Chapter Thirty-Three
Frankie
Frankie Callahan had not meant to say it.
You’re not fog.
The sentence had left her outside the library like a puck off a weird bounce, except it had landed exactly where she wanted it to.
On Coop.
In him.
She knew because his face had changed.
Not normal. Never normal.
But open in a way that made Frankie’s chest ache for reasons she refused to fully catalog while standing under fluorescent library lights with homework waiting.
So she had gone inside.
Strategic retreat.
Not panic.
Mostly.
Now she sat at a second-floor table with her laptop open, an unread assignment on the screen, and Coop’s face replaying in her head like film she had no business studying.
You’re not fog.
Not easy.
Not only useful.
Seen.
She had seen him.
That mattered.
Too much.
The big words were closer now.
Not yet, he had said.
Not because not true.
Frankie pressed her fingers against her eyes.
Absolutely not.
She was not going to become a girl who spiraled in the library over almost-love.
Almost-love was not an academic category.
Probably.
Her phone buzzed.
Birdie.
BIRDIE: I need emergency wording assistance.
Frankie stared at the message.
Then typed:
FRANKIE: No.
BIRDIE: You don’t know what it’s about.
FRANKIE: Asher.
Dots appeared.
Disappeared.
BIRDIE: Possibly.
Frankie looked at her assignment.
Then at the ceiling.
Fine.
Chaos was sometimes easier than feelings.
FRANKIE: Send draft.
Birdie sent a screenshot of a message thread.
Asher had written:
ASHER: Tell Brookfield’s goalie her glove save was rude. Respectfully.
Birdie had typed, unsent:
BIRDIE: Tell Westbridge’s assistant captain her face is rude. Disrespectfully.
Frankie closed her eyes.
Then deleted Birdie’s draft in her head.
FRANKIE: Do not send that.
BIRDIE: But true?
FRANKIE: Not relevant.
BIRDIE: Her face is tactically distracting.
Frankie almost laughed.
In the library.
Dangerous.
FRANKIE: Send: “She knows. Try sending a shot she doesn’t read next time.”
Birdie did not answer for thirty seconds.
Then:
BIRDIE: That is romantic violence.
FRANKIE: It is hockey.
BIRDIE: Same?
Frankie sighed.
FRANKIE: Do not ask me that.
BIRDIE: Sent.
A minute later:
BIRDIE: SHE SAID “NOTED, DECORATIVE MENACE.”
Frankie stared.
Then wrote:
FRANKIE: Book Three.
BIRDIE: I hate everyone.
FRANKIE: No, you don’t.
She froze.
The words sat on the screen.
No, you don’t.
Coop’s sentence.
The car after Westbridge.
Her answer.
I don’t.
Not at all.
Frankie swallowed and locked the phone.
Enough.
Homework.
She lasted nine minutes.
Then the chair across from her scraped back.
Frankie looked up, ready to murder a stranger.
Reese sat down.
Not a stranger.
Worse.
Captain.
Friend.
Reese had her own laptop and a coffee, but her eyes went straight to Frankie’s face.
Frankie narrowed hers. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You arrived with a face.”
“I have a face.”
“It’s involved.”
Reese set her coffee down. “You said something to Coop.”
Frankie stared. “Do you have surveillance?”
“No. Hayes.”
“Same thing.”
“Possibly.”
Frankie closed her laptop halfway. “What did Hayes say?”
“That Coop came into the dorm looking like someone had handed him a piece of himself back.”
Frankie’s throat tightened.
Too accurate.
“Hayes should write greeting cards for emotionally endangered athletes,” she said.
Reese smiled faintly. “He has range.”
Frankie looked away.
The library hummed around them. Pages turning. Keyboards clicking. A printer making a sound like it hated students.
Reese did not push.
Good captain.
Terrible friend.
Finally, Frankie said, “I told him he wasn’t fog.”
Reese’s expression softened.
Frankie pointed at her. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look proud.”
“I’m not proud.”
“Liar.”
“I’m glad.”
“Worse.”
Reese’s smile grew. “Probably.”
Frankie leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.
“He almost said it.”
Reese went still.
Frankie did not have to define it.
Some words had gravity.
“And he didn’t,” Frankie said.
Reese’s voice stayed quiet. “How did that feel?”
Frankie hated the question because it had too many answers.
Scary.
Relieving.
Frustrating.
Safe.
Like standing at the edge of the crease and realizing the shot was coming, but not yet, and maybe that was okay because her feet were set.
“Right,” she said.
Reese nodded.
“That’s good.”
“Mine,” Frankie said automatically.
“Yours.”
“And shared,” Frankie added, then regretted the entire English language.
Reese’s smile turned softer.
Frankie groaned. “Don’t.”
“I’m saying nothing.”
“You’re saying paragraphs with your eyebrows.”
“I learned from Hayes.”
“Unfortunate.”
Reese laughed quietly.
Frankie looked back at her screen, but the assignment still made no sense.
“What if I’m bad at it?” she asked.
Reese did not pretend not to understand.
“Love?”
Frankie flinched.
Not because the word was wrong.
Because it was large and alive and now sitting on the library table between them.
“Do not say it loudly.”
“I didn’t.”
“You said it normally.”
“I’ll whisper next time.”
“No next time.”
Reese took a sip of coffee. “You won’t be bad at it because you’re careful.”
“I’m sharp.”
“Yes.”
“I leave.”
“Sometimes.”
“I shut down.”
“Less than before.”
Frankie looked at her.
Reese’s face was steady.
“You also come back,” Reese said.
That one hit.
Frankie looked down.
She did come back.
To the rink.
To the team.
To Coop.
To hard conversations she used to avoid by calling them inefficient.
“What if careful isn’t enough?” Frankie asked.
Reese closed her laptop fully.
“Then you repair.”
Frankie’s jaw tightened.
“Sounds simple.”
“It’s not.”
“No.”
“But it’s what people do when they’re trying for real.”
Trying for real.
That sounded exactly like the kind of thing that could wreck a person.
Frankie looked through the library window at the dark campus outside.
“Hayes and I still get it wrong,” Reese said.
Frankie looked back, surprised.
Reese’s mouth curved. “Shocking, I know.”
“You two look annoyingly functional.”
“We are. And sometimes we misunderstand. Or overprotect. Or make assumptions because we remember who the other person used to be under pressure.”
Frankie absorbed that.
“And?”
“And then we tell the truth and fix it.”
“Gross.”
“Yes.”
“Effective?”
“Mostly.”
Frankie considered.
Repair.
Again.
Of course.
Hockey language everywhere.
“You’re saying love is rebound control,” Frankie said.
Reese stared at her.
Then laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth.
Frankie scowled. “I hate that.”
“I’m telling Wren.”
“No.”
“I have to.”
“No.”
Reese wiped her eyes. “That was horrible and perfect.”
“Delete it from memory.”
“Impossible.”
Frankie opened her laptop. “This conversation is over.”
Reese was still smiling. “Okay.”
“Stop looking at me.”
“I’m reading.”
“You’re glowing.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is when captains become smug.”
Reese gave her a calm, captainly look.
Frankie lasted three seconds before her own mouth twitched.
All of it.
Later, after she had completed exactly one-third of her assignment and received three more Birdie texts about Asher’s punctuation choices, Frankie packed her bag and left the library.
The air outside was colder than expected.
She shoved her hands into her sleeves and immediately regretted returning Coop’s gloves.
Her phone buzzed.
Coop.
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Did you finish homework or emotionally defeat it?
Frankie smiled.
No point denying it.
FRANKIE: Partial defeat.
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Victory-adjacent.
FRANKIE: Barely.
A pause.
Then:
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: I keep thinking about what you said.
Frankie stopped under the library awning.
Her pulse kicked.
FRANKIE: Good or bad?
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Good. Big. Yours? Mine? Shared?
Her chest warmed.
FRANKIE: Shared.
Dots.
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Yeah.
She stared at the word until the cold reached her fingers.
Then typed:
FRANKIE: I keep thinking about what you didn’t say.
The dots appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Good or bad?
Frankie swallowed.
FRANKIE: Right.
His reply came slower.
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Good.
Then:
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Shared?
She closed her eyes.
FRANKIE: Shared.
For a minute, neither of them texted.
Frankie stood in the cold, phone glowing in her hand, feeling the shape of something not yet spoken and already true.
Then Coop wrote:
VALE - PROBABLY EARLY: Walk you home?
Frankie looked toward her apartment across campus.
She could walk alone.
She had walked alone plenty.
She could carry herself.
Open her own doors.
Set her own boundaries.
Mute her own father.
Stop her own pucks.
None of that made wanting him beside her weakness.
That was apparently the lesson.
Useful.
FRANKIE: Yes.
He appeared nine minutes later.
Breathing slightly hard.
Hair messy.
No coffee.
No pastry.
Holding gloves.
Frankie stared.
“You ran.”
“No.”
“You’re breathing like a liar.”
“I walked urgently.”
“Bad.”
“Accurate?”
“Worse.”
He held out the gloves.
She took them.
“Do you own multiple pairs?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Hands.”
“Too simple.”
“Cold.”
“Better.”
She pulled them on.
They started walking.
Not talking at first.
Campus lights glowed across the paths, and frost edged the grass. Somewhere in the distance, people shouted near the rink.
Probably Nolan.
Statistically likely.
Coop walked close but did not reach for her hand because she was wearing his gloves, and maybe he was letting that be enough.
Frankie decided it was not.
She took his hand anyway.
His fingers closed carefully around the glove.
“You ran,” she said.
“Urgently walked.”
“Why?”
He looked down at the path.
Then at her.
“Because you said yes.”
Oh.
That was unfair.
“You’re annoying,” she said.
“I know.”
“You say very good things.”
“I try.”
“Stop being good at it.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
He smiled faintly.
Not easy.
Not fog.
Him.
“I talked to Reese,” Frankie said.
“Should I be afraid?”
“Moderately.”