Chapter 16 - Hunter
Hunter
“Pack it in, boys! Good practice. Looking sharp enough to shave my balls.” Coach’s bark ricocheted off the boards, and half the guys cracked up while the other half doubled over their sticks, sucking wind.
I let my glove dangle from one hand, flexing the other to ease the sting in my palm. Practice had been brutal, but good brutal. The kind that left sweat in your eyes and your heart still hammering in your ribs.
“Nice save spree, Callahan,” Mason called, flicking a puck at me. “You trying to make the rest of us look bad?”
“Not hard to do,” I said, batting it aside.
He flipped me off, grinning.
Coach blew the final whistle. “Hydrate, stretch, hit the showers. No injuries, no excuses.”
By the time I peeled off my pads, my head was still riding the rhythm of the drills. And then I saw her standing just outside the tunnel, tablet in one hand, the other tucked under her arm.
Holly. Waiting.
Even from here, she looked composed, all neat lines and quiet confidence that didn’t belong in a rink that smelled like sweat and rubber.
Her gaze tracked me, quick, assessing. I couldn’t tell if she was checking in on my performance or counting down the minutes until she could scold me about something.
“Quit staring at your PR girl and hit the showers,” Theo muttered as he passed.
“She’s not—” I started, but he was already gone, laughing.
Yeah. No winning that argument.
Fifteen minutes later, I caught up to her in the hallway. She didn’t even look up when I approached, just said, “You took your time.”
“Had to make myself presentable,” I said, running a hand through damp hair. “You always complain when I smell like the locker room.”
“You still do,” she said, but her mouth twitched, betraying a smile. “But come on. We’ve got an hour before your next interview block.”
*
The coffee shop was tucked against the glass that overlooked the practice ice. It wasn’t fancy, but it was quiet, and the steam from the espresso machine ghosted the windows. She chose a corner table, of course. Strategic. Always aware of exits and sightlines.
I dropped into the seat across from her, still half in game mode, and stretched my legs out until they brushed against hers beneath the table. She shot me a look. Didn’t move them, though.
“Post-game media,” she said, sliding her tablet across. “You were controlled, concise, and even charming. I’m not sure what’s happening to you.”
“Maybe your good influence is finally corrupting me.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It does when I say so.”
Her lips curved slightly, but the almost-smile was there. And damn if that didn’t feel better than any compliment she’d given me.
She scrolled to a clip on her screen and hit play. My face filled the display, answering a reporter’s question about defense strategy. I looked calm. Confident. Not the guy who used to ramble himself into PR disasters.
“You see?” she said. “That’s how you build trust. Authority without arrogance.”
“Authority, huh?” I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So I’m finally passing the Holly Griswold exam?”
“Mid-terms,” she said, voice even. “Don’t get cocky.”
Her tone was professional, but her eyes flicked up, locking with mine for a second too long. There it was again—that quiet shift in the air, the thing I couldn’t name yet.
I cleared my throat, leaning back. “You’re good at this.”
“At what? Managing impossible hockey players?”
“Making people want to be better at what they do.”
That startled her. Enough to make her fingers hesitate on the screen before she set the tablet down. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I’m saying you’re good at it.”
She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she reached for her coffee, took a sip, and studied me over the cup. There was a small crease between her brows. Something thoughtful, maybe wary.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She shook her head, smiling faintly. “You’re just… different lately.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’m finally getting used to you breathing down my neck.”
Her laugh came low and quick, catching both of us off guard. She looked away, fiddling with her sleeve like she regretted letting it slip out in the first place.
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “Admit it. You’d miss me if I started behaving perfectly.”
“Flattery gets you nowhere, Callahan.”
But she said it softer than usual, almost affectionately.
For a moment, the rest of the place blurred until just the hiss of the espresso machine, and the quiet clatter of mugs took over. Her phone buzzed against the table. She ignored it. The space between us shrank until it felt like even breathing too hard might tip something over.
I didn’t break it. Neither did she.
Instead, she glanced at my empty cup and said, “You want a refill?”
“Yeah, why not?” I said, sliding my phone out of my pocket.
I wasn’t scrolling for anything in particular, just the habit of it, but the notification from Mason’s account caught my eye immediately. Cass grinned from a sunlit balcony, Mason holding her like she was the Stanley Cup.
“Figures,” I muttered under my breath. Not at the photo, really, but at the surge of… I don’t know, jealousy? Something sharper than that.
“What?”
“Look at this,” I said, flipping my phone around so Holly could see. Mason’s post announcing he and Cass had officially moved in together had plastered every feed I followed. “Guess the world’s officially rooting for the happy couple.”
She leaned over, glancing at the screen without comment. I thought maybe she’d say something sarcastic, but she stayed quiet, just tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Some people have it easy,” I muttered, half to myself. “Other people,” I gestured vaguely between us, “are stuck in the trenches doing the real work.”
Her eyes flicked up to mine, sharp and measuring, and she tilted her head in that way that always made me feel like I’d just walked into a chess game. “Yeah,” she said, voice calm but carrying a note I couldn’t place, “some people do have it easy.”
I shrugged, tossing my phone on the table. “I don’t think I could ever date out in the public eye like this.”
Her head snapped up, expression hardening for a split second, then softening into something I couldn’t place. “Or date someone like me, right? Isn’t that what you said?”
I blinked, a little off-balance, and laughed, thinking she was mocking me. “What?”
Her gaze didn’t waver, didn’t flicker, and suddenly the joke hit me. She had taken my dumb comment seriously. My chest tightened a little.
“Wait, no. I didn’t mean… I mean, I wasn’t— uh,” I waved, uselessly, “I wasn’t saying that. I meant you’d never be interested in someone like me. You’re… too… too…”
She sighed, leaning back just enough to put a little space between us, though not enough to completely diffuse the tension.
“Too what?” Her tone wasn’t teasing. It wasn’t flirty. It was careful. Calculated. But there was something honest in it.
My shoulders sagged. Me and my big, stupid mouth. “What would you want with me anyway? I’m messy, impulsive, a disaster in front of a camera. And I don’t–”
“You don’t what?” she urged softly, but with that little force that always made me lean in.
“I don’t make things easy,” I said finally, eyes down, staring at the swirls in my latte.
“You think I don’t know that?” she said. “You have no idea how hard it is sometimes, juggling a personal life with my kind of work. Balancing what people expect, what I want, and what I’m actually capable of.”
“Someone like you? Come on,” I chuckled softly. “I imagine you’ll have a spreadsheet for it. Perfectly planned and scheduled to a T.”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Dating? Forget it. Personal life? Forget that even more. I’ve sacrificed more than anyone realizes, just to be the best at my job, to keep myself relevant, to keep people like you from screwing everything up.”
Her words hit me square in the face. I leaned back, letting a moment of silence stretch between us. The weight of what she was saying settled in. I had known she was driven, had always been professional to the point of being intimidating. But I hadn’t realized the cost.
“No shame in it,” I said eventually. “You know what it takes to be good at something that matters. I’ve spent my life trying not to let people down, not to be like the fuck-ups of my past. I get it. I do.”
Her eyes softened in that brief, unguarded way, and I noticed how the light caught the small curve of her jaw, the slight crease between her brows. “You do?” she asked, almost a whisper.
I nodded, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. I get it.”
I wanted to reach across the table, but I didn’t.
“Most people don’t see that side of you,” she admitted. “They just see the player. The guy in front of the camera. The headline.”
“And you make sure of it,” I said, leaning a fraction closer without meaning to. “But you see both sides. Which is different, to say the least.”
There was a pause, a long one, where everything slowed down around us. The hum of the coffee grinder, the distant chatter, the clink of cups. It all faded to the background. We were just two people, tired, off the ice, walls down, talking about things we never talked about before.
Holly picked up her mug, traced the rim with her fingers. “Sometimes I wish I could just be like everyone else. Have someone who doesn’t need me to manage every detail, every statement, every disaster waiting around the corner.”
“But you’re not like everyone else,” I said, but without any sugarcoating. “And that’s exactly why I– why I respect the shit out of you.”
Her smile didn’t fully reach her eyes. “Respect,” she murmured. “That’s one word for it.”
I wanted to say more, wanted to tell her she wasn’t alone, that she didn’t always have to be the strong one. But I didn’t. I could only sit there, absorbing what she’d shared, feeling a strange mix of admiration and that something else I didn’t have a name for yet.
Then her phone buzzed sharply against the tabletop. She glanced at it and her brow furrowed.
“Excuse me,” she said, standing abruptly, already opening the text as she walked away. Her chair scraped slightly against the floor, and her coat swung around her legs as she moved.
“Already?” I asked, surprised at how fast she moved.
She didn’t answer me directly. Her eyes darted back once, just a flicker, and there was that quick tension in her shoulders as if she was still bracing for something I couldn’t name. Then she was gone, phone in hand, walking out of the café before I could even process it.
I stayed frozen, staring at the empty space where she’d been. The conversation, the vulnerability, the tension we’d just shared—it all hit me at once. My pulse had picked up without me realizing it. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I wasn’t going anywhere until I figured it out.
I slouched back in my chair, tapping my fingers on the table, thinking about what she’d said, what she’d shared, and how much I wanted to say more, but knew I couldn’t.
The walls between us weren’t gone, they were just thinner now.
And I knew, without question, that this was just the beginning of something complicated.
Something I wasn’t entirely ready to name yet.
But I’d figure it out. Eventually.