Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
The first thing I did the next morning was text Dani.
We need boundaries.
It wasn’t an elegant message, but it got the point across. I needed a line, a bright, unmistakable one, and I needed her to respect it. Because every time we blurred the edges, I felt myself slipping.
She didn’t respond for hours, which left me restless and on edge. By the time I made it to the practice facility, I’d checked my phone more times than I cared to admit.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to find her waiting for me. She was standing outside of the team’s weight room, her eyes already locked on me as I approached.
“Boundaries?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, boundaries.” I squared my shoulders, willing myself to stay firm. “I think we need them.”
She nodded slowly, but the glint in her eye told me she wasn’t taking this nearly as seriously as I was. “Okay. Let’s hear them.”
I opened my notebook, half-hoping the act of consulting it would make me feel more in control. “No more personal conversations during work hours.”
Her lips quirked. “Define ‘personal.’”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Alright, alright.” She held up her hands in mock surrender, although the smile never left her face. “What else?”
I hesitated, the next rule sticking in my throat. “No … no flirting.”
At that, she went still. Her gaze dropped to the floor for a moment before lifting back to mine. “No flirting,” she repeated, her voice quieter.
“Right.” I swallowed hard, trying not to falter under her scrutiny.
“That’s going to be tough for me.”
“Dani—”
“I mean it, Reese.” She straightened and the teasing lilt left her tone. “Do you think I can just turn this off? Pretend I don’t feel the way I feel?”
“You said you wanted to be friends,” I shot back, my frustration slipping through.
“I do,” she said, her voice firm but gentle. “But it’s not just that. I want—” She cut herself off and took a breath. “I’ll try, okay? I’ll try to keep things professional. But don’t ask me to stop caring.”
I felt my resolve weakening, but I couldn’t let it crumble. “We’re not in college anymore, Dani. We can’t just …”
“Can’t just what?” she challenged. “Be honest about how we feel?”
“This is my career,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “I’ve worked too hard to let anything jeopardize it.”
Her jaw tightened. “I get it. Hockey’s my career, too.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “But don’t pretend this is only about work. You’re scared. I can see it.”
“I’m not scared.” My voice trembled just enough to betray me. “But I have rules.”
She arched an eyebrow, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I don’t date athletes.”
“I see.” I watched her chest rise and fall with a deep inhalation. “And how long have you had this rule?”
I swallowed thickly. “Fifteen years.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I don’t suppose that timeline is a coincidence.”
“No one since you.”
Dani was quiet for a moment, perhaps processing the new information.
“You know …” she started slowly. “I won’t always be an athlete.”
I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not with her, especially.
I have a rule.
It sounded so unreasonable when I said the words out loud. But my rules had served me well over the past decade and a half. I’d accomplished everything I’d set out to do by sticking to those rules. Dani Callahan wasn’t the only professional athlete to have flirted with me.
Her eyes softened, and for a moment, I hated how easily she could read me. “Well, if you change your mind about those rules, let me know.”
Without another word, she turned and walked back into the weight room, leaving me standing there with my notebook clutched to my chest and my emotions in a tangled mess.
I tried to focus on work after that.
I really did.
I gathered quotes from the assistant coach, recorded a quick stand-up near the boards, and spent twenty minutes typing notes into my laptop in the nearly empty media room.
But Dani lingered in the back of my mind like a song I couldn’t stop hearing.
By the time I finally packed up my bag and headed toward the parking lot, the sun had dipped low behind the practice facility.
And Dani was still there.
She leaned against the hood of her car, arms folded, like she’d been waiting the entire time.
“You said no personal conversations during work hours,” she said calmly as I approached. “Workday’s over.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yes—and?”
“There’s a dumpling place three blocks from here,” she cut in. “You can’t say no to dumplings. It’s a universal rule.”
I didn’t bother arguing. Either Dani’s dogged persistence was wearing me down, or you really couldn’t say no to dumplings. Either way, I sat across from Dani in a narrow booth and reached for a dumpling before the steam had even finished curling out of the bamboo basket.
The restaurant was small—four tables, a fogged-up front window, and the steady hiss of something frying in the kitchen. A couple sat near the door sharing a bowl of noodles, and a college kid in a BU sweatshirt scrolled through his phone at the counter.
For a few blissful minutes, the only sounds at our table were the soft clink of chopsticks and the rustle of the paper wrappers the dumplings came in.
“This is good,” I admitted begrudgingly.
“I know,” Dani said, leaning back against the booth with a satisfied expression.
I shook my head. “I kept meaning to go grocery shopping this week.”
“And?”
“And I kept not doing it.”
She snorted. “Shocking.”
When the last dumpling disappeared, Dani didn’t reach for the check. Instead, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, her attention settling on me in a way that made my pulse stutter.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“Dangerous territory,” I quipped.
She smirked but didn’t take the bait. “I know you’re trying to keep things professional between us, and I respect that. But there’s a difference between respecting your boundaries and pretending like we don’t have history.”
I blinked, caught off guard.
“I’m not saying we have to pick up where we left off,” she continued, her tone softer now. “I’m just saying … I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
It was the kind of declaration I hadn’t expected—confident but without pressure. She wasn’t asking me for anything, but she’d laid the truth bare in a way I couldn’t ignore.
“It’s been a long time, Dani,” I said. “We don’t know each other anymore.”
She leaned forward even more. “Then why do you feel so familiar? Why do you feel like home?”
“How are you so certain?”
I heard her take a breath, as if readying herself.
“I’m retiring soon. Not at the end of this season,” she qualified, “but I only have a few more years left on these legs. Boston isn’t going to trade me. I only signed with them if they put a no-trade clause in my contract. The only way I’m leaving is if it’s my decision.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because I have a hunch.”
“A hunch,” I echoed.
“I have a hunch that you’d be amenable to dating me again, but you’re afraid what happened last time might happen again.”
“Amenable,” I repeated.
“Open to.”
“I know what it means,” I scoffed. “I’m a journalist, remember?”
“Then you should also remember that I’ve never been a dumb jock.”
I vividly remembered how easily she’d devoured books in college, how she could quote poetry and then skate circles around people an hour later.
She was a wonder, actually. Beautiful. Smart. Hard-working. Kind.
Yeah.
I was amenable to all of it.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper.
“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Dani said gently. “But maybe stop convincing yourself that you can’t.”
The table between us suddenly felt too small.
I could feel the moment stretching—fragile, electric. My eyes dropped briefly to her mouth before I caught myself.
Dani noticed.
Of course she noticed.
She slid out of the booth and pulled a few bills from her wallet, dropping them beside the check.
“Thanks for the dumplings,” I said weakly.
She flashed that maddeningly charming grin. “Anytime.”
And then she was gone, disappearing out into the cool night air while I stayed behind at the table with a stomach full of dumplings and a head full of what-ifs.
When I finally got home, the quiet felt heavier than usual. I dropped my bag on the couch and stared at the empty space across from me, replaying the evening in my head.
Her words echoed in my mind: I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.
What was I supposed to do with that?
I knew what Dani wanted. She wasn’t playing games; she wasn’t hiding her intentions behind coy smiles or meaningless small talk. She was laying it all out for me, steady and assured, like the captain she’d been her whole life.
I rubbed a hand over my face and sank onto my couch, letting my head fall back against the cushions.
You don’t have to decide tonight, but maybe stop convincing yourself that you can’t.
The worst part—the part that made my chest tighten—was that she was right. I was convincing myself that I couldn’t. That it was safer to keep things platonic, to pretend we didn’t have this messy, complicated history binding us together.
I thought back to the last time we’d seen each other before I’d returned to Boston. It had been at her college graduation party, a warm May night in Maine that smelled of lilacs and impending freedom.
We’d stood on her parents’ front porch, the celebration raging inside, and talked about the future in clipped, stilted phrases.
Neither of us had wanted to admit it, but we knew we were at an end.
She had the Olympics and Team USA in her sights, and I had a summer internship lined up with a news station in Kansas City.
We’d told ourselves that it was the right call—that long-distance would only hurt more.
I’d thought I was protecting myself back then, too.
I’m not the same person I was back then, I told myself.
But neither was Dani.
She was calmer now, steadier. Her fire hadn’t dimmed, but it burned with a more focused heat. She wasn’t a 21-year-old hotshot with a highlight reel and a world of opportunities at her feet. She was 36, near the twilight of her career, but still every bit as magnetic.
She’s not going anywhere.
The thought made my chest ache. Because as much as I wanted to believe it, to lean into her certainty and let myself fall, I wasn’t sure if I trusted her—or myself—to make it work.
I curled my legs beneath me, wrapping my arms around a throw pillow, and pressed my face into the fabric. My career had always been my safe space. Facts, deadlines, and polished segments I could control. Dani Callahan was the opposite of safe, the opposite of predictable.
And yet, there was a part of me—quiet but persistent—that whispered she might be worth the risk.
I sighed, the sound heavy and resigned. “What am I going to do with you, Dani?”