Chapter 47 #3
Monty’s voice follows, lower and drier. “Don’t say winners like that. It’s embarrassing.”
“You shut out your brother-in-law. Let me enjoy this, babe.”
“I hate both of you,” I call.
Callaway appears first, all grin and damp hair, wearing an Orcas hoodie and the specific expression of a man who knows he ruined my night and enjoyed it.
Monty comes in behind him, quieter, eyes moving through the room the way goalies always assess exits, people, energy, danger. Then he sees Vesper.
He stops assessing.
She walks to them with Vienna reaching out from my arms.
“Da,” Vienna says, apparently deciding this entire group of men shares one job title.
Monty’s face changes first. Softens into something private as he takes her from me. “Hi, little Vee.”
Callaway kisses Vesper’s cheek, then Vienna’s head, then points at me. “Tough luck.”
I stare at him. “Do not start.”
“You were robbed,” Liv says firmly.
Callaway points at her. “I like her. Welcome to the family.”
Halston says, “Monty was better.”
I turn to him. “You live with me.”
“I value accuracy.”
Monty comes over after handing Vienna back to Cally. He hugs me first, which is suspicious because he never starts with affection unless he’s done something awful or is about to. “Good game.”
“You stole a goal from me.”
“I did.”
“You feel good about that?”
“Fucking amazing.”
“At least pretend to be conflicted.”
“Leave my husband alone,” Cally glares at me. Then he turns to Liv and Halston.
“Livia,” he says with a nod, but Vesper elbows him.
“Use manners.” Monty sighs and hugs Liv carefully.
Liv pats his back. “You’re very tall and emotionally intimidating. I respect the brand.”
Monty looks at me. “She’s funny.”
“She’s mine,” I say.
“Ours,” Halston corrects, quiet and immediate.
Callaway smiles, softer now. “Damn right.”
Then he opens his arms to Halston as if there is no possibility that Halston won’t accept the hug. Halston hesitates. Callaway waits with a grin, patient in his own impossible way.
Halston steps in.
Callaway hugs him, slaps his back once, then says near his ear, “Welcome to the terrifyingly codependent hockey-family side of this operation.”
Dinner becomes exactly what I hoped and feared it would be.
Loud. Warm. Too much.
Dad serves food like he’s feeding an army.
Vesper argues with him about garlic. Luther and Callaway debate a penalty from last season with the intensity of men who both know they’re wrong but have no intention of confessing.
Monty cuts food into tiny pieces for Vienna and listens more than he talks.
Liv refills Sable’s water without asking.
Halston sits beside me, taking it all in.
After dinner, when everyone has shifted into the living room, and Vienna is asleep against Cally’s shoulder, Luther finds me near the windows facing the lake.
The house behind us is full of voices.
Liv is on the couch with Vesper, holding a mug of tea like she has been given an official role. Halston is near the fireplace with Dad and Monty, listening while Dad tells a story about my rookie year that I know for a fact is slander.
Luther stands beside me.
For a while, neither of us speaks.
Then he says, “Is it really that easy?”
I look at him. “Winning faceoffs? No. You’re still bad at those.”
He doesn’t smile.
So, I stop.
“What?”
He nods toward the room. Toward Liv. Toward Halston. Toward Vesper leaning against Callaway, while Monty adjusts the blanket over her knees without interrupting his conversation.
“This,” Luther says. “Loving more than one person. Making it a life.”
I glance at him.
His face is turned toward the glass, but he isn’t looking at the lake.
“I don’t know,” he adds before I can ask. “I have friends. People I care about—nothing serious. Sometimes I look at what Ves has, and now what you have, and I think maybe there’s something there that I never let myself want because it seemed impossible.”
I let that sit.
Luther doesn’t hand people vulnerable sentences often. When he does, you don’t fumble them.
“It isn’t easy,” I say.
He nods like he expected that.
“It takes work. It takes brutal honesty. It takes more talking than any athlete should legally be required to do. It takes jealousy showing up and not letting it drive the car. It takes everyone choosing the relationship, even when one part of it feels harder than the others.”
Luther looks at me then. “But it’s possible?”
Across the room, Liv laughs at something Vesper says. Halston turns toward the sound before he thinks about it, like her laugh has a claim on his nervous system. Then his eyes find mine, and something in his face settles when he sees me looking back.
I look at my brother.
“It’s possible,” I say. “Not because it’s simple. Because the right people make the work worth it.”
Luther exhales.
As if he has been given permission to consider a door he never touched.
Behind us, Dad calls, “Dessert.”
Liv says, “There’s dessert? I may never leave.”
Dad answers, “Good.”
Halston looks startled by the word.
I don’t blame him.
Some welcomes sound like traps until they keep happening.
I cross the room and take his hand where everyone can see.
Then Liv reaches for mine.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods. “We’re getting there.”
Hal glances and nods. “Slowly, but with so much love we’ll make it.”
I look around the room—at my father, my sister, my brothers, this strange, beautiful family that keeps widening instead of asking us to shrink.
For years, we survived the lies we were forced to play.
Tonight, no one asks us to perform a version of love they can understand.
They just make room for the truth.