arches a brow. “Might?”
“I’m feeling selective.”
“You’re avoiding them,” he says easily.
“I’m curating my presence.”
“That’s code for avoiding.”
I give him a look. “You have practice at 7:00 a.m. and you’re calling me out?”
He leans back against the counter, smirking slightly. “Seven fifteen.”
“That’s worse. That’s showing up early to show off.”
“That’s called leadership.”
I laugh. “That’s called being insufferable.”
He nudges my hip with his. “You love it.”
I don’t answer immediately. He notices and smiles anyway.
“Any plans after practice?” I ask.
“Film review. Then maybe I’ll swing by the grocery store.”
“You?” I tilt my head. “At a grocery store?”
“I know how to buy food.”
“You know how to buy protein powder and sparkling water.”
He looks offended. “I also buy fruit.”
“What kind?”
He hesitates half a second.
“Exactly,” I say.
He rolls his eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ll come with you,” I offer. “We can argue about avocados like a normal married couple.”
His mouth curves, softer this time. “You’re assuming I’d let you pick produce.”
“Rude.”
We both laugh, and for a moment, the world feels appropriately sized. Not tilted. Not distorted by headlines or interviews or people trying to insert themselves into something they don’t belong in.
Ollie drains his mug and sets it down. “What time’s your session?”
“Four, maybe.”
“Okay.” He nods. “I’ll be home before that.”
I step closer and adjust the collar of his hoodie. “Don’t fight the rookie too hard.”
“I don’t fight rookies.”
“You glare at them until they reconsider their life choices.”
“That’s mentorship.”
“Sure.”
He leans in and kisses me quickly. “Text me if you hear anything from Vinny.”
“I will.”
He grabs his keys, and I watch him head toward the door. For a stretch of minutes after it closes behind him, the loft is quiet in the most peaceful way. Coffee half finished. Toast crumbs on the counter. The television still murmuring softly about playoff seeding and injury reports.
It feels like any other morning, and maybe that’s the most radical thing about it.
I’m still standing in the kitchen when my phone buzzes against the counter. I expect Vinny again. Or maybe a studio notification.
It’s Miles with a single message.
Miles: You need to see this.
Followed by a link.
My stomach clenches before I even open it. I tap it anyway.
The video loads quickly. Different backdrop again. This one looks more polished—branded wall, better lighting, a host with a carefully sympathetic expression. The lower third identifies her by name.
Tammy Deacon.
I don’t like seeing it written out. I don’t like how neatly it fits into a chyron.
The clip begins mid-sentence.
“…and he’d sing them to me like they were just ours,” she says. “He told me what they meant. He said I understood him in a way no one else did.”
The host leans forward. “So these weren’t just public lyrics to you.”
“No,” she says softly. “We talked about them. Face-to-face. He’d say them directly to me.”
The screen cuts to a still frame of album art. A familiar line scrolls beneath it.
So touch me slow, before you go, make forever fit inside one night
My vision narrows. “What the fuck?” I say out loud to the empty apartment.
They’re my lyrics.
I wrote that in a hotel room in Chicago when Ollie and I were still trying to balance our new love and the distance of games and concerts.
I remember the carpet pattern. The smell of the coffee maker.
The way I sat on the edge of the bed and recorded the first draft into my phone because I thought if I didn’t capture it immediately, it would disappear.
She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere near my life when that song existed.
“She’s delusional,” I mutter.
But delusion doesn’t matter when it’s packaged cleanly. And fuck, the woman must have been a child when I actually wrote those lyrics. Fucking journalists who don’t do their research need to be held accountable.
The clip continues.
“He would say, ‘You’re the only one who really hears it,’” she adds. “Like I was part of it.”
My teeth grind so hard it hurts.
That line—you’re the only one who really hears it—was something I said once, years ago, into a mic during a live show when the crowd went quiet enough that I could hear myself think. It wasn’t whispered in some private room. It wasn’t shared over candlelight.
It was a throwaway comment into a thousand bodies and a sea of noise.
She’s stitching together fragments and calling it intimacy.
My phone buzzes again.
Miles: Call Rachael. Now.
I don’t hesitate, and she answers on the second ring.
“I’ve seen it,” she says before I can speak.
“What the hell is she doing in another interview?” I demand. “Who keeps booking her? Who’s feeding this?”
Her tone remains even. “Rafe.”
“She’s talking about my lyrics like they’re private conversations. They’re not. They’re songs. They’re public. And they’re really fucking old.”
“I know.”
“She’s delusional.”
“And we are not going to engage emotionally,” Rachael replies. “We’re addressing it legally.”
I pace the length of the kitchen and back, the morning’s calm shattered. “She’s violating the restraining order again.”
“We’re reviewing whether this constitutes contact under the existing terms,” she says. “Legal is on it.”
“On it?” I echo. “She’s on camera claiming, what, that we had a relationship?”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. No doubt Rachael gathering her thoughts, calculating.
“I want you back in LA,” she says finally. “We can manage this more effectively from here. Centralize press. Limit exposure. Control the narrative.”
I stop moving.
“No.”
Silence.
“Rafe,” she says carefully.
“No,” I repeat, steadier now. “I’m not leaving.”
“This isn’t about pride.”
“It’s not pride.”
“You’re escalating your presence in a situation that is already unstable.”
“I’m not escalating anything.”
“You being there increases proximity risk.”
“My husband has an away game tomorrow,” I say, my voice dropping into something that feels almost like steel. “And we have a day off the day after that.”
She knows what that means. It’s our anniversary. It’s publicly known now, and no longer something we pretend doesn’t exist.
“I’m not missing it,” I continue. “Not now. Not ever again.”
Rachael exhales slowly. She’s rarely met resistance from me like this. I don’t snap at her. I don’t override her strategy. I know better. She’s kept me alive through worse storms than this.
But this isn’t a press tour or a messy breakup headline.
This is us.
“I understand the sentiment,” she says. “But strategically—”
“I don’t care about strategy,” I cut in, then rein myself in. “I care about being there.”
There’s a beat of silence where she weighs the cost of pushing me further.
“Ollie has an away game tomorrow,” she says finally. “You’ll be traveling.”
“Yes.”
“And security?”
“Vinny’s coordinating with their team.”
Another pause.
“All right,” she says at last. “We’ll reinforce the legal response. I’ll have a statement drafted regarding the misuse of copyrighted material and false claims. You are not to comment publicly without review.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“And you stay with Vinny. No solo movement.”
“Understood.”
She softens slightly. “I know this is personal.”
“It is.”
“We will handle the legal side.”
“I know.”
I hang up and stand here for a moment, staring at the now-empty kitchen. The coffee has gone cold. The television is still murmuring about playoff standings.
Two days.
Two days until the anniversary we almost never get to have.
Ollie has an away game tomorrow. He has one day off after that.
We’ve already talked about it. Low-key. No spectacle. Maybe dinner. Maybe just staying in. Maybe finally acknowledging it without secrecy.
There is no version of this where I fly back to LA and let that date pass from a different time zone.
Not after everything.
Not after eight years of almost and never.
My phone buzzes again.
Ollie: Practice is a bitch. Is it bad that I’ve hidden for five minutes?
I stare at it for a second. Then I type back.
Me: Your shoulder playing up?
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Ollie: Nothing I can’t handle.
I exhale slowly. I’m not prepared to distract him from practice with any of this shit.
Me: Just look after yourself.
The reply comes seconds later.
Ollie: Will do. I think you’ll need to give me a massage when I get home. Just saying.
I smile, his ease loosening some of the stiffness in my shoulders.
Me: I’m sure I can manage that. Now get back to it before your coach goes after blood.
I set the phone down and drag a hand through my hair.
She thinks she can wedge herself into our narrative. She thinks she can take fragments of art and spin them into something intimate and believable. She doesn’t understand the difference between a song and a life.
And she definitely doesn’t understand this: I’m not hers or anyone’s but Ollie’s.