Chapter 20 #3
My agent calls later, just to “check in.” He asks how I’m feeling, how my body is holding up, how I’m liking my minutes. It’s too casual. Too timed.
I tell myself it’s noise.
I tell myself it’s nothing.
I don’t tell Rafe.
Not because I’m hiding it maliciously, but because I can’t handle another big talk. I can’t handle Rafe reacting to uncertainty when we already feel like we’re balancing on a wire. I can’t give him one more reason to look at me like I’m slipping away.
So I keep it to myself and call it protection. I’ll tell him when it’s real.
After another win, after another round of “good job” from people who don’t know what it costs me to be steady, I sit on my hotel bed and stare at my phone. My thumb hovers over the mic icon.
I don’t want to say something polished. I don’t want to say something safe. I want to say something true.
I press Record.
“I miss you,” I say quietly.
Three words. Bare and unarmored. I send it before I can talk myself out of it. Hours pass, and I fall asleep with the phone on my chest like a stupid teenager. When I wake up, there’s a voice note waiting. I press Play, my heart in my throat.
Rafe’s voice fills the room, low and tired. “I miss you too,” he says.
There’s a pause, like he’s considering adding more. He doesn’t. The message ends.
And the longing in his voice isn’t soft. It’s weary, like missing me has started to feel like debt.
I’m sitting on the edge of the hotel bed in sweats, phone in my hand, ice pressed to my knee because it’s angry again. The TV is on without volume. Some late-night show flickers across the screen, laughter I can’t hear.
My phone buzzes. It’s Eric.
I stare at his name, breathing turning shallow before I even answer. Like my body knows what I’m about to hear before my brain is willing to accept it. I pick up. “Hey.”
His voice is too steady. Too calm. “You got a minute?”
My stomach twists. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” A pause. The sound of paper shifting. “I’m going to loop in the team. They’re on.”
A second later, another voice joins—our GM. Then someone from player relations. Then someone whose title I don’t catch because the blood rush in my ears makes everything sound far away.
“Oliver,” the GM says. “Appreciate you taking the call.”
I swallow. My mouth is dry. “Sure.”
There’s another tiny pause, like they’re lining up words in the correct order. “We’re going to make a move,” he says.
The phrasing is clinical. Like we’re discussing inventory.
I grip the edge of the mattress. “Okay.”
“We’ve been approached,” he continues, “and we’ve agreed to terms. You’re being traded.”
It’s almost anticlimactic in the way he says it. No buildup. No sympathy. Just a statement, like telling me the bus is leaving at eight.
For a second, I don’t understand English. Then my stomach drops through the floor, and I feel cold all the way to my fingertips. “To… where?” I ask, voice rough.
The GM says it like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t contain a whole future. “Minnesota Eagles.”
The words sit in the air like a block of ice.
Minnesota.
Cold. Far. A different time zone. A different everything.
Eric’s voice cuts in, practical. “They’ll send paperwork. You’ll get your travel itinerary. Reporting date is in ten days. You’ll fly out after our next home stand.”
Ten days.
My heart hammers. “Ten days?”
“Yes,” the player relations guy says. “We’ll coordinate with your current housing. We’ll work with your reps. The receiving team will provide temporary accommodation until you secure something permanent.”
Temporary. Everything feels temporary suddenly, even my skin.
The GM clears his throat. “This isn’t about performance,” he says, and I almost laugh because of course it’s about performance, it’s always about performance, but not in the way he means. “We value you. This is a business decision.”
Business.
I stare at the carpet, jaw tight, because if I let my face move, I might make a sound I can’t take back.
Eric asks, “You got questions, Ollie?”
A hundred. A thousand.
I have one that matters, and I can’t ask it because it isn’t about contracts or logistics. It’s about what happens when the person you love is in another country and you’re about to be halfway across the continent.
Instead, I say, “When does it go public?”
The GM replies, “We’re aiming for tomorrow morning. We’ll want you available for a brief media statement. Nothing extensive. We’ll script it.”
Scripted. Of course.
“Okay,” I say, because “okay” is what I’m good at.
More voices. More scheduling. Someone mentions a press window. Someone mentions a jersey number. Someone mentions “transition support,” like they’re moving me to a new department.
My brain can’t catch up.
Finally, the GM says, “We appreciate everything you’ve done here,” like it’s a goodbye.
I swallow and nod. “Yeah,” I manage. “Thanks.”
The call ends in a cluster of polite noises, and the room goes silent.
I don’t move for a long time. I sit on the edge of the bed with my phone in my hand, screen dark now, staring at my knee like I can force myself to feel something normal.
Minnesota. The word repeats in my head in a slow loop.
My chest feels tight. My hands are cold. My heart is beating too fast, too loud, like it’s trying to outrun the truth. I should call Rafe. I should tell him right now. He’s my husband.
The thought lands heavy and sharp, because being someone’s husband is supposed to mean they get to know things. Big things. Life things. The kind of thing that changes the map of your world.
I stare at his name in my recent calls. My thumb hovers. If I tell him now, he’ll hear it as me leaving. If I don’t tell him now, it becomes betrayal.
There’s no good option. There’s just the one that hurts less in the moment. I choose the coward’s middle ground.
I tell myself I’ll wait until after the media statement. Until I’ve spoken to PR. Until I’ve got details. Until I can present it like a plan instead of a wound.
Until there’s a better time.
There isn’t.
My phone buzzes again. It’s a message from our team PR coordinator.
Gerry: Need you downstairs in conference room B in 20. We’ll prep statement. Please do not post online or comment.
My stomach twists, and I shove the phone face down on the bed like it’s guilty.
Somewhere far away, Rafe is stepping onto a stage. Or stepping off one. Or sitting on a bus, still buzzing, still glowing, still moving through a life that is loud and full of people. And I’m here, alone in a hotel room, holding a future I didn’t ask for.
When my phone rings again, I nearly flinch off the bed. Rafe’s name fills the screen, and my pulse stutters. For a second, I just stare, frozen between dread and relief.
Then I answer. “Hey.”
“Baby,” he says, and my chest aches at the word.
His voice hits my ear like heat. Bright. Alive. There’s noise behind him—muffled voices, distant music, someone laughing. He sounds like he’s walking, like he can’t stay still.
“We just got offstage and—fuck, this crowd was insane. Like, stupid insane. You would’ve hated it because you’d have been making that face you make when you’re overwhelmed, but also you would’ve loved it because—” He laughs, breathless.
“They knew the bridge to ‘Graveyard Halo.’ Like, every word. I swear I blacked out for a second.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He’s smiling. I can hear it in his voice. “And we met with this festival promoter after and—okay, don’t freak out—but there’s a chance we get slotted into this international run next summer. Like, bigger than we planned. Rach is losing her mind in a good way.”
“That’s… great,” I say, and my voice sounds wrong. Flat. Distant.
There’s a beat. Rafe’s tone shifts immediately, the buzz fading like someone turned a dial. “Where are you?”
I drag a hand over my face. “Hotel.”
“What hotel?” he presses, and now there’s caution in his voice. “What city?”
I close my eyes. “Still on the road. Same as last night.”
Rafe doesn’t buy it. He never has when I sound like this. “Ollie,” he says quietly. “Why do you sound like that?”
“Like what?” I try.
“Like you’re reading off a script,” he says. “Like you’re not… here.”
My fingers curl into the blanket. “I’m fine.”
A pause. Then, softer, “What’s wrong?”
Nothing. The same old lie rises to my lips because it’s muscle memory, because it’s easier than the truth, because I’m tired. But the truth is sitting in my gut like a weight, pressing up into my chest until it’s hard to breathe.
I can’t keep it in. Not while he’s talking about the future like it’s something we get to plan together.
My voice comes out rough. “I got traded.”
Silence. The kind where a person stops existing for a beat because their brain can’t process what they just heard.
“What?” Rafe finally says, very softly.
I swallow hard. My throat hurts. “I got traded.”
Another beat follows. Then his voice—still quiet, but different now, sharper and hurt under the calm. “To where?”
“Minnesota.”
I hear him inhale. The sound is thin, like it cuts him. “When?” he asks.
“Official tomorrow. They told me tonight.”
“How long have you known that’s a possibility?” Rafe’s voice is too controlled. That’s how I know it’s bad.
“Not long,” I say quickly. “Just—just now for sure. It happened fast.”
He exhales, and the breath is shaky. “You didn’t tell me there were rumors.”
My stomach twists. “I didn’t want to stress you.”
There’s a pause, and when he speaks again, his voice is low, edged with something that feels like betrayal. “Ollie,” he says, “I’m your husband.”
The words land clean, the same way his line did months ago—“I don’t want to be your secret forever.” No accusation, just truth, placed between us like something fragile and unavoidable.
My hearts thumps heavily. “I know.”
“Do you?” he asks, quiet and deadly calm. “Because husbands tell each other when their lives are about to change.”
“I didn’t know,” I insist, desperation creeping in. “I didn’t know for sure. I—”
“You didn’t tell me,” he repeats, and it isn’t loud, but it’s final in a way that makes my chest ache.
I press my palm against my forehead, trying to hold myself together. “I was going to. I just—Rafe, I didn’t want to make it worse.”
He laughs once, short and humorless. “Make it worse.”
“It’s not like that,” I say, too fast. “I’m not leaving you.”
He goes quiet again. I can hear the world behind him—voices, movement, someone calling his name. A life that doesn’t pause for my panic.
Rafe’s voice comes back, forced steady. “I have to go.”
My heart lurches. “Rafe—”
“I have to go to a meet and greet,” he says, and the sentence feels like a wall. “They’re calling me.”
I can hear it then—the muffled roar of a crowd, distant but real, like an ocean through the phone. Thousands of people waiting for him. A sea between us.
“Please,” I say, and my voice breaks. “Just—don’t hang up like this.”
Rafe exhales. “We’re always like this.”
“That’s not fair,” I whisper.
“Isn’t it?” His voice is tired now, not angry, which feels worse. “I love you, Ollie. But I can’t—” He stops, and I can hear him swallow. “I have to go.”
The call ends.
No goodbye.
No resolution.
Just the dead sound of disconnection.
I sit with my phone in my hand, staring at the blank screen until my vision blurs. A notification pops up almost immediately, telling me I have a new email.
Welcome to the Minnesota Eagles organization.
My stomach turns.
Another follows: Travel itinerary attached.
Another: Media availability tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.
My thumb hovers over the screen like I could delete the future if I press hard enough.
I set the phone down on the bed and stare at the wall. This isn’t just a trade. It’s the universe taking the private fracture we’ve been pretending we can manage and forcing it into the open. It’s distance becoming destiny. It’s a map redrawn without my consent.
And I don’t even know how to begin telling Rafe what Minnesota will do to us. I don’t even know if he’ll let me try.