Chapter 8
The tape around my right wrist gave way on the first tackle of the morning, peeling back to hang in a white tongue over the back of my hand.
“Again!” the coach shouted from the sideline.
The turf was wet, tearing up into dark clods under our cleats. Reyes came at me with the ball tucked under his arm, eleven years younger and fast enough to remind me of it every Tuesday. I dropped my center of gravity, waited for him to try the outside lane, and cut him off with my left shoulder.
Reyes hit the ground on his side, scrambled back up before the whistle finished blowing, and offered me a hand.
“That was unnecessarily personal,” he said.
“You chose to run at me.”
“Next time I’m choosing a desk job.”
“You wouldn't last a week.”
“With the meetings you guys sit through, dying young might not be so bad.”
I let go of his hand and jogged back to my mark. The tape was still dangling. I tore it off with my teeth when the coach called a water break.
The locker room smelled of liniment, wet grass, and gear that had spent too long inside duffel bags. Marcus sat on the bench across from me, an ice pack propped over one knee and a half-peeled banana in his hand.
“You’re off,” he said.
“Helpful observation.”
“You’ve spent an hour trying to tackle Reyes like he owes you money.”
“He owes me a play from last week.”
“That was two days ago.”
“I have a long memory.”
Marcus took a bite of the banana. Around us, guys were rehashing practice, and someone had put music on through a speaker that sounded like it had been dunked in a pool before being dragged into the room.
“You also laughed when the trainer said ‘workloads,’” Marcus added. “Nobody laughs at that.”
“Maybe I’m maturing.”
“Now I’m actually worried.”
I didn't have an answer for him. Since yesterday morning, a corner of my brain was still sitting in a cold exam room on First Hill, staring at a dot on a screen and trying to understand why a hundred and sixteen beats per minute could take up so much room.
At the locker next to mine, one of the forwards was showing a muted video on his phone. I only caught glimpses of a kitchen table, a toddler’s hands coated in blue paint, and a guy trying to set a cake onto a tray without dropping it on himself.
“My kid says that for my sister to have luck on her test, she has to sleep with a sock inside her pillowcase,” he said to nobody in particular.
“That makes no sense,” Reyes said, shaking dirt off one of his boots.
“She can’t read yet. She’s four. She doesn't need it to make sense.”
“Does it work?”
The forward shrugged.
“My sister takes the test today. So she sleeps with the sock.”
Marcus cut his eyes toward me. I focused on peeling the old tape from my wrist.
The team was full of absurd rules. Some guys shaved before big matches. Others refused to switch seats on the bus until a streak stopped being a streak. I used to think superstition was the fallback of people who hadn't watched enough game film.
That morning, it felt like a poor theory.
My phone buzzed inside my locker. I pulled it out expecting a text from Rick or a reminder from physical therapy. It was Tessa.
Tessa: Can you come up to my office when you're done? Need to talk about a photo.
Below it was a screenshot.
I saw myself in profile, hand on the door of the First Hill coffee shop.
Kate was stepping out ahead of me, the ultrasound envelope hidden against her coat.
The photo had been taken from across the street through a fine drizzle that had blurred the edges into grain.
It showed nothing that couldn't be explained away. It showed far too much regardless.
The text read: NEW ROMANCE FOR CALLAHAN? VICE-CAPTAIN SPOTTED LEAVING MEDICAL CENTER WITH MYSTERY WOMAN.
The post had been piling up comments for the past hour. I didn't open a single one.
Marcus set the banana down on the bench.
“Bad news?”
“Don't know yet.”
It was a lie, but not the kind I was willing to unpack in a locker room full of men who knew my ribs, my shoulder, and my jersey number, but nothing about the part of my life I'd kept out of sight since March.
I pulled on a clean shirt without looking at the phone again. The tape adhesive tugged at the hair on my wrist. I winced. Marcus didn't say another word, which was worse than if he’d asked.
* * *
Tessa’s office overlooked the secondary practice pitch.
From her window, you could see the white goalposts, the rolled nets, and a line of orange cones the grounds crew had left by the fence.
On the desk sat three phones and a mug with dried coffee ringed at the bottom; one wall was covered in old Sentinels front pages.
Tessa slid her tablet toward me.
“The original account belongs to a freelance photographer who sells to two local outlets,” she said. “One already reached out for comment. The other wants to know if the woman is with Halcyon, because of the partnership.”
I stayed standing near the door. The photo filled the screen again.
“They shouldn't run her name.”
“They haven't. Yet.”
“Then let’s not give them one.”
Tessa folded her hands on the desk. She looked younger outside the locker room, but no one could mistake her patience for hesitation.
“Cole, if we don't give them a line, they’re going to write whatever suits them. I can say you grabbed coffee with an acquaintance. I can say we don't comment on personal matters. I also need to know if I should reach out to Halcyon before someone connects the dots.”
“Don't call Halcyon.”
“Does she work there?”
I didn't answer. Tessa blew out a breath and pulled the tablet back.
“You don't have to trust me with details. But if she’s tied to the program and that photo turns into a PR story, both sides are going to want to protect themselves. That includes her.”
The statement rubbed me the wrong way because it was sensible.
“I don't want them calling her a mystery woman.”
“Then don't let them turn her into a public figure over a line you want to give just to make yourself feel better.”
Tessa didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to. I looked down at the photo again. Kate was turning her head toward me, probably because I’d said something about a bus that had splashed near our feet on the sidewalk.
Through the wet glass, the shot looked intimate.
It looked like we knew exactly what we were.
“Give me an hour,” I said.
“I can give you until the end of the afternoon. After that, they’ll have made up enough that they won't need me.”
I walked out with my phone in my hand, the collar of my training shirt suddenly too tight around my neck.
In the hallway, two volunteers were carrying boxes of brochures for the community program.
One box had the Halcyon logo printed right beside the club crest. I looked away before anyone noticed I was staring.
I texted Kate from the parking lot.
Me: There’s a photo of us outside the coffee shop yesterday. Tessa needs a response before this afternoon. Can we talk?
She took four minutes to reply. During those four minutes, I twisted the water tumbler sitting in the truck’s cup holder until the logo lined up with the passenger door.
Kate: In a meeting. Heading to Georgetown at four for the pilot. We can talk before.
Me: All right.
Kate: Don't say anything until then.
No exclamation points. She didn't need them.
Me: I won't.
I put the phone away. The quiet it left behind didn't feel like the silence in the clinic.
That one had come with a monitor, a hand, a doctor stating what she could confirm with certainty.
This was a blurred photo and the chance of someone else turning us into a rumor before we even learned how to be a conversation.
I drove without deciding where I was going. In the end, I parked across from a small shop squeezed between a laundromat and a phone repair place. In the window sat strollers, blankets folded by color, and a cardboard sign that read NEWBORN GIFTS.
I walked past it to the corner. Waited for the light. Turned back.
I had no good reason to go inside. The clerk didn't need one. He nodded from behind the counter and went back to sticking price tags onto a stack of bibs.
The store smelled of mild detergent and new cardboard. There was a wooden display of baby shoes so tiny they looked like costume pieces. A full wall of cotton onesies made me feel like I’d walked into someone else's life through the wrong door.
I spotted the socks in a low basket near the register. Yellow. Plain, except for a white cuff around the ankles. The tag read 0–3 Months.
I picked them up before I could make a list of reasons not to.
The clerk scanned them without looking up.
“Want a gift bag?”
“No.”
I paid with my phone. When he handed me the receipt, the socks fit inside my closed fist. I slipped them into my jacket pocket, as if the yellow fabric were something that might spoil in the open air.
Back in the truck, I pulled them out once more. They were soft. Ridiculously soft. I thought of Kate staring at the ultrasound printout like it was a report full of figures she hadn't requested. I thought of the heart making noise on a screen without anyone actually hearing it.
I opened the glove compartment, moved the owner’s manual and the first-aid kit aside, and tucked the socks behind a flashlight, where I wouldn't see them every time I reached for papers.
I didn't take a photo. I didn't show them to anyone. I shut the glove compartment with a hand that wasn't quite steady.
* * *
Kate arrived at Georgetown in a navy blazer, her hair pinned up, a folder tucked under her arm. I saw her car pull in from the conference room window and slipped out into the hallway before Priya, Joel, or anyone with decent ears could figure out that we needed to talk.
“Where?” Kate asked.
“Stairwell at the end of the hall.”
“How romantic.”
“Tessa would be proud of your instinct for headlines.”
“Let’s not give her more work.”