Chapter 21 #2
The questions continue. We do our best to respond until, of course, a reporter stands up with a bright voice filled with hunger. “What about the rivalry? You and Wade have history. How do you see that translating to the locker room?”
My smile returns automatically. It’s my oldest reflex. A shield and a weapon.
“Hockey’s intense,” I say. “You compete. You push. That doesn’t mean you can’t respect a guy’s game. He’s the best goalie in the league. Have you seen his stats?”
Monty’s gaze stays forward. He gives them nothing. He’s refusing to be entertainment.
I keep going anyway, because if I stop, my mind will go back to Vesper’s face. Back to the way she tried to joke through fear. Back to how small she looked when she said “positive” like it was a foreign language she didn’t want to learn.
Back to how much I want to fuck him—or for him to take me apart too.
I shift, pressing my thigh against his under the table, needing something.
Anything. Contact. Pressure. The idea that I could fill him up, calm him down, make him forget the bullshit questions and the performance of being Monty in public.
Even now, while we’re both dressed too nicely and answering things that don’t matter, I want him. I need him. And I don’t know what’s worse—that I want to crawl into his lap, or that I want him to pull me into his and shut me up with his mouth.
“We’re professionals,” I say. “We want the same thing now.”
The coach jumps in, eager. “They’re here to win the Cup.
Alberto Wade and Callaway Winthrop have always had respect for each other.
” He clears his throat like he’s about to tell a bedtime story.
“They attended the same camp for years. Back then, they were friends, and that friendship is what brings them back together.”
Nods. Scribbles. Satisfaction.
Everyone loves a clean narrative. Apparently, the rivalry is over, though it’s weird that I’m the last one finding out about my personal and professional life.
But hurray for small miracles.
Newsflash, Coach—it’s worse now. It’s worse than ever. We may no longer be fighting on the ice, but we’re still fighting for her. The woman who we’ve loved since forever. Plus, she’s carrying a child.
And beneath all that?
I still want him.
Still want him to press me into the nearest wall and fuck the part of me I’ve never let anyone else touch.
So yeah.
This season’s going to be fucking perfect.
Monty finally leans toward his mic. “We both care about winning.” His voice is flat.
The GM lets a few more questions in, then wraps the conference with thank-yous, forward momentum, and a grin like he’s personally fixed the franchise by putting us in the same room.
Then they hand us our jerseys.
Black and white. Orcas across the front. My name on the back like I belong to the Orcas family, as Mills Aldridge called it.
Cameras fire while we pull them on, shake hands with the GM, pose with the coach.
And then—of course—we have to shake hands with each other.
“Closer,” the photographer says. “Don’t let go of the handshake. Look at the camera like you’re best friends.”
Monty’s hand closes around mine.
His grip is firm. Warm. Calloused in places that make my mind go places I shouldn’t.
My breath shifts before I can stop it. I feel every ridge of skin, every memory embedded in his palm.
My thumb slides inward, slowly, tracing the soft line at his wrist. A small touch.
Intimate. I rub once, then again, like I’m reminding him I still know where to find him.
How I’d tease the head of cock until his breath stuttered, until he begged without sound. I let my tongue brush my lower lip as I smirk, just enough to register.
To anyone else, it’s nothing. But to him, it says everything.
I want my mouth on you.
I want to take you apart until you forget how to stand.
And I know he hears it—because his grip tightens for half a second before the cameras steal us back.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t pull away.
His eyes cut to mine for half a second—too much, too clear. Promise tangled with warning. Don’t. Please. Both living in the same look.
My pulse answers anyway: Make me stop. Or don’t.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
We stand there, hands locked, pretending this is nothing.
“Alright,” Stacy says, mercifully. “Ice time.”
He releases me.
My hand remembers him longer than it should.
The hallway to the locker rooms smells like rubber mats and old sweat and fresh paint, a weird mix of new beginning and familiar violence. The place feels alive—people moving with purpose, skates clacking somewhere in the distance, voices bouncing off concrete.
Monty and I split into our stalls like magnets repelling each other.
We’re not required to go full gear for B-roll, but Monty still does most of it, because he can’t help himself. He lays his equipment out in a precise line. Pads. Gloves. Mask. Every piece placed like it matters.
I watch from the corner of my eye as he lines everything up like he’s building a fence around his own nerves—pads squared, gloves stacked, stick leaned just so.
He tugs the Velcro on his blocker strap, checks it.
Then, checks it again, like the second time is the one that convinces his brain to shut up.
Then his knuckles rap the edge of the stall—two quick knocks—because he needs some part of the world to answer back in a way he can predict.
Superstition. Ritual. Control.
My mouth twists because I can’t resist.
“You do realize the puck doesn’t care about your spiritual journey, right?” I say, voice light.
Monty doesn’t even look up. “And you do realize you talk too much, right?”
I grin. “It’s my love language, babe.” I wink at him.
His shoulders shift just a fraction. He’s probably ready to punch me, but knowing him . . . he’ll swallow the anger and just skate it away.
In the tunnel, when the noise gets louder and the cameras start to feel close, he finally reaches for his mask. Two taps. A pause. Then he tightens the straps in the same order—right, left, right again—like a prayer he refuses to admit is a prayer.
We step onto the ice.
The rink is cold and bright, boards clean, glass clear. The air smells like ice and metal and the faintest hint of Zamboni exhaust. The sound of our blades carving the surface is too intimate for how public this is.
“Take a lap together,” the photographer yells. “Slowly.”
Monty skates like he was born on blades. He makes it look easy in a way that irritates me on principle.
I match his pace, and for a moment, it almost feels normal. As if we’ve always done this. Like there isn’t a woman back in his apartment with a pregnancy test and a laugh that sounds like it’s trying not to break.
We circle once. Twice.
They stop us at center ice.
“Shoulder to shoulder. Sticks down. Look at the camera.”
Monty plants his stick and stares forward.
I do the same, but my gaze slides to him because I’m an idiot and I can’t help myself.
“Smile, Winthrop,” someone calls from the boards.
I give them what they want. Easy. Charming. Fine.
“Okay,” the photographer says. “Now face each other. Like you’re talking strategy. Make it look intense.”
I turn toward Monty.
He turns toward me.
We’re close enough that I can see the scrape of stubble along his jaw. The set of his mouth. The calm in his eyes that feels like a challenge.
“You’re doing great,” I murmur, soft enough that no one else hears.
His gaze hardens. “Shut up.”
I hum, amused, because provoking him is a compulsion at this point. “You think they’re going to sell merch with your murder face?”
“I don’t care,” he says.
“Give them a little smile, babe. I know you’ve got one buried in there.”
“Don’t fucking start, Winthrop. I swear I’ll break every bone in your body.”
My grin turns feral because my brain is a bad place to live. “You’d have to catch me first.”
His gaze drops—quick, hungry—to my mouth.
My gut reacts before I can stop it.
It’s raw want. Old want. It scares me because it doesn’t feel new—it feels like coming home to something I never packed up.
I drop my voice. “You look tight. When was the last time you got any release?”
“Stop,” he warns, but there’s strain there now, threaded through the command.
I lean in just enough that he can feel me. Not enough for anyone else to clock it. “I could fix that,” I say, like it’s a joke. Like I’m not picturing my mouth between his legs. “Once we’re in the showers, I could take care of you with my tongue.”
His jaw locks. His breath changes.
I know that sound. I made it happen once.
“Last one,” the photographer calls. “Back-to-back. Arms crossed. Look tough.”
Monty skates into place without a word.
I follow, and my back meets his—light contact that detonates anyway.
Warmth through jerseys. Breath trapped under helmets. Every year we tried not to want each other compressed into one narrow point for the cameras.
Flash.
And for half a second, I’m sixteen again, learning how to look fine when I wasn’t. Learning how to keep my face calm while my body begged to be chosen.
I blink and hold the smile.
We can get through the season.
Maybe through Vesper’s pregnancy.
Maybe through the noise, the desire, the wanting that never learned how to die—and the worst part is knowing the only thing that could ruin us faster is giving in.