33. The Call #2
“Calloway’s advocating to the board. Sienna filed the pre-season disclosure as supporting evidence—the family history, the existing relationship, the fact that Addison handled most evaluations. The review should take two to three weeks.”
“And then?”
“Best case, I’m reinstated with conditions. A formal separation of duties for any season where a player and I have a pre-existing personal relationship.” He pauses. “Worst case, they don’t renew my contract in May. I coached one season. Built a ranked program. That goes on a resume regardless.”
The pragmatism should bother me. The fact that he’s already built the contingency, already mapped the failure scenario. But it doesn’t. It settles me. Because this isn’t Luke spiraling. This is Luke in fix-what’s-broken mode.
“Zane told me you were at the rink,” I say. “After the game.”
His eyebrows lift. “Zane has a big mouth.”
“Zane has a good heart. Also, he texted me this morning to say, and I quote, ‘Your boyfriend is dramatic but fixable. You’re welcome.’”
The laugh that escapes him is surprised and rough and real. The first one I’ve heard from him since before the world caught fire.
I stand up from the couch arm. Cross the kitchen.
“I’m going to Lake Placid in June,” I start, stopping just far enough to see his entire face. “I might be gone through February if I make the team. That’s nine months, Luke. Of distance. Of me being somewhere else.”
“I know the timeline.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
“I’m proud of it.” Said without hesitation. Without the shadow of the cost. “I told you in this kitchen two months ago. I’d wait forever.”
“You also told me in this kitchen that you wanted to lick chapstick off my lips. So your credibility in this room is mixed at best. ”
He grins. Full, real, devastating.
And now I kiss him.
It’s not the collision of two people who’ve been separated and can’t control themselves.
It’s steadier. The kiss of a woman who knows exactly where she stands and who she’s standing with.
His hands find my waist like it’s where home is, true north.
Mine find the back of his neck where his hair curls slightly and he makes that sound, low and involuntary, the one that lives in my memory bank alongside every other noise I’ve collected from this man’s throat over months of learning his language.
“Stay,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“Isn't that breaking rules?”
“And apparently, I break a lot of rules when it comes to you, Em.”
I can't argue with that.
So I stay. He orders pizza because his kitchen only contains protein shakes.
We eat on his couch with our legs tangled together, talking about things that aren’t hockey.
How his mom called from some place in Europe, concerned about the “internet situation” in a way that suggested Dakota explained social media to her using cryptocurrency metaphors.
About my organic chemistry professor who emailed asking if I needed an extension on my final paper, which was either compassionate or nosy, possibly both.
Normal things. Small things. The ordinary infrastructure of two lives that have been operating in crisis mode and are cautiously testing whether the ground holds under regular weight.
Then I lay in bed with the man I love, and for the first time, don’t have to pretend to anyone else this isn’t exactly where I want to be.
His arm snakes around my waist, thumb tracing the tattoo through my shirt because it’s where his hand always goes.
“I’m going to call Grayson this week,” he tells me.
I don’t respond right away. Let the sentence breathe.
“Not to fix it. I know I can’t fix it in one phone call. But Zane said something that stuck. About not letting Gray’s version of the story become the only one.”
“Grayson came to the game,” I offer. “Wore the hair tie.”
“I saw him in the stands. Almost lost it during the second period when he stood up after your third goal.” A pause. “He didn’t cheer. But he stood.”
I press closer. Feel his heartbeat against my spine.
“He’ll come around, Luke. ”
“Maybe.”
“He will. Because you’re the best person he knows, even when he’s too angry to admit it. And because I’ll make him. Aggressively. With guilt and emotional manipulation and possibly Sienna as an accomplice.”
His chest shakes with silent laughter. His arm tightens. His lips find the back of my neck.
“Get some sleep, Em. You’ve got a semester to finish and an Olympic camp to prepare for.”
“You get some sleep. Your eye bags have eye bags.”
“Charming.”
“You love it.”
“I love you.”
Three words. Said quietly, into my hair, with the casual weight of something that doesn’t need to be proved anymore.
Just maintained. Tended. Carried forward into whatever comes next: the review, the distance, the nine months of separate cities and shared purpose and the stubborn, unshakeable knowledge that the person on the other end of the phone is worth every mile.
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
And then silence. The good kind. The kind that doesn’t need filling. Two people in the dark, holding on. Not because the world is ending, but because it’s continuing.
And continuing together is the whole point.