Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Callaway
The call comes in when I’m halfway through a pointless mobility circuit—the kind you do just to feel like you’re not coming apart.
My legs move. My lungs cooperate. But none of it touches the storm ripping through my skull. I don’t need the workout. I need something to keep me from crawling out of my own skin.
I’m in the private training room at my place in Cherry Creek. The space is pristine, untouched. Unlike me. My trainer pretends not to notice that I’ve been checking my phone every two minutes as if my life depends on it. Because maybe it does.
Then it vibrates.
I don’t even have to read the name. I know.
My entire body goes still in that ancient, instinctive way—like the air’s shifted and every cell I have remembers what it means to brace.
It isn’t fear. Not exactly.
It’s deeper. Older. That quiet thrum of knowing something irreversible has already started. The breath before the break. The frozen second before impact—when your blade catches on a crack in the ice and the world holds its breath to see how you’ll land.
And maybe this time I won’t.
I wipe the sweat from my brow with the hem of my shirt. “Take five,” I tell my trainer, casual as hell. Like my chest isn’t caving in on itself. Like the league hasn’t just decided to blow a hole through the middle of everything I’ve built.
I walk fast. Past the gym. Down the hall where no one will see my face if it fucking crumples. Past every version of me who believed loyalty was something you could count on.
I answer.
“Winthrop speaking.”
There’s a beat.
There always is. The pause where they prep the script, get ready to ruin your life with a professional cadence and a warm smile.
“Callaway Winthrop,” Devon Kincaid, the Cobras’ GM says. Like we’re friends. Like he’s not about to gut me with a sentence. “I wanted to talk to you directly.”
Bullshit. If he cared, Marlowe, my agent, would’ve made the call. But this is about optics. About Devon feeling better when he lays his head on a pillow tonight, telling himself he did the respectful thing.
“I’m listening,” I say flatly. Not because I’m calm. Because if I sound interested, it’ll mean I care. And if I care, I’ll break.
He opens with the language of betrayal. Respect. Gratitude. Business decisions.
He strings them together like they’re life rafts, expecting me to hold on while he watches me sink.
Then he says: “It’s confirmed. We’ve agreed to a trade.”
I don’t speak. My teeth are grinding against teeth. Something claws at my ribcage from the inside. I stare at the white wall in front of me—blank, like I’m supposed to be now. Blank like I’m supposed to become.
I’m no longer a Cobra.
Fourteen years. Gone.
The logo. The locker room. The fucking ice that’s soaked in my blood. Gone.
“Where,? I ask, voice iron.
Because I won’t give him grief. Won’t give him rage. I’ll request logistics.
“Portland,” he says. “The Orcas.”
I close my eyes. My pulse doesn’t spike. It drills. I should’ve been ready. Marlowe warned me. Said it might happen. Said it made sense. I’ve aged out of their future.
But this isn’t about a jersey.
My brain flashes so fast I almost see it as images: highway through pines, the lake at Juniper Ridge, the rink lights.
Vesper’s laugh. Vesper’s mouth. The way she looks when she’s pretending she isn’t hurting, like she’s trying to outsmart pain by being louder than it.
Portland is a city, sure, but it’s also a proximity.
It’s geography conspiring against the careful distance we’ve kept between ourselves and the thing we ruined.
Devon Kincaid keeps talking, but it’s white noise now.
“This puts you in a position to compete immediately. Their core is—”
“A captain,” I cut in, voice low. “They want a face. A name.”
He coughs. “You’re a leader.”
Leader.
What a fucking joke.
Leadership is what they say when they want you to carry a franchise on your back while they hand you a knife.
“When?” I ask.
“Paperwork’s already in motion. You’ll get official confirmation within the hour.”
Meaning it’s already done.
Meaning the next twenty-four hours belong to everyone but me. It’s obvious that I was never going to matter in this decision. They’d already signed the dotted line. Already printed my name on a new jersey.
I can taste it—like blood in the back of my throat. Like copper and endings.
“That’s it, then,” I say.
“It’s not personal.”
Please, it always is. That phrase is code for “shut up and take it.” I end the call before he can say goodbye.
The silence in the hallway wraps around me. I stay there for a long moment, phone still pressed to my ear, like maybe if I stand still long enough, I’ll find a version of myself who doesn’t want to punch something or scream into the void.
But beneath the numbness, something else stirs.
There’s a savage, raw awareness that maybe—just maybe—this is my opening. Portland isn’t just a trade.
It’s maybe a second fucking chance.
It’s her.
She’s heading to Juniper Ridge and we’ll be close.
I’ll be there for her while she deals with her father’s illness, the camp, and whatever she needs me for.
This is a good opportunity to keep her away from Alberto Montoya Navarro Wade who’s on the east coast. Far enough that I don’t have to worry about anything.
I blow out a breath and call the only person in my world who can make plans happen at the speed my anxiety requires.
“Harvey,” I say the moment he answers.
“Callaway,” my assistant replies, voice clipped and professional. “I was just about to—”
“I got traded,” I cut in.
Silence.
Not shock. Harvey doesn’t do shock. He does calculations.
“I see. So was it Portland?” he asks, as if he already knows.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
That question is offensive. Not because it’s wrong. Because it implies I have the option to be anything other than what I am: furious, restless, and holding myself together out of spite.
“No,” I say honestly. “But I don’t have time to spiral. I need you to do something.”
“Name it.”
I pace, dragging my hand through my hair.
“Vesper’s going back to Juniper Ridge,” I say, and my voice does a thing I don’t like—softens around her name. “Her dad’s sick. The camp is in trouble. She’s trying to do it alone. She should’ve called already requesting a flight for tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll work on that,” Harvey says, which is assistant-speak for I’m listening but I’m also watching you put your heart in a blender.
“I want a place near Portland,” I continue. “Not in the city. Not downtown. Somewhere near water. Trees. Privacy.”
Harvey is quiet long enough that I can hear him typing. “Lake Oswego has inventory that fits that.”
“Okay. I want something big,” I say, because this isn’t about minimalist living or proving I can survive without luxury.
It’s about building a safe space with my money because money is the one thing I can control when everything else is being decided for me.
“I want a gym. Real gym. Not a sad Peloton corner. I want a training setup. Ice access if possible, or a quick drive. I want a guest room that doesn’t feel like an afterthought. ”
Harvey pauses. “Guest room?”
“Don’t,” I warn, but there’s no heat behind it.
He doesn’t. He’s too good at his job. “I’ll prioritize properties with privacy, a dock, and enough space to set up training equipment. Do you want a lease or purchase?”
“Purchase,” I say without hesitation.
“Timeline?”
“As soon as possible,” I reply. “I want keys before I land.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“I’m ambitious,” I say flatly. “And you always make it happen.”
“Noted.” The sound of typing resumes. “I’ll also arrange a driver and temporary housing in the meantime.”
“Nothing temporary,” I say. “Just . . . the place.”
Harvey exhales slowly. “Callaway.”
I stop pacing. Lean my shoulder against the wall. “What?”
“Are you buying a home because you need a home,” he asks carefully, “or because you want a reason to pull her into your orbit?”
The question punches straight through my chest.
I swallow. “Both.”
He doesn’t react. That’s why I keep him. He’s a professional.
“Okay,” Harvey says. “I can work with honesty.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t believe I couldn’t stop it,” I admit, and it comes out harsher than I mean. Not anger at Harvey—anger at the helplessness. “I can’t believe I couldn’t protect . . . any of it.”
“You don’t control trades,” he says.
“I’m Callaway Livingston Harrington Winthrop,” I snap, because my last name has always been a shield and a target. “I’m supposed to be able to control things.”
“Your name doesn’t override the CBA,” Harvey replies, dryly.
I almost laugh. It tries to climb out of my throat and then collapses. “My name doesn’t override anything that matters.”
Harvey’s pause is softer this time. “It matters,” he says. “To sponsors. To fans. To your bank account.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Fucking love that for me.”
“Callaway,” he says again, gentler, “you can still be useful. Don’t confuse a trade with a loss.”
I grip the phone tighter. Useful. That word scrapes. Because the truth is, the one thing I want to protect is not a Cup run or a franchise. It’s a woman who laughs like she’s daring life to try her.
It’s the camp that made us.
It’s the fragile line between helping and making things worse.
“Fine,” I say. “Get the house. And book me a flight to Portland as soon as the league clears it. Talk to Marlowe. I’m sure he’ll have all the details. And if possible, hire a jet to fly Vesper to Portland.”
He laughs. “It might be easier to have a house under contract before you’re on a plane than convince Vesper to take a private jet.”
I sigh. “True. Just . . . take care of my girl.”
“You got it,” Harvey says. “Anything else?”
I hesitate. Then, because I like to keep an eye on what’s mine, I say, “Find out if Monty got moved too.”
There’s a gasp on the other side of the line.
“Harvey, what do you know?”
“Callaway . . .”
“Please tell me he’s not the one that got traded to the Cobras.” That would fuck me up because they chose him instead of me. “He’s going to be closer to her too. Fuck.”
“Let it go for now,” he says, and I’m not sure if that confirms what I fear or if . . .
“Listen, I’m not doing this thing where we pretend he’s not part of her life,” I say, and my voice goes tight. “Not when she’s going back there. Not when her dad’s sick and he’ll be trying to . . . fuck.” I run a hand through my hair and take a few deep breaths.
It feels like that morning all over again. The rejection, the hate. As if I had been the one who pushed him to . . . I try to forget like I do every time, but it’s impossible.
Harvey exhales. “I can assure you that he didn’t get traded to the Cobras.”
The way he says it, so sure of himself, is a relief for just one second, but before I can ask for more, he ends the call saying Vesper is on the other line. She’s more important than any meltdown I’m trying to avoid.
Tomorrow though, tomorrow I’ll have her in my arms, and if I play this right, she’ll choose me. This time I’m not letting her slip away—not again.