Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Vesper
“Hey,” I answer right away, because letting it ring feels like inviting bad luck. I can’t handle any more bad news.
“You could’ve paid for wi-fi during the flight,” is the first thing Cally says. “Waiting almost ten hours to speak to you has been its own hell, Ves.”
I shut my eyes as I step off the curb, New York air slapping my face awake. Not Juniper Ridge cold, not mountain-cold, but enough to sting. Enough to remind me I’m here. I’m moving. I’m doing something. I’m not frozen in the moment where Dad’s voice went rough and small and said he needed me.
“Hello to you too,” I say, aiming for chirpy. It comes out thin.
“I’ve been worried sick,” he snaps, and there’s heat there, real heat, like he’s been carrying it around and it finally found a target. “I almost called your father.”
I huff a laugh that doesn’t feel like laughter. “You say that like it’s the nuclear option.”
“It is.” He doesn’t even hesitate. “There’s too much going on in the league. The last thing I want is to talk about my career with him while he—” He cuts himself off, like the rest of the sentence tastes wrong. Like talking about my father’s health out loud makes it real. “What’s going on, Ves?”
My breath catches. I force it back into place and keep walking, weaving through people who don’t know I’m a second away from tipping over.
“Ugh, I forgot to order a rideshare,” I mutter, because focusing on logistics keeps me from focusing on the fact that my hands are shaking.
“There’s a car already waiting for you,” Cally says. “Harvey arranged it.”
I stop short. “You shouldn’t have.”
“You always say that.” His voice drops. “And you always accept it.”
“I’m capable—”
“I know what you’re capable of,” he cuts in, and the way he says it makes my pulse jump.
Not because it’s kind. Because it’s loaded.
Because he knows me in the ways I hate being known.
“I also know you’ll try to do everything alone until you break.
I need you to call Harvey once you’re home.
He’ll arrange anything your father needs. ”
“You’re very bossy today, Callaway,” I say, because fighting him would take energy I don’t have.
“I’m always bossy,” he replies. “You just usually pretend it’s charming.”
My mouth goes dry.
I spot the guy holding a sign: VES LAFONTAINE in bold black letters, like I’m someone important instead of a girl with a camera bag and a family emergency.
“That’s me,” I murmur.
The driver takes my carry-on before I can protest and opens the back door like this is normal. Like my life isn’t currently on fire.
I slide into the SUV and freeze.
Because on the seat beside me there’s a warm cup of my favorite order, down to the almond milk I only let myself have when I’m stressed: an iced London Fog with lavender syrup, vanilla bean foam, and a dusting of bergamot on top like it’s trying to be art.
A pastry wrapped in paper. A sandwich in a neat little box.
My throat tightens again, anger and gratitude tangling until I can’t tell which one is louder.
“You spoil me,” I manage, staring at the cup like it’s a trap someone dressed up in foam and sugar.
“I take care of what’s mine,” Cally says.
Two seconds. That’s all it takes for one word to turn my insides . . . well, inside out.
Mine.
It’s not even possessive in the way people think. It’s worse. It’s intimate. It’s familiar. It’s a claim said like a reflex, like he forgot there are rules now—rules we pretend we follow because they keep the damage contained.
My stomach turns hard. My fingers curl around my phone until my joints protest.
I’m not his.
I’ve never been his.
Not fully.
Because I can’t choose, and he’s a man built for winning. A man who understands trophies and titles and clean outcomes. He wants the Cup, he wants the answer, he wants the world to make sense if he fights hard enough.
My heart doesn’t work that way.
I adore him—God, I do. I adore his mouth, his fire, his ridiculous confidence that makes you believe you’re safe just because he’s in the room.
I adore the way he can make me laugh when I’m half dead on my feet.
I adore the version of him that looks at me like I’m a home he’d burn down the world to protect.
And I love someone else too.
That’s the part that turns love into a problem. That’s the part Cally can’t swallow without choking on it.
I don’t belong to anyone. I’m not property. I’m not a prize you earn by being louder or stronger or first.
Except my heart. My heart is a traitor.
It’s always been a traitor.
It wants both of them so badly it feels like a bruise I keep pressing just to prove it’s still there.
Cally hears my inhale. He hears the fight rise in me, the way my silence turns sharp around the edges. He backtracks, but it’s not smooth—nothing about him is smooth when he’s scared.
“Eat, Ves,” he says, rougher now. “Please. You sound like you’re running on fumes.”
I stare at the cup again—lavender, bergamot, vanilla foam—too pretty to be real, too thoughtful to be casual. My throat burns with it. With him.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He gives a low, humorless laugh. “You’re terrible at that.”
And I hate him for knowing. I hate myself more for wanting to let him take care of me anyway.
I hate how right he is.
I peel the lid off the coffee with hands that don’t feel fully under my control. The warmth hits my palms and my eyes sting, which is ridiculous. It’s a drink. It’s caffeine. It’s not a love letter.
It feels like one anyway.
“Is your dad okay?” he asks, and the edge is gone now, replaced by something rawer. Worry. Fear. The thing Cally hides behind arrogance and jokes.
“No,” I say, because lying takes too much effort. “He’s . . . not okay. He fell. They want to do tests. And the county’s being awful on top of that. The camp might be in trouble.”
There’s a soft, ugly sound on the other end, like he exhaled hard through his teeth. “Jesus.”
I watch the city smear past the window, lights and signs and people moving like nothing matters except being on time. I wish I could borrow that. I wish I could believe my life is still on schedule.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“In the car,” I say. “Heading to my apartment.”
“Good.” He pauses. “How soon are you leaving for Oregon?”
“Tomorrow morning.” My voice catches, and I force it down. “I had to—”
“Have a buffer,” he finishes, like he’s inside my head. Like he already knows the part I don’t want to admit.
I go still.
Cally’s always been too good at that—at seeing straight through me and calling it out like it’s a fact. Like I don’t get to pretend.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “A buffer.”
“Harvey will get you a flight,” Cally says immediately, sliding back into control because he can’t stand sitting in helplessness. “I wish I could be there for you, but just remember this is nothing like your mom. He’s going to be fine.”
My laugh is quiet and bitter. “You’re kind of there. In my ear. Yelling at me.”
He makes a low sound that might be a laugh. It might be frustration. “Ves.”
“What?”
“Nothing, I’m just concerned. There’s too much happening.” His voice shifts again, and I feel it before he says anything—like the ground moved under him and he’s trying to pretend he didn’t stumble.
There’s more to this than my dad’s illness and the fact that he believes that he has to look after me. Why didn’t I catch that sooner?
“How are . . .” I hesitate. Superstition is stupid until it isn’t. Until you’ve watched it become a coping mechanism for men who live on luck and routine and fear of jinxing the only thing they can’t control. “Can I ask without . . . ruining something?”
He scoffs. “You confuse me with that superstitious asshole.”
Of course he means Monty.
“I’m not a fucking goalie who has to stretch twenty-seven times in a corner or the universe will punish him,” Cally snaps, and the way he says goalie—like it’s a slur—tells me everything I need to know about his mood.
My stomach turns. “Did you get into a fight with him—again?”
“No.” He growls. “We haven’t played against each other since they traded him to Boston. Let’s hope that continues.”
“Sounds more like you miss him.”
His breathing changes. Shallow. Controlled. Like he’s trying not to say something. “Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with him. They might trade me,” he says finally, and the exasperation in his voice can’t cover the fact that there’s fear underneath it.
My body goes cold.
“You’ve been with the Cobras since your rookie year,” I say, because my brain rejects it. Because Cally is the Cobras. His face is on billboards in Colorado. Kids wear his jersey like it’s a symbol of faith.
“I know,” he bites out. “That’s the fucking point.”
I sit back as the driver merges into traffic, my coffee cup trembling in my grip.
“Why would they—”
“Because the Cobras are trying to win now,” he says, words sharp with resentment, and then, quieter, like it costs him, “And because they think they can win without me.”
My throat closes. “That’s insane.”
“It’s business,” he says, like the phrase tastes like ash. “And apparently, the Portland Orcas are desperate. They need a new captain. Cas Spearman is retiring.”
Portland.
The word hits like a door slamming open to a memory I don’t want to walk into. Oregon. Juniper Ridge. The lake. The rink. The boys who used to be mine before everything went wrong.
“Why the Orcas?” I ask, forcing my voice to stay level when my pulse won’t.
“Because they’ve got the pieces,” Cally says. “They’re close, Ves. They’ve got a core that’s good enough to get into the dance, but not good enough to finish it. They need a captain who can drag a team through the ugly parts and keep them believing when it starts to go sideways.”
My fingers tighten around the cup. “They want you to be that.”
“They want the version of me they can sell,” he says, bitter. “They want my name on a jersey in a new city. They want a leader who makes the room bigger.”
Then his voice drops. Lower. More honest. “And they’re offering the Cobras exactly what they want.”
“What’s that?” I ask, even though dread already crawls up my spine.
“Probably a couple of key players,” Cally says. “A top prospect. A pick. Maybe more. Enough to set Colorado up for next season if this one doesn’t go their way.”
I swallow hard. “So they’re gambling.”
“Everyone gambles,” he says flatly. “The question is who gets shoved across the table.”
The car pulls up to my building and my stomach drops again, because it’s real now. Because my apartment is right there—my little pocket of independence. My proof that I built something that isn’t Juniper Ridge.
I don’t move. I just sit in the backseat with my coffee and my phone and my heart hammering.
“Cally,” I say quietly, “are you okay?”
He laughs once, harsh and humorless. “Fuck, no.”
The word punches straight through me.
“I’m not okay,” he repeats, and this time it’s stripped bare. “Because if I get traded to Portland, it’s Oregon, Ves. It’s your home. It’s too close to Juniper Ridge. It’s too close to . . .” He stops. His breathing turns rough. “It’s too close to everything we fucked up.”
My pulse stutters.
“Cally—”
“Don’t,” he says, and there’s pain in it, real pain, the kind he never shows the cameras. “I’m trying not to say your name like it’s a threat to my control.”
My fingers go numb.
Standing outside the window, the driver opens my door. Cold air sweeps in.
I stay seated, staring at the city like it’s a wall.
“Listen,” Cally says, voice low, urgent, like he’s leaning closer through the phone, “I’m calling because your dad matters. And I can’t—” He cuts himself off, swallows it. “I can’t do this thing where we pretend we’re fine. Not right now.”
My throat burns.
I force myself to speak. “What do you want from me?”
A beat. Two.
And then, softer than I expect, like it costs him to ask, “Tell me you’ll let me help and won’t be fighting me every step of the way.”
That shouldn’t make my eyes sting.
It does.
I clear my throat and force my voice into something lighter. “Are you calling to offer emotional support, or are you calling because you have a plan that involves a private jet and a dramatic entrance?”
He snorts. “Both.”
“Cal—”
“I’m serious,” he says, and the warmth in his voice turns into something steadier. “I can help. Money, lawyers, whatever. I have a fucking trust fund that I don’t use. It’s yours. If the county thinks they can threaten the camp—”
“That’s not what this is,” I interrupt, sharper than I mean to be. “It’s not just . . . a check.”
Silence.
Then, softer, “I know.”
And the way he says it tells me he really does.
He knows Juniper Ridge isn’t just a camp to me. It’s a piece of my mother that never got to grow old. It’s my dad’s pride. It’s my brothers’ origin story. It’s the only place I ever felt like my loudness was a gift instead of a flaw.
It’s also where I met him.
Where I met Monty.
Where I learned love can be bigger than the boxes people insist on handing you—labeled, sealed, easy to explain.
Cally’s voice is still in my ear, still threaded through my nerves, still trying to turn my life into something with edges and answers.
“If I move to Portland, we could . . .” He trails off, and I can hear him debating whether he’s allowed to say it out loud. Whether he’s brave enough to offer me a future that comes with a jersey schedule and a house key and the expectation that I’ll finally pick him.
Not Monty, but Cally.
My phone buzzes. I pull it away from my ear to glance at the screen.
Of course it’s him. Monty.
My stomach tips.
He calls now. The universe stacks them on top of each other the second I’m too tired to perform sanity. Like some writer in the sky is sitting there going, Let’s see how fast she breaks.
“Cally,” I murmur, lowering my voice like I’m hiding in a closet even though I’m alone, “I have another call.”
“Is that—” He stops himself. He always stops himself now, like saying Monty’s name might summon a fight he can’t win. Then, softer, and I hate the softness because it means he cares, “Fuck, of course it’s him. Okay. Text me after you talk to Harvey. Please.”
“I will,” I say.
I don’t know if it’s a promise or something I’m saying to keep him from splintering. At least I can breathe for a moment after he says he wants us to . . . because I can’t choose, and I hate that he’s almost asking.
And how am I supposed to keep this friendship when everything might come down to choosing—when I can already feel the moment coming, and I’m terrified it’s going to ask for a name?