Chapter 5 #2
“He’s a tyrant,” Cole said, and then he caught sight of me.
He stopped mid-stride. His eyes dropped to my watch, rose to my face, and stayed there just long enough for me to lose track of the number I was writing down.
“Kate,” he said.
“Callahan.”
Marcus looked between the two of us. “You two know each other?”
“It’s a small world,” I said.
Cole set his water bottle on the table, well away from my notebook.
“Seattle’s overrated in size.”
Priya made a sound that could have been a cough. Marcus took the chair next to Joel.
“I’m Marcus Webb,” he said, offering a hand across the table. “And in case anyone needs clarification, I have no idea what just happened.”
“Priya Nair,” she said. “Delighted not to be the only one.”
I shook Marcus’s hand. Cole took a seat two chairs down from me, not beside me. Proper. Professional. It annoyed me how grateful I was for the distance.
The meeting continued. Tessa pitched a splashy launch day.
Joel explained that the club already partnered with youth centers in Rainier Valley and White Center, but volunteers were inconsistent once the regular season intensified.
Cole didn’t try to dominate the room. He leaned forward, listening with the towel twisted between his hands.
“Don’t promise players at every event,” he said when Joel finished. “Promise a staff that answers calls even when we’re on an away trip.”
Tessa turned to him. “Player presence is half the draw.”
“Yeah. But there’s no point drawing them in if there’s nobody there to take care of them.”
The phrasing was nearly identical to what I’d told Diane that morning. I looked up. Cole didn’t meet my eyes; he was staring at the screen like it was a match replay he didn’t like.
“That’s exactly what we need to build,” I said. “Making sure the initial momentum leads to care, not just a photo.”
Joel nodded and jotted something down. “Good. Then the pilot won’t be a one-off appearance. It’ll be a coordinated follow-up pathway with two clinics and our existing community partners.”
My grip on the notebook loosened. We talked for another forty minutes: budget allocations, data privacy, player scheduling.
Priya got Tessa to admit they hadn’t budgeted for medical interpreters.
Marcus asked if lunch would be provided on outreach days, and Joel told him that belonged on the next agenda.
When the video call ended, Marcus stood and hitched a thumb toward Cole.
“He knows where the locker room is. If you need a walkthrough of the facility, stick with him.”
“I don’t usually get lost,” I said.
“That’s what they all say before opening the wrong door and walking in on twenty guys in an ice bath.”
“Marcus,” Cole warned.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Priya packed up her laptop. “Me too. I need to get the partner roster from Joel before he decides an intake form counts as emotional support.”
Joel laughed, said his goodbyes, and followed her into the corridor. I stayed by the window, pretending to review my action items. Cole pulled the door shut behind them.
He wasn’t standing close. Even so, I could hear water droplets falling from his damp hair onto the linoleum.
“I didn’t know this was your project,” I said.
“It’s not mine. I just play here.”
“Your modesty has strange boundaries.”
“Want to see the gym? It’s part of the space we’re trying not to treat like a photo studio.”
I weighed the offer for two seconds too long. “Five minutes.”
“Five.”
The gym smelled of chalk and warm iron. Stationary bikes lined the mirrored wall, barbells rested on heavy racks, and a row of open cubbies held mud-caked boots.
Cole walked beside me without brushing against me.
I held the notebook tight against my ribs, as if my risk assessment could shield me from anything.
“About this morning,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for sending a calendar invite.”
“I’m not thanking you for the invite. I’m thanking you for wanting me there.”
No comeback came to mind. I stared at an empty exercise bike, its dark display, a jump rope coiled on the rubber mat.
“You don’t have to say anything profound,” Cole added. “Or anything right now.”
“Good, because I don’t have a speech prepared.”
“That might be an advantage.”
I looked at him. He had a smudge of turf across his knee, and the pale scar through his eyebrow looked sharper under the fluorescent gym lights.
He looked tired. Not the polished exhaustion people perform in media interviews, but the weariness of a man who’d run until his body made the call for him.
“This has to work,” I said, gesturing vaguely toward the hallway, the administrative offices, the entire initiative we’d just mapped out. “People shouldn’t need a professional athlete just to have someone explain their prescription.”
“No,” he said. “They shouldn’t. But if putting my face on a poster gets them through a door where someone can help them, they can use it.”
The straightforward answer left me without a rebuttal. Cole glanced down at my notebook.
“Did five minutes pass already?”
“Yes.”
“You’re ruthless.”
“I’m working on it.”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t call me trouble. The fact that he held back was a courtesy; it also felt like a ridiculous loss.
“I’ll see you Wednesday,” he said.
I gave a single nod. “Wednesday.”
I headed back toward the conference room before I could turn two syllables into a strategic defense.
* * *
Priya waited until late afternoon in the Halcyon parking lot, leaning against her pollen-dusted blue sedan. The rain had cleared, leaving the downtown towers to reflect pale gray light across the puddles.
“I’m not going to ask who he is,” she said.
“He’s Cole Callahan.”
“Thanks for saving us the time. I’m also not going to ask why he looked at you like someone had just rewritten the rules of rugby.”
“That would have been an equally terrible question.”
“I know. I contain multitudes.”
I opened my car door. Priya caught the top of the frame before I could pull it shut.
“Kate.”
Her tone had shifted. No punchlines. Her silver rings clicked against the metal as her grip tightened.
I looked at the asphalt between our shoes. A dead maple leaf, turned copper by winter, was stuck to the surface of a puddle. I didn’t want anyone looking at my face while I said it. I wanted to keep it inside a clean, technical sentence that carried zero fallout.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
Priya didn’t speak right away. She looked at my face, not my watch or my bag or my phone. Then she let go of the door and took a step toward me.
“Are you all right?”
It was an impossible question. That was what saved me from offering a polished lie.
“I don’t know.” My breath hitched on the way out. “I’m terrified. I’m furious with myself for being terrified. I have an appointment on Wednesday, and he’s coming with me. I have no idea what I want to do after that.”
Priya placed a hand on my arm. She didn’t pull me in until I gave a small nod.
Then she wrapped both arms around me, firm and steady without crushing me. She smelled of citrus perfume and stale office coffee. I rested my forehead against her shoulder. The hard button of her coat pressed a dent into my cheek.
“You don’t have to know today,” Priya said softly. “But you’re not doing this week alone.”
I stayed still for another beat. People trickled out of the office building, talking on phones, heading toward the light rail station. Nobody paid us any attention.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I said as I pulled back.
“I won’t. Not even Lena, and I know things about her life she considers state secrets.”
A rasp of a laugh caught in my throat. Priya handed me a tissue from her inner coat pocket.
“Does Cole know?”
“Yes.”
“Is he decent?”
I thought of the Fremont coffee roaster, his research notebook set aside, the text that hadn’t tried to optimize my response.
“So far.”
“Great. That’s a provisional rating. No promotions without further review.”
“That’s fair.”
“And you’re going to eat something tonight.”
“There’s the operations review.”
“I’m not managing you. I’m offering soup, a terrible movie, and the contractual right to kick me off your couch if I get annoying.”
I looked toward my car, then down at the phone in my hand. A new text from Cole sat on the screen: Made it home. I’ll text you after dinner, if that works.
The world kept dropping notifications across the screen. For once, I didn’t feel like all of them required an immediate response.
“Soup,” I said. “On the condition that I pick the movie.”
Priya smiled. “Now that’s a terrifying prospect.”
Before climbing into the driver’s seat, I typed out a reply to Cole.
Me: Priya knows. And yes, text me later.
I locked the screen without waiting for a reply. Priya pulled out ahead of me, and I followed her taillights toward Capitol Hill, with my grandmother’s watch clasped securely around my wrist and one more person standing on the other side of the news.