Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alberto
My legs are still humming from the run when I walk back in—lungs clean, sweat cooling, head quiet the way it only gets quiet when I push my body hard enough to drown everything else out.
It lasts exactly three seconds.
Vesper is on the couch, wrapped in a blanket like she’s trying to keep herself from unraveling. Her hair is up in a careless knot.
“Where’s Cally?” she asks.
Of course that’s her first question.
Not How was your run? Not Did you sleep? Not Are you okay? She asks about him, like she can feel the absence in the room the way you feel a missing tooth with your tongue.
It shouldn’t bother me, but it does, because what she’s asking between the lines is Did you kick him out last night?
“He was asleep when I left,” I say, pointing at the same spot on the couch where she’s sitting, like evidence will solve this.
Her gaze narrows. “I knew there was a reason the sheets were cold.” She tilts her head, voice sweet in a way that means danger. “Did you drag him out of my room?”
I exhale through my nose. “Why would you think I’d do something like that?”
She looks at me like I’m a math problem she’s already solved. “Because you’ve been . . . hostile.”
“Me?” I scoff. “And he’s been what, polite?”
Vesper’s mouth twitches like she wants to laugh and also wants to scream. “No. But at least he’s trying.”
“To do what?” I ask, and it comes out sharper than I mean. “To fuck with my head? Yeah. He’s excellent at that.”
Her eyes flash. “He’s trying to smooth things over. When you close yourself off, he pushes you.”
I shouldn’t argue with her.
I should sit down. I should soften. I should be the man she deserves in a moment like this.
But my chest is already tight, my thoughts already circling the same ugly orbit: Callaway in her bed, Callaway in her space, Callaway being the version of love that doesn’t require silence.
“He’s trying to win,” I say.
“And you’re trying to what?” she shoots back. “Lose?”
That hits.
Not because it’s clever, but because it’s accurate.
Vesper shifts, blanket sliding down her shoulder. She braces her hands on her knees like she’s steadying herself before she says something that costs.
“This is hard,” she says, voice quieter now. “Trying to stick around because I feel like if I don’t, you two are going to kill each other before the playoffs.”
My jaw clenches.
She keeps going, eyes shining with frustration and fear she’s trying to disguise as annoyance. “Also, it makes me want to run away—again—because I don’t want to watch you two rip each other apart. Emotionally. Physically. All of it.”
And my first instinct—the ugliest one—is to say: Then don’t run. Stay. Choose.
Like we did before.
Like we destroyed her with.
I bite it back so hard it tastes like blood.
I move toward the kitchen, because if I sit too close, I’ll do something reckless. Like touch her. Like pull her into me. Like beg her not to leave, to kiss me, to love me.
“We’re trying,” I say, because it’s the only thing I can offer without lying.
Vesper’s eyes track me. “Are you?”
I stop with my hands on the counter, my back half-turned like a coward. The room feels too quiet. Even the fridge hum feels loud.
“It’s hard,” I say, and this time I don’t try to make it sound like I’m in control. “Okay?”
She’s silent for a beat. Then, softer—like she hates how much this matters: “Why is it hard?”
Because I don’t know how to say, Because I want him.
Because I don’t know how to say, Because I want you so much it makes me want to break things just to feel something I can control.
Because I don’t know how to say, Because the word “family” sounds like a trap and a dream at the same time.
So I give her a smaller truth. One she can hold without dropping it.
“Because we never talked about it,” I say, turning back to face her. “You, him . . . me.”
She stills.
I keep going, because now that I’ve started, it’s spilling out anyway, scraping at my ribs on the way.
“We were . . . fine,” I say, and my throat works around the memory. “The three of us. Close. Almost one thing.” I swallow. “And then that night happened, and none of us knew what to do with it. So we did the worst possible thing.”
Her mouth parts, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“We acted like it didn’t matter,” I say. “And then we acted like it mattered so much you had to pick between us.”
Her eyes glisten, and she blinks hard like she’s trying to keep control of her face.
“I’ll never pick,” she whispers. “I love the two of you so much. Haven’t stopped, but I will never make a choice.”
“I know,” I say, and it comes out rough. “And we still forced you into it.”
Vesper’s laugh comes out broken, barely there. “You’re saying this like you’re sorry.”
I stare at her, at the way she’s curled into herself like she’s still protecting the parts of her we cracked.
“I am,” I say. “I’m sorry in ways I don’t have words for.”
Her chin lifts—defensive instinct, sunshine with a blade. “Okay, then prove it.”
“Prove it how?” I ask.
She gestures toward the empty space in the apartment like it’s evidence. “Stop acting like Cally being here is some personal attack. Stop looking like you’re about to bite his head off for breathing in the same room as me.”
I let out a humorless huff. “He breathes too fucking loud.”
She shoots me a look. “Monty.”
I hold her gaze, and I wish I could tell her the real reason. The one that would finally drag the truth into the light.
Could I? I don’t know if I can when I haven’t even confronted it myself.
Last night when Cally and I almost fucked each other’s brains out, I realized everything that I kept locked away.
Things I have to confront myself before I can say them out loud.
Before I can offer anything to either one of them.
Yet, I want to be a part of this, all of it.
“I’ll try.” It’s all I can promise.
Her eyes narrow, unimpressed. “That sounded like a hostage negotiation.”
“Because it feels like one,” I admit, and the honesty in it makes her expression soften a fraction.
I take a step closer, careful, like I’m approaching a skittish animal.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I say. “I don’t know how to be . . . good at any of it. I can be good at hockey. I can be good at discipline. I can be good at control.” My voice drops. “I’m not good at loving—or sharing my life with anyone.”
Her breath catches, just slightly.
I push through anyway, because she deserves the truth even if it makes my skin burn.
“And I’m terrified that if I do it wrong, you’ll run,” I say. “And you’ll have every reason.”
Vesper’s eyes are wet now, but she rolls them like she’s annoyed with her own emotions. “God, you’re dramatic.”
“Am I?” I ask, and I hate that my voice sounds like it’s begging. “Or am I just finally saying what I feel out loud and you don’t like it?”
She stares at me for a long moment, her fingers tightening around the blanket.
Then she exhales, slow, like she’s letting go of a tiny piece of armor.
“I don’t want to run,” she says quietly. “I just don’t want to be the reason you two destroy each other.”
Fuck. I don’t like this one bit.
She says it like she means to take herself out of the equation, like she’s preparing to give up on us before we collapse in front of her. Her voice is calm, but I see it in the way her fingers curl against the blanket. She’s bracing.
“You’re not the reason,” I say instantly.
She gives me that look.
The one that says, Sure, Monty.
The one that sees right through the things I’m still too much of a coward to admit.
But her voice softens anyway. “Then go find him. Bring him back. Act like you mean it when you say you’re trying.”
My throat pulls tight. I feel the words coming but they get stuck, caught on every bruise I’ve tried to cover with logic and distance.
Because that’s the thing about Vesper—she doesn’t want flowers or fucking poetry.
She wants truth. Effort. The ugly, real parts that mean something. The parts that change things.
She asks for the things that matter.
And that terrifies me more than any body check, any screaming crowd, any broken play in the final ten seconds of overtime. Because if I give her everything, she could still walk away. If I give Callaway everything, he might laugh in my face.
I nod once. It’s small, but it’s everything I have.
“I would,” I say. “If I knew where he was. But I can’t go hunting for him when his parents are still watching. What if someone’s listening—we can’t let people into our world when things are still in shambles.”
She watches me like she’s counting seconds between heartbeats. Like she wants me to show her something I haven’t yet.
“How do I know this won’t fall apart,” she asks, “because you two keep waiting for the right moment?”
I hate how much that hits.
I take a breath and drop to the couch beside her, not too close at first—but close enough to feel her warmth, to feel her presence settle into my bones. And then I turn, bracing an elbow on the back of the couch, facing her fully.
“It won’t fall apart,” I say, and it comes out raw. “Not because of me. Not this time.”
She doesn’t believe me yet.
So I reach down and lay my hand over her stomach, fingers splaying gently across the still flat surface. My thumb moves in slow circles, not for her, not for me—but for the life growing inside her.
“For you,” I whisper. “For this baby. I’ll make it work. I’ll make us work. Not as a sacrifice—never that.”
I look up at her. Her eyes are wide. She’s still holding herself back like she doesn’t want to hope too hard.
“I know I’ve made it seem like he and I can’t happen. And maybe we won’t figure it out overnight. But I’m not going to keep waiting for a perfect moment that doesn’t exist.”
I swallow, hard.
“This is about whether I can finally choose you without forcing you to choose between us.”
She breathes in, shaky. “And can you?”
“I’m trying. And I will. Because I want you.” My voice breaks, and I let it. “I want this baby. I want a life where I don’t have to run. And yeah—him and me? It’s complicated as fuck.”
I look away, then back again because she deserves the truth.
“I don’t know what to call what I feel for him. It’s not simple. Some days it burns. Other days it scares me so much I shut everything down. But when I see him—when he touches me—I want . . . I fucking want. And maybe that’s love. Maybe it’s something bigger. But I feel it in my bones.”
I close the space between us.
“And I feel it with you too. Different. Sweeter. You make things possible, Vesp. You make me think I could actually be someone worth loving.”
Her eyes fill, but she doesn’t cry. Instead, she smiles—wobbly, sarcastic sunshine like only she can deliver. “That’s big talk from a man who once ghosted me for three weeks because I sent him a picture of the Eiffel tower and invited him to come along.”
“I was having an identity crisis,” I mutter.
“Still are,” she whispers back.
But she leans in anyway.
So I kiss her.