Chapter 14
The elevator dinged. Lou stepped back, professional distance restored, as the doors opened onto the parking level where the team bus waited.
Camille followed her out, her heart still pounding but her panic beginning to settle into something more manageable. Lou's calm was contagious—the steady certainty of someone who'd spent decades navigating exactly this kind of scrutiny.
The bus was already half-full when they boarded, the air thick with the particular smell of post-game exhaustion—sweat and sports tape and the lingering adrenaline of victory.
Frankie had claimed the back row, Elise beside her with a tablet open to post-game statistics.
Rowan sat alone near the middle, earbuds in, already lost in whatever music helped her decompress.
The usual noise of victory filled the space—tired laughter, replay debates, the particular satisfaction of a team that had proven something to itself.
Camille took a seat three rows ahead of Lou. Professional distance. Nothing to see here. The vinyl seat creaked beneath her as she settled in, and she pressed her forehead against the cold window glass, watching the arena's loading dock slide past as the bus pulled away.
But she could feel Lou's gaze on the back of her neck the entire ride to the airport. Could sense the connection humming between them despite the physical separation, the invisible thread that tightened every time she remembered what they'd done last night. What they meant to each other now.
The airport was its own kind of gauntlet—fans waiting near the gate, phones out and ready, the last opportunity for photos before the team disappeared into the charter terminal.
The bright lights of the concourse made Camille's eyes ache after the dark bus ride, and the noise of the crowd pressed against her ears like a physical weight.
She smiled and signed and posed, her media training carrying her through motions she could have performed in her sleep. The Sharpie in her hand left black streaks on her fingers, and her cheeks hurt from holding the camera-ready expression for so long.
A teenage girl thrust a jersey toward her. "You're my hero," she said, voice trembling with intensity. "I want to play just like you."
The words hit Camille somewhere unexpected. She looked at the girl—maybe sixteen, with the lanky build of a developing athlete and eyes that held all the hungry hope Camille remembered from her own youth.
"Work harder than everyone else," Camille told her, signing the jersey with careful attention. "And don't let anyone tell you what's possible."
The girl beamed. Behind her, Lou was having a similar exchange with a group of fans, her smile softer than the media-ready version Camille wore.
This was why it mattered. Not just the games or the qualification or the dream of playing in the PWHL. But the girls watching, the ones who needed to see women succeeding at the highest level, the ones who would grow up believing they could do this too.
If Camille came out, those girls would see something else. They'd see that you could be gay and successful. That you could be honest about who you loved without losing everything you'd worked for.
If she came out.
The weight of that possibility landed in her chest as she boarded the charter flight. Different from the press room panic—heavier, more complex, tangled up with hope and terror and the particular ache of wanting something she wasn't sure she was brave enough to take.
Lou dropped into the seat beside her. The plane was configured for the team, wider seats and more legroom than commercial flights, but they'd still be visible to anyone who glanced their direction.
"You okay?" Lou's voice was barely above a whisper.
"No." Camille stared at the seat back in front of her, watching the crew complete pre-flight preparations. "But I will be."
"The photos really rattled you."
"It's not just the photos." Camille risked a sideways glance.
Lou's profile was lit in the dim cabin light—strong and steady and unbearably beautiful.
"It's everything. The questions, the scrutiny, the way they look at me like I owe them access to every part of my life.
I've dealt with it for years, but it's different now.
Because now there's something real to hide. "
Lou's hand found hers in the darkness between their seats. Hidden from view but infinitely present.
"I've been hiding my whole life," Lou said quietly. "You get used to it. You learn which lies are safe, which truths are dangerous, how to give people just enough to satisfy their curiosity without exposing what matters."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is." Lou's thumb traced a slow circle against Camille's palm. "But it also gave me this—the ability to protect something precious. To keep the wolves from the door until I was ready to face them."
"Are you ready now?"
The question hung between them as the plane began its taxi toward the runway.
"I don't know," Lou admitted. "But for the first time in my life, I think I want to be."
The engines roared as they lifted into the New York night, leaving the city's glittering sprawl behind.
The plane banked, and through the small oval window Camille watched the lights shrink to pinpricks—Manhattan's grid becoming abstract, the Hudson a dark ribbon threading between boroughs.
The geography of her old life becoming distant and unreal.
Somewhere down there, reporters were filing stories about tonight's game. Editors were deciding whether the restaurant photos were worth a headline. Social media was churning through speculation and rumor, the endless machine that turned private moments into public consumption.
But up here, thirty thousand feet above the noise, Lou's hand was warm in hers. And that mattered more than any of it.
Camille leaned her head back against the seat, exhaustion finally catching up to the adrenaline that had carried her through the game and the press conference and the panic that followed.
Her eyes drifted closed, and she let herself imagine a future where hiding wasn't necessary.
Where she could stand beside Lou in the daylight and call her what she was.
The woman she was in love with.
The thought should have terrified her. Instead, wrapped in the drone of the engines and the warmth of Lou's presence beside her, it felt like coming home.