Chapter 22
The inside of Lou's house was dim and quiet, the blinds drawn against the Phoenix Ridge sun.
The living room smelled like coffee gone cold and the particular staleness of spaces that hadn't been aired out in days.
Magazines lay scattered on the coffee table, unopened mail piled on the kitchen counter, a blanket tangled on the couch where Lou had clearly been sleeping instead of using her bedroom.
Camille took it all in with a glance—the evidence of Lou's self-imposed isolation, the physical manifestation of the walls she'd built around herself.
Her heart ached at the sight. This brilliant, fierce woman, reduced to hiding in her own home because she was too afraid to face what was growing between them.
"You shouldn't have come." Lou's voice was rough, scraped raw by days of silence or crying or both. She stood with her back to the living room, her arms wrapped around herself like armor. "I told you it was over."
"You told me via text." Camille leaned her crutches against the wall and lowered herself carefully onto the arm of the couch, taking the weight off her injured knee. "Twelve words. After everything we shared, you gave me twelve words and then disappeared."
Lou flinched, her shoulders drawing up toward her ears. "I didn't know what else to say."
"Then let me say something." Camille's voice was steady, the words she'd rehearsed all night finally finding their shape. "I just came from Mara's office. I told her and Astoria about us. About how I feel about you."
Lou turned then, her green eyes wide with shock. "You did what?"
"I told them the truth. That I'm in love with you. That I'm done hiding, done pretending, done being afraid of what people might think or say or write about me." Camille met Lou's gaze without flinching. "They already knew. They've known for weeks. And they support us—both of us."
"That's—" Lou shook her head, her unwashed hair falling across her face. "That doesn't change anything. I played terrible and we lost the LA game. I let the team down. I’m still a disaster. I quit the captaincy. I can't even—"
"You quit because you were scared. Because you thought pushing everyone away would somehow make things better.
" Camille pushed herself up from the couch arm, ignoring the protest of her knee, and crossed the distance between them.
"But all you did was break your own heart and mine.
And the team's. We're all falling apart without you. "
Lou's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be what you need and what the team needs and still be myself."
"Then let me help you figure it out." Camille reached out, her fingers brushing Lou's cheek, and Lou's breath caught at the contact. "Let me be your partner. In everything. On the ice and off it."
"Camille—"
"I'm going to come out publicly. I'm going to tell everyone about us, about who I really am." The words tumbled out, urgent and true. "Not because I have to, but because I want to. Because loving you is the most honest thing I've ever done, and I'm tired of treating honesty like a liability."
Lou's hand came up to cover Camille's where it rested against her cheek. Her palm was warm, her fingers trembling slightly. "You'd do that? Risk everything you've built?"
"I'd do more than that." Camille stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat of Lou's body, to smell the traces of sleep and coffee that clung to her skin.
"I'd burn it all down if that's what it took to be with you.
Because none of it matters—the endorsements, the image, the careful calculations—none of it means anything if I don't have you. "
The first tear spilled down Lou's cheek, catching the dim light from the window. "I've been so scared. So convinced that loving you would ruin everything. That I'd destroy your career, or the team's chances, or—"
"You're not destroying anything." Camille wiped the tear away with her thumb, gentle as a whisper. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. The most real thing I've ever had."
Lou's composure cracked then—fully and completely, the walls she'd spent days building crumbling like paper in the rain. She surged forward and captured Camille's mouth in a kiss that tasted like salt and desperation and the particular sweetness of reunion.
Camille kissed her back with everything she had—all the fear and longing and hope that had been building since that first text message, since that first night on the couch, since the moment she'd looked across the locker room and seen something in Lou Calder's steady gaze that changed everything.
"I missed you," Lou breathed against her lips. "Every day. Every hour. I kept reaching for my phone to text you and then remembering—"
"I know." Camille's hands slid into Lou's hair, tangling in the unwashed strands, pulling her closer. "I know. But I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere."
They stumbled together toward the hallway, Lou's hands finding Camille's hips, Camille's crutches abandoned somewhere by the front door.
Her knee protested the movement but she barely noticed—there was no room for pain, not when Lou was kissing her neck, her jaw, the sensitive spot behind her ear that made Camille's knees weak.
Lou's bedroom was small and simple—a queen bed with rumpled sheets, a dresser covered in team photos and championship memorabilia, curtains that blocked out most of the daylight.
The room smelled like Lou, that particular combination of laundry soap and exertion that Camille had come to associate with safety, with home.
"Your knee—" Lou started, pulling back slightly.
"Is fine." Camille pushed Lou gently toward the bed, watching her sit on the edge, watching the way the dim light caught the planes of her face. "Stop worrying about my knee and start worrying about getting out of those clothes."
Lou's laugh was startled and genuine—the first real laugh Camille had heard from her in weeks. "Bossy."
"You love it."
"I love you." The words came out soft, almost wonder-struck, as if Lou was hearing them for the first time. "I should have said that before. Should have said it every day instead of running away."
Camille lowered herself onto the bed beside Lou, careful of her injured leg but refusing to let it slow her down. "Say it now. Say it as many times as you want. We have time."
Lou's hands found the hem of Camille's shirt, her fingers cool against Camille's heated skin. "I love you. I've loved you since you walked into that locker room and acted like you owned the place."
The shirt came off, and then Lou's mouth was on Camille's collarbone, her shoulder, the swell of her breast above the lace of her bra. Each kiss was slow and deliberate—not the desperate urgency of their previous encounters, but something more careful. More intentional.
"I love your confidence," Lou murmured against Camille's skin. "The way you demand what you want without apology."
She unclasped Camille's bra and let it fall away, her mouth finding one nipple while her thumb traced circles around the other. Camille arched into the touch, her breath catching, heat pooling low in her belly.
"I love your body." Lou's tongue traced a path down Camille's sternum, pausing to press a kiss to her ribs. "The way you move on the ice. The way you move everywhere."
Camille's fingers fumbled with Lou's shirt, desperate to feel skin against skin. "You're wearing too many clothes."
Lou pulled back long enough to strip off her shirt and sports bra in one fluid motion. Her body was as familiar as Camille's own now—the lean muscle, the scars from years of play, the particular way her breasts fit against Camille's palms when she reached for them.
"Better?" Lou asked, a hint of that old confidence returning to her voice.
"Getting there."
They shed the rest of their clothes in a tangle of limbs and laughter, their movements clumsy with emotion and need.
When they finally lay naked together, the sheets cool against their heated skin, Camille took a moment just to look—to trace the lines of Lou's body with her eyes, to memorize every curve and angle.
"You're beautiful," she whispered.
Lou's cheeks flushed, that particular pink that Camille had learned meant she was affected. "You're the beautiful one. Golden and perfect and—"
"Yours." Camille pulled Lou down on top of her, gasping at the full-body contact, at the way their legs tangled together. "I'm yours, Lou. If you want me."
"I want you." Lou's voice cracked on the words. "I want everything. All of it. All of you."
She kissed Camille again, deeper this time, her tongue sliding against Camille's in a rhythm that promised more. Her hand traced down Camille's side, over the curve of her hip, coming to rest on her inner thigh. The proximity made Camille's hips move upward, seeking contact, seeking release.
"Please," Camille breathed against Lou's mouth. "Touch me."
Lou's fingers slid through the wetness gathered between Camille's thighs, and they both groaned at the contact—Camille at the relief of finally being touched, Lou at the evidence of how much Camille wanted her.
"Like this?" Lou's thumb found Camille's clit, circling slowly, building pressure without giving enough.
"More. I need—"
Two fingers slipped inside, and Camille's head fell back against the pillow. Lou's hand moved in a steady rhythm, her thumb maintaining pressure on Camille's clit while her fingers curled to find that spot that made Camille see stars.
"You're so wet for me." Lou's voice was rough with arousal, her own hips rocking slightly against Camille's thigh. "So hot and wet and—"
"Because I've been thinking about this for days." Camille's hands gripped Lou's shoulders, her nails digging into muscle as the pleasure built. "Every night. Every morning. Touching myself and pretending it was you."
Lou groaned and increased her pace, her fingers driving deeper, harder. "Show me. Show me what you did when you thought of me."