Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Alberto
She drops it—You got traded. Meet your new teammate—like it’s a fun fact, like it isn’t the detonation of a nuclear fucking bomb. Like she didn’t just rip open something we were all pretending wasn’t bleeding.
She points at Cal.
Then at me.
“Go, Orcas,” she mutters, like this is a goddamn game show and not the slow, spiraling undoing of my grip on her.
And then the cherry on the fucking sundae—she mutters, “Maybe they should just kiss and get it over with.”
I blink. Callaway blinks.
The silence between us is instant and brutal. My pulse doesn’t just spike—it detonates behind my ribs.
I look at him.
Really look at him.
His smile is gone, but the smug glint in his eye? That’s still there. That golden boy glint. His jaw ticks. My jaw tightens.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I mutter, the words scraping up from somewhere near my ribs.
Cally folds his arms across his chest. His biceps stretch his jacket. “Nope. Apparently not.”
Callaway fucking Winthrop.
Golden boy. Media darling. The grin that sells jerseys and forgiveness. She let him pick her up?
For a split second, everything in me goes hot—not rage exactly. Something deeper. Territorial. Ancient. The place anger settles when it decides to live in your bones.
“You?” I mutter.
Cally lifts his brows. “Yeah, me.”
He doesn’t smile. That’s the problem. When Callaway stops smiling, it means he’s serious, and I’ve seen what that looks like on the ice.
His gaze slides over me, slow and assessing—not like an opponent, but like a man measuring another man’s claim.
“You okay with that?” I ask because he’s been with Colorado since his rookie year. “I mean . . . you’re the Cobras—or the Cobras are you.”
He scoffs. “At the end of the day? I’m fucking nothing. They want new blood. I’m too old.”
I step closer, close enough that the air between us goes tight. “You’re still one of the best players in the league.”
He scoffs. “They said the Orcas need me.” His mouth tilts. “What’s your story? Why are you going back to them?”
I shrug, eyes cutting toward Vesper’s retreating. “It’s not like I could fight it.” I pause, let a beat go. “And one day she’ll stop running. When she does, she’ll come home to Portland—” To me, I don’t say.
His eyes don’t leave me. “She’s the reason I didn’t say fuck it and retire.”
I hold my breath.
“She’s here,” he continues, voice low, earnest in a way that surprises me. “She needs me. Me—” Not you, he doesn’t finish.
My hands curl. Not because he’s wrong—because he’s not. We both showed up with coffee, hope . . . and a plan that didn’t include the other. We both think we’re the one who knows how to take care of her.
He came to play hero.
I came to keep my promise.
“You think this is funny?” I ask.
He meets my stare, calm and infuriating. “No. I think it’s war.”
There it is.
The silence stretches, taut with everything we’ve never resolved since Juniper Ridge. Since that night. Since her mouth and her hands and the way the line vanished beneath our feet.
I don’t look away—not because I’m brave, but because I’m already picturing his name on the locker room wall. Already imagining passing him the puck while knowing he wants the same woman I breathe for.
Somewhere down the terminal, she’s probably rolling her eyes and praying we don’t break something before practice.
Good luck with that, Ves.
“I’m not letting her go,” I snap. “I don’t care if we’re teammates and have to learn to work together.”
He shrugs. “That’s okay.” His voice drops an octave. “I wouldn’t mind sharing . . . if you know how to share everything with me.”
My brain breaks.
My jaw drops.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
The fucking audacity.
The charm—the invitation wrapped in a dare.
It hits like a current—the pull, the impossible spark, the way our rivalry always threatens to tilt into something feral when he looks at me like that. It’s not flirtation. It’s something darker. Something dangerous. Like he’s asking what would happen if we didn’t hold back this time.
I recover first, barely. “You’re fucking unbelievable.”
Cally smirks. “You noticed.”
I look away, fast, because if I don’t, I’ll choose violence or something even stupider. Break his nose. Kiss him until he forgets her name. Kiss him until I forget mine.
He starts walking toward the exit like he owns the place, and I follow, because I’m not letting her go with him. Because we’re both sick in the same way—addicted to this game we keep pretending is just about her.
There’s a black SUV idling at the curb. Tinted windows. Engine low and smooth, like it knows it’s about to carry a problem.
We stop at the same time. Like we’ve choreographed it. Like our anger hums in sync. And for the first time, I realize—this isn’t about winning. It’s about survival.
About surviving her without burning down everything we touch.
The SUV door opens. And there she is.
Vesper leans out from the backseat, brows raised, like this is all very tedious for her and not a slow, public unraveling of three lives knotted together by sex, bad timing, and everything we never learned how to say out loud.
“Glad you made it in one piece, boys,” she says, voice sugar-dipped in sarcasm.
She rolls her eyes like she didn’t just light a match and stroll away with the gasoline tucked under her arm.
The driver moves quickly then, opening the other doors for us like he can sense the tension crackling between two men who are one bad sentence away from doing something regrettable in public.
Vesper leans back into the seat, already done with us.
Like she didn’t just leave us standing there, wrecked, choosing restraint over disaster. I don’t look at Cal, but I feel him glance at me.
One second.
Two.
And then I move first, slipping into the front passenger seat without a word.
Because if I sit in the back, I’ll reach for her without thinking—palm to the back of her neck, thumb tracing that spot beneath her jaw where her pulse betrays her calm.
My body remembers her too well. Her sounds.
Her sighs. The way she used to curl into me like I was the first place she’d ever felt safe.
The car starts, and just like that, we’re in motion.
Three hearts.
Two grudges.
One woman who might be the end of us all.
“You should’ve let Harvey charter you,” he says, voice pitched soft enough to sound like concern instead of a lecture. “Redeyes are for people who hate themselves.”
Vesper’s laugh is tired. It breaks at the end like it ran out of fuel. “I do hate myself. Keeps me humble.”
I grip the edge of the seat, not hard enough to show, just enough to keep my hands from doing what they want—reaching back, taking her face gently between my hands and kissing her until she forgets he’s here. Make her feel better, less stressed.
It’s easy to forget that Vesper hides behind humor when she’s scared.
She always has. She weaponizes wit like it’s armor. Uses sarcasm like ritual—same way a goalie taps the posts, kisses the crossbar, whispers to their water bottle like it’s the only friend they have during the game.
Okay, maybe I’m the one who does that—but can you really blame me? It’s how my uncle taught me to play. And now? It’s the only way I know how to fight for a shutout.
I’m concerned that Ves is all sunshine and spitfire, trying to keep the walls from closing in.
Her fingers curl around her cup like she’s grounding herself—like the warmth might be enough to hold her together for just a few more hours or days.
She hasn’t said much, but she doesn’t need to.
I know every micro-expression. I can read her breath like a playbook I’ve memorized.
She’s terrified.
I stare straight ahead, past the highway signs and exits, tracking every lane like I could will us to Baker’s Creek faster. Like I can outrun what’s waiting.
She didn’t call until it was already happening last time—until it was too late to hold her up before she broke. This time I’ll be here. Even if she doesn’t want me to be.
Even if we’re sharing the same air with the man who kissed her at eighteen and never fucking let go.
My phone buzzes. I sigh and glance at the screen. It’s a text from my agent.
Conrad: Media tomorrow 9 a.m. Physicals and onboarding at noon. You’re expected by 8:30. Media Relations will reach out later today. Your contact person is Mindy.
“Fuck.” Cally’s voice comes from the back seat. “Well, at least I was able to come today.”
I don’t even blink. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, settling in? Unpacking your new team-issued gym bag?”
“She’s staying with me,” he says suddenly, possessive and casual in the same breath. Like, he didn’t just punch me in the fucking chest.
Vesper cuts in. “You two need to stop.”
I grit my teeth. “Where are you staying, pretty boy?”
“Harvey’s working on it.”
Meaning . . . “You don’t have a place.” I shrug, keeping my tone casual even though I want to kick him out of the moving car. “She’s not staying at a hotel.”
“She’s here,” she snaps, “and she can make her own decisions.” She points at us, stabbing her finger through the air like she’s doing triage on a bomb site. “If you want to stay in this car, you have to stop this . . . this . . . testosterone match.”
I turn slightly, trying to soften my voice. “I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.”
Vesper lets out a sound that’s halfway between frustration and something else.
Maybe affection. Maybe exhaustion. She sips her drink, and I can see her hands tighten around the cup.
She’s hungry for comfort, but won’t let us near because she knows she’ll have to choose—and the other might just lose their shit.
Also, she’s very independent. She doesn’t ask for help. Never has. But she doesn’t have to. Not with me.
She clears her throat. “Okay. Before you start measuring your—”
Cally grins. “Say it.”
“Egos,” she deadpans. “I need ground rules.”