Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Iwoke to the smell of eggs and coffee, warm sunlight spilling across the room, and the quiet hum of the city outside. My first thought was lazy and predictable.
Dani.
She was at the kitchenette, her back to me, turning something in a frying pan like some kind of goddamn domestic goddess. And she was wearing the most criminally distracting combination of t-shirt and cotton boy shorts.
The t-shirt hung loose on her shoulders, soft fabric falling in a way that made me want to trace every line of it with my fingertips.
But it was the shorts—oh, God, the shorts—that did me in.
They rode high, hugging the curve of her hips, stretching over her thighs in a way that was pure power and softness at once.
I couldn’t help it. I stared. My eyes roamed from the swell of her ass under the soft cotton, up the muscular but feminine line of her thighs, to the back of her t-shirt where the fabric clung just slightly against the slope of her shoulder blades.
“Morning,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. Her eyebrow arched just slightly, like she knew I’d been ogling her. Her voice was soft and teasing, like she’d caught me, and she liked it.
“Morning,” I croaked, my throat suddenly dry.
I tried to look casual, but it was hopeless. Every muscle in my body was suddenly alert, noticing the flex in her legs as she shifted, the little curve of her waist as she leaned to grab a spatula, the way her chestnut hair caught the sunlight.
She didn’t turn around or acknowledge the obvious effect she had on me, but I could feel her presence, commanding me, coaxing me awake in more ways than one.
I slid out of bed, bare feet against the cool floor, my heart thumping like a drum in my chest. She handed me a plate, still focused on the pan, but I was barely aware of the food.
My gaze kept snapping back to her: the way the t-shirt rode up a little when she reached, revealing the smooth line of her lower back; the tiny dip of her spine just above her shorts; the way her thighs flexed with each step across the tiny kitchen.
I wanted to reach out and touch her, right here and now. But I didn’t—because I knew that every look, every second of quiet observation, would make her grin that little devilish grin reserved for moments like this.
And yes, she did grin.
“Hungry?” she asked, still soft, still teasing, still completely capable of making my knees weak with a single word.
“Starving,” I admitted, my voice rough.
My fingers itched to brush along her hip, to linger on the curve of her ass, to trace the strong, lean lines of her thighs. She was mesmerizing—dangerously so—and for a moment, I thought I might combust right there in the sunlight with the smell of eggs and coffee all around us.
The windows were cracked just enough to let in some welcomed cooler air.
The street hummed below us with the occasional car passing or the sound of a distant horn.
Sunlight stretched across the table in long, scattered lines, catching in Dani’s hair, turning the darker strands warmer at their edges.
She sat across from me, one knee tucked up slightly in her chair, her bare foot hooked against the lower rung.
She’d finally thrown on a pair of sweats over the shorts, which felt like a personal attack, honestly, but the t-shirt was still there—still soft, still loose, still distracting enough that I kept losing my train of thought mid-bite.
“You’re staring again,” she said, not looking up from her eggs and toast.
“I’m not,” I said automatically.
Her mouth curved.
I dropped my guilty eyes to my plate. “You made breakfast in that outfit. What did you expect?”
She laughed under her breath. “I expected you to have some self-control, Reese.”
My gaze returned to the front of her shirt; she very obviously wasn’t wearing a bra. Tightened nipples made themselves known beneath the thin fabric of the shirt.
“Unrealistic expectation,” I muttered.
“Clearly,” she chuckled.
It was easy. Maybe too easy. There was no awkwardness left, no careful distance, no fear that we were experimenting with something volatile that could blow up in both of our faces.
Dani reached across the table. Her fingers brushed mine as she stole a piece of bacon off my plate.
“Hey!” I complained.
“Were you going to eat that?”
“No,” I answered honestly.
She took a bite of the bacon like it was a piece of jerky and grinned triumphantly.
My phone buzzed somewhere behind me, but I ignored it.
Dani didn’t react, which made it easier to pretend I hadn’t heard the noise. Whatever it was could wait. Work could wait. The outside world could wait.
My phone buzzed again, longer this time. I shifted slightly in my seat, trying to ignore the impulse to see what it was.
“Do you need to check that?” she asked.
“It’s probably nothing,” I dismissed. “Or it’s my boss being annoying.”
“Mm.”
She went back to her coffee, but the third buzz came almost immediately.
I sighed and pushed back from the table just enough to reach for my bag where I’d dropped it near the kitchen counter. “If it’s work,” I excused, “I should at least make sure it’s not something I need to follow up on.”
“Yeah,” she said easily. “Go ahead.”
I fished my phone out of my bag, my brain shifting gears to work whether I wanted it to or not.
The notification sat at the top of my screen, bright and unavoidable.
Photos from last night: Dani Callahan debuts mystery date.
Another notification was stacked beneath it.
Who is Reese Marlowe? Inside the reporter linked to hockey’s biggest star.
My stomach dropped.
I tapped the first headline. Images from the previous night loaded on my phone.
Red carpet shots of the two of us. Candids from inside the venue.
There was one of Dani with her hand at my back, guiding me through the crowd.
One photo caught us laughing at something with Cat and her wife, Alexa.
In another, I was staring at Dani like I had cartoon hearts in my eyes.
I quickly skimmed the article for context. The reporter had connected our names and had pulled all of my bylines. Fifteen years of grinding had been reduced to a footnote.
Regional sports reporter Reese Marlowe …
Seen accompanying Callahan throughout the evening …
Sources suggest the two have recently reconnected …
Reader comments were already starting to populate at the bottom of the story.
“Reese.” Dani’s voice cut in. “What is it?”
I turned the phone toward her, my throat dry. “Well. That didn’t take long.”
She leaned in, her eyes scanning the story quickly. “It’s clickbait, babe. You can’t have thin skin in this industry.”
“I know that,” I bristled. “I’ve got fifteen years in this business.” The frustration boiled over faster than I could rein it in. “But no one is going to care about that. All they’re going to see is Reese Marlowe—hockey player girlfriend.”
Her gaze shifted from the phone to me. “What do you want to do?”
“I’m locking down my social media,” I said. My thumb was already moving before I’d fully decided anything. “I’ll set everything to private before it gets worse.”
“And then what?”
I let out a breath. “Wait it out? Let this burn through the news cycle?”
Her eyes didn’t leave me. “And us?”
“The cat’s out of the bag, I guess,” I said, aiming for something lighter than I felt. “No sense breaking up now.”
Dani frowned deeply. “You’d really consider that? Breaking up over some headlines?”
“They’re not just headlines, Dani. It’s my career,” I tried to explain. “You’ve already achieved your professional goals. But I feel like I’m just getting started.”
She chewed on her lower lip, her gaze dropping before coming back to me. “I guess I didn’t think about that. Maybe we’re at different places in our lives.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“I might need to think more about this,” she said.
“Are-are you actually being serious?” I sputtered. “After all of that pursuing, and now you need time to think things over?”
Her jaw tightened, just slightly. “Neither of us should jump back into this relationship without thinking it through. You weren’t the only one crushed the first time around.”
I bit my lip instead of responding. She wasn’t wrong. And I didn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t make this worse.
By the time I got back to my apartment, I already knew what I shouldn’t do. But that didn’t stop me from doing it. I barely registered dropping my bag by the door, barely noticed kicking off my shoes somewhere in the general direction of the coat closet. My phone was still in my hand.
I sank onto the couch and stared at the screen like I might still choose differently.
I didn’t.
I opened the article again. The same photos were posted with the same framing, but now there were more links branching off from it—other news outlets picking up the story, plucking at different threads like it was something worth dissecting.
Who is Reese Marlowe?
The Reporter Behind Dani Callahan’s Latest Public Appearance.
From Regional Coverage to National Spotlight.
I clicked one story and then another. They’d pulled my old segments. Linked my bylines. Dug up photos from years ago that had nothing to do with this and tried to stitch them into something that did.
I scrolled. And then, like an idiot, I tapped on the comments. I knew better. God, I knew better.
Never heard of her.
This is why women’s sports don’t get taken seriously.
Conflict of interest much?
Hope she enjoys the free publicity.
Congrats on sleeping your way into relevance.
Callahan deserves better than some media leech.
My phone buzzed again with a notification about another article. I didn’t open it this time, but I watched the notification banner stack on top of everything else, the screen filling up with versions of the same story, over and over again.