Chapter 48 #2
And I’d touched him, with that bright, reckless confidence I put on when I’m terrified of how much I want something to go right.
“You’re so good at pretending you don’t want anything,” I murmured, leaning in until my mouth hovered near his ear, my breath landing where his restraint lived.
His eyes stayed on the road.
But his whole body reacted—one sharp inhale, a fractional shift in his posture, the tiniest flare of his nostrils like he’d caught a scent he hated that he loved.
I’d watched his throat move again, another hard swallow.
I’d smiled at the windshield like I wasn’t holding a live wire.
“Tell me what you want.”
He didn’t answer. Not at first.
Because Monty doesn’t answer when he’s cornered. He goes quiet. He goes still. He turns into a storm pretending to be a man.
So I pushed.
Not with force. With proximity. With patience dressed up as teasing. With a kind of tenderness that felt illegal between us—because tenderness suggests you care, and caring suggests you’re staying, and none of us knows how to breathe in that future without panicking.
His voice finally came out like it hurt. “Callaway.”
Just my name. Nothing else.
A warning and a plea.
I’d lowered my gaze to his hands on the wheel, to the tendons standing out in his forearms. To the way his control looked like devotion when it was really fear.
“You can say it,” I’d whispered. “You can want me. You can want her. You can want—”
“Fuck.” The word snapped out of him, raw and sharp-edged, like it surprised even him.
The car drifted a hair toward the line before he corrected, jaw flexing hard enough I thought he might crack a tooth.
I’d softened my touch for a beat—just a beat—and his whole body shuddered like he’d been waiting for mercy and hated that he needed it.
“Look at you,” I’d said, quiet and mean-sweet, like candy with a blade inside. “Acting like you’re not about to lose it.”
His laugh wasn’t a laugh. It was one harsh exhale.
“Eyes forward,” I’d told him, voice warm with sin. “Good boy.”
That did it.
Not the words, exactly—though Monty has always been dangerously responsive to praise he hasn’t earned.
It was the way I said it like I meant it. Like he was allowed to be good. Like he was allowed to be wanted without paying for it.
His grip tightened on the wheel, and he muttered, “Don’t.”
But his voice broke on the last consonant.
And I, being me—reckless sunshine with a self-destructive streak and a mouth that gets me in trouble—leaned closer and murmured, “Don’t what? Don’t want it? Don’t let me see you? Don’t let yourself—”
“Callaway.” My name again, rougher this time, as if he was trying to drag it across broken glass.
I’d pressed my lips to the shell of his ear—barely there, a threat more than a kiss.
“You can take it,” I’d told him. “You can let go for once. I’ve got you.”
He’d finally spoken, voice low, wrecked. “I want you to stop talking.”
I’d grinned, wicked. “No, you don’t.”
His eyes had flashed to mine—one glance, quick as a match strike.
Then he’d looked back at the road and said, so quietly I almost missed it, “I want you to make me forget how to hold myself together.”
That had nearly broken me.
Because humiliatingly tender wasn’t allowed.
Not between men like us. Not with her upstairs at the lake house waiting, and the three of us balancing on the edge of something that could ruin us if we called it love.
But my hand hadn’t stopped.
And Monty—Monty had let me.
And I’d whispered, against his ear, like a promise and a sin, “Good. Because I’m not going to be gentle about it.”
His eyes never left the road, but his breathing changed—slow at first, then strained. Like he’d been holding himself back his entire life and my hand was a key.
When I slid my palm down his thigh, his whole body went rigid.
“Callaway,” he’d warned, voice rough, like my name tasted dangerous.
I’d grinned like an idiot, like I didn’t know better. “What? I’m comforting you.”
“You’re a menace.”
“Thank you.”
And then my hand had wrapped around him through his jeans and he’d cursed under his breath—something savage, something honest. His grip on the wheel had tightened. His foot hit the gas like speed could outrun need.
“Eyes on the road,” I’d teased.
“I will throw you out of this car.”
“You won’t.”
His breath had broken, and it wasn’t anger. It wasn’t annoyance. It was want that scared him because it was real.
“Fuck,” he’d whispered, barely audible, like he hated how fast I could undo him. Like he hated that I could make him beg without saying a word.
And I’d kept going, slow enough to torture, because I’m an asshole and he likes it.
“We did have fun in the car,” I say but add, “After that you could’ve told me.”
“Then we got home,” he continues, and his gaze flicks to Vesper with something like reverence, “and our woman was needy, and . . .”
He pauses, because the word needy doesn’t feel big enough for what happened after. For how Vesper had looked between us—soft and bright and wrecked, like she’d been holding her breath her whole life and finally let it go.
“ . . . well,” he finishes, voice lower, rougher, “here we are.”
Vesper’s smile wobbles like it’s trying to hold on to the edges of her face and failing. Her eyes go glossy anyway, because her body keeps telling the truth even when her mouth wants to make it cute.
Her fingers clamp around mine. Not a gentle squeeze. A “don’t let go.”
She inhales, then exhales like she’s shoving air through a narrow space, and she tries to save us with humor—because that’s her superpower, and also her coping mechanism.
“So basically,” she says, voice bright in the most suspicious way, “our life might be falling apart, your parents are planning a press conference, and you two are . . .” Her gaze darts between me and Monty, a shaky little spark trying to survive. “Horny.”
Something in me breaks open.
I bark out a laugh that feels wrong and right at the same time, like my chest has been locked up for weeks and someone finally kicked the door in. It’s ugly. It’s too loud. It’s relief and terror and disbelief all tangled together.
Monty’s mouth twitches at one corner, the tiniest surrender, like even he can’t pretend her timing isn’t insane.
I look at her—this woman who can make a joke with tears climbing her lashes—and I want to gather her up and tuck her into my ribs where nothing can touch her.
“Worst case?” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I mean it to, as if speaking too loudly will make this real. “They out me. They out us.”
The air changes.
Vesper’s breath stutters. Her grip on my hand turns fierce, her knuckles whitening like she’s trying to brute-force the future into behaving.
“Okay,” she says, and the bravado slips for half a second, revealing the raw, trembling underside. Then she steadies herself—no, not the right word. She sets herself. Puts herself back together with sheer will. “If you’re up to it, I am too.”
My throat burns. Not from some cliché tightness—just from the fact that she’s offering herself up to the blast radius without flinching. Like love is something you can plant your feet in front of and dare it to do its worst.
I turn my head, needing to see Monty, needing to read him the way I always do. Monty doesn’t do fear in public. He doesn’t do anything in public that can be used against him. But right now, in this room, with Vesper between us and the future circling like a shark, his eyes look stripped down.
I nod at him. “What do you want, big guy?”
He exhales through his nose, a sound that’s almost a scoff, almost a groan. His gaze drops to Vesper’s stomach like it has gravity. Like it owns him.
“Honestly?” he says. One word and I can hear how hard it is for him to admit anything. “I’m not ready.”
Vesper’s face flinches even though she tries to hide it, even though she’s been pretending she doesn’t need reassurance every second.
Monty’s jaw flexes. He swallows. Then he forces the next part out like he’s dragging it up from somewhere deep.
“But we can’t wait. I’ll keep up with therapy. I’ll talk more and . . .” His eyes lift, and for a second I see the boy he used to be—the one who learned early that wanting something could get it taken away. “We’re doing this not only for us. For our baby.”
The words hit Vesper like a wave.
Her mouth opens. Closes. Her eyes squeeze shut and she shakes her head once, like she can’t accept the shape of this. Like she can’t accept that her body is doing something miraculous while the rest of her world threatens to implode.
“What did we do?” she whisper.
My heart does something painful and stupid.
I lean in, and I don’t ask permission, because I know her. Because my need to hold her is louder than my fear of getting it wrong. I gather her to me, careful of her belly, and her hands go to my shirt like she’s grabbing onto the only solid thing in the room.
“I don’t know,” I whisper into her hair. “But I know what we’re going to do next.”
She makes a wet, broken little laugh that turns into a sob, and I hate the universe for the way it keeps asking her to be brave.
Monty shifts closer, sliding his hand to her back, pinning her to him in a way that reads like possession and devotion all at once. His palm spreads between her shoulder blades as if touch is the only thing keeping her in one piece.
Vesper pulls back just enough to look between us, mascara threatening, nose pinking, trying to be funny again because silence is too dangerous.
“You’ll do this for the baby,” she says, and her voice wobbles so hard it cracks. “You two keep calling them our baby.”
I lower my hand to her stomach—the soft curve of her that now holds everything we’re fighting for. My fingers splay there, possessive in the most tender way I know how to be, like I’m imprinting myself on this truth.
“Ours,” I say. “And the beginning of our family.”
Vesper’s face crumples. She tries to bite her lip like that will stop the tears, and it doesn’t. She cries like she’s been holding it in for too long, like her body finally decided it’s done pretending this isn’t terrifying.
Monty makes a low sound under his breath—something that might be a curse, or a prayer. He shifts again and presses his forehead to her temple, eyes shut, as if he’s drawing strength from her existence.
I pull her in tighter, and my brain keeps running because that’s what mine does when my heart starts to drown.
I have a plan though.
We go to the rink and we don’t let this blow up in public first. We control the narrative. We talk to Mills Aldrige. He’s the owner and hopefully we’ll have his support. We talk to Coach.
Today is a recovery day. No morning skate with cameras lurking. No locker room jokes that land wrong. No reporters hanging around like vultures.
Tomorrow night we have another game, and maybe we’ll be done with this stressful issue. Harvey usually works fast and there’s a lot of dirt he has on my family. I’m sure they’re going to be too busy controlling that shitshow.
Vesper sniffles and swipes at her cheek with the back of her hand, then glares at me like she’s offended by her own tears. “This is not cute,” she mutters.
I can’t help it. I smile, because she’s ridiculous and brave and so easy to love it hurts.
“You’re fucking adorable,” I tell her anyway, because I’m apparently suicidal.
She rolls her eyes, watery and furious. “I’m pregnant and my mascara is committing a crime.”
Monty’s mouth twitches again. “You’re still cute.”
Vesper’s gaze snaps to him, startled, like she didn’t expect him to offer anything gentle without being forced. For a second, her face softens into something that looks like awe.
Then she huffs. “You two are going to ruin me.”
“Already did,” I say, and the words come out too honest, too exposed, like I’m bleeding right onto the sheets. “But we plan to be here for always and forever.”
“Forever and always.”