Chapter 9 #2
They'd won. One step closer to the PWHL. One game closer to the dream that had sustained Lou through nine years of semi-pro grinding.
And standing at the edge of the celebration, watching Lou with an expression of naked want, was Camille.
Lou looked away.
The bar was too loud and too crowded, but Lou had shown up anyway because that was what captains did.
The smell of beer and fried food hung thick in the air, mixing with the particular energy of a team celebrating victory.
Music thumped from speakers in the corners, bass vibrating through the worn wooden floor.
Lou sat in a booth with Frankie and Elise, nursing a beer she didn't really want, watching her teammates celebrate a victory that still felt unreal.
Her body ached in the satisfying way of competition pushed to its limits.
Tomorrow she'd feel every hit, every blocked shot, every desperate sprint across the ice.
But tonight, the adrenaline was still singing in her blood, keeping the pain at bay while her mind circled relentlessly around the one person she was trying not to look at.
Camille was across the room with some of the younger players, laughing at something Rowan had said.
She looked beautiful—out of her gear, dressed in casual clothes that somehow still managed to look expensive, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders.
Every few minutes, her gaze would drift to Lou's table, searching.
Lou kept her eyes on her beer.
"Okay." Frankie slid into the booth beside her, blocking her view of the room. "You promised me an explanation."
"Did I?"
"Don't." Frankie's voice was soft but insistent. "I've known you for seven years, Lou. I've never seen you play like that—all that intensity, all that recklessness. And I've definitely never seen you look at anyone the way you look at her."
Lou's jaw tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"The new superstar player. The golden girl.” Frankie's gaze was too knowing. "Something happened between you two."
The denial rose automatically, but Lou couldn't make herself say it. Frankie deserved better than lies. They'd been through too much together—lean years and losing seasons and the particular intimacy of teammates who'd become family.
"Yes," Lou admitted quietly. "Something happened."
Frankie was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was carefully neutral. "Is it serious?"
"I don't know." Lou finally met her friend's eyes. "I don't know what it is. I don't know what I want it to be. I just know that being around her makes it hard to think straight, and not being around her is worse."
"That sounds pretty serious."
"It sounds terrifying." Lou ran her thumb along the condensation on her beer glass, watching the droplets trace paths down the cold surface.
"I've spent my whole life being invisible, Frankie.
Keeping my head down, doing my job, not making waves.
It's how I survived—in hockey, in everything.
And she's the opposite of invisible. She's cameras and headlines and scrutiny.
If we become something, if we go public—"
"The whole world would be watching."
"Exactly." Lou's voice cracked on the word. "And I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I'm strong enough to be seen like that."
Frankie was quiet for a moment, studying Lou's face. "That's a lot to carry. She's high-profile. Lots of visibility. Everything you've spent your career avoiding."
"I know."
"And she's supposedly straight."
"Was." Lou's voice cracked slightly. "I think—I don't know. It's complicated."
"Life usually is." Frankie glanced toward where Camille sat, then back to Lou. "She keeps looking over here. Like she's waiting for something."
Lou knew. She'd felt Camille's gaze on her all evening, the weight of expectations and questions she wasn't ready to answer.
"I need time," she said. "To figure out what this is. What I want it to be."
"Fair enough." Frankie drained the last of her beer. "But Lou? Don't take too long. That one—" she nodded toward Camille— "she doesn't look like the patient type. And you've already got enough regrets for one lifetime. Don't add another one."
She left to join another table, leaving Lou alone with her beer and her thoughts. Across the room, Camille's smile had faded. She was watching Lou with an expression that wavered between hope and hurt.
Lou looked away again.
She wasn't ready. Wasn't sure she'd ever be ready for the kind of visibility that came with wanting someone like Camille.
The tabloids, the cameras, the scrutiny that would follow them everywhere if this became real.
Everything she'd spent her career avoiding, wrapped up in one beautiful, complicated package.
The bar noise swelled around her—laughter and music and the clink of glasses raised in toast. Somewhere across the room, Camille was smiling at something Rowan said, but her eyes kept drifting back to Lou's table. Searching. Hoping. Hurting.
Lou told herself she needed distance. Told herself that space would help her think clearly, that time would reveal the right path forward. But even as she kept her gaze fixed on her beer and her expression carefully blank, some part of her was already calculating the cost of walking away.
Already knowing that the safety of invisibility might not be worth the price of losing Camille.
But tonight, she wasn't brave enough to find out.