22. Callahan Eli
Callahan Eli
She lasts another ten minutes.
That is it.
Ten minutes of pure, bloody-minded will before her body finally decides to stop cooperating with her brain. She doesn’t collapse in a heap; she just sways—just enough that I’m already moving toward her before she even realizes she is losing her balance.
“Iveline,” I say, my voice steady and low as I reach her side. “We’re done. Right now.”
“No,” she mutters, her eyes glazed and unfocused. “We’re not. There’s still the transition drill. We need to see the defensive rotation on the left wing.”
“Yes,” I counter, my grip firm on her elbow as I steady her. “We are.”
I scoop her up before she can even think to protest. I slide one arm under her knees and the other braced across her back.
“No, Callahan—put me down,” she rasps, her hands coming up to shove weakly at my shoulders. It’s a pathetic effort, her fingers fluttering against the heavy fabric of my jersey. “I can… I can walk. Don’t you dare.”
I don’t even flinch. If anything, I pull her tighter, making sure she’s locked against me. “You can’t even see straight, Ivy. Stop fighting.”
“The team,” she insists, though her head drops onto my shoulder the second the words leave her mouth. “They’re watching. This is… unprofessional. Let me go.”
She tries to wiggle, a small, desperate shift of her weight that nearly sends us both off balance. I stop dead, my boots digging into the rubber mats by the gate.
I look down at her, and for the first time, I don’t see the untouchable coach. I see the gray tint of her skin and the way her eyelids are fluttering as she tries to keep me in focus.
“Look at me,” I command, my voice dropping to a rough edge.
She forces her eyes open, and the sheer vacancy in them hits me like a puck to the sternum. There’s no fire there, just a glazed, shimmering exhaustion.
“Your hands are shaking so hard you can’t even grab my shirt. You need to rest, Iveline. So you can hate me for it tomorrow, but right now, you’re staying exactly where you are.”
She lets out a breath that sounds more like a sob she managed to catch at the last second, and the tension finally drains out of her. She goes heavy in my arms—terrifyingly heavy—as she stops trying to hold herself up.
The entire arena seems to erupt in a silent shock.
It’s not panic I see on the faces of my teammates; it is something closer to fear.
It is as if none of them have ever seen Iveline St. James stop moving before, and they don’t know what to do with a world where she is vulnerable.
Someone swears loudly near the bench.
Someone else asks if she is okay.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Carter Hale step forward instinctively, then stop. He watches us, his face tight and unreadable. He opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, then closes it just as quickly—like he has a thought but lacks the right words to anchor it.
Usually, the rink is filled with shouting, skates carving the ice, and the rhythmic slam of sticks against the boards. But as I walk past the bench with Iveline in my arms, the world goes mute.
They’ve seen me carry teammates off the ice with broken ankles or separated shoulders dozens of times, but this is different.
This is Iveline.
The woman who doesn’t bend. The woman who scares half of them and out-thinks the other half.
Rick doesn’t try to stop me. He meets my eyes over her head as I reach the gate, and for a split second, there is a passing of the torch.
He knows I’m breaking every professional protocol in the book by doing this, and he clearly doesn’t care.
He just nods—a grim, silent acknowledgment that I’m the one who has her now.
I’ve never felt more protective of anything in my life, and I’ve never hated the “St. James” name more than I do in this moment. It is that name, that legacy, that made her feel like she had to stay until she literally broke.
Outside the arena, the winter air hits us hard.
She shivers violently, curling closer to my chest without even thinking about it. My grip tightens reflexively. I angle my body without a second thought, blocking the wind with my shoulders, trying to shield her from more than just the cold.
“You don’t have to—,” she murmurs, her voice barely a thread.
“Yes,” I interrupt, my voice grittier than I intended. “I do.”
She huffs a weak, shaky breath against my neck. “You’re annoyingly competent, Moore.”
“Get used to it, Ivy.”
I settle her into the passenger seat of my truck, cranking the heat up as high as it will go.
I hand her a bottle of water, and she barely protests.
She just gives me her address in a low whisper, her head falling back against the headrest. I’m driving out of the lot before she can change her mind or regain enough strength to demand a taxi.
Her phone buzzes in her lap.
She looks at the screen and lets out a soft groan.
“Scottie,” she mutters.
She hits the answer button, and shouting immediately fills the cab of the truck.
“IVELINE TALVI ST. JAMES, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE DYING?”
I glance at the screen. Scottie’s face is squashed close to the camera, her expression a mix of fury and terror.
Iveline doesn’t even have the energy to hold the phone upright.
“I’m not dying, Scottie,” she says weakly.
Dean’s voice cuts in from the background, calmer but just as worried. “Where are you?”
“Being kidnapped,” she mutters, her eyes drifting shut.
“Rescued,” I correct gently, raising my voice so they can hear me over the speaker.
Iveline snorts, then winces as the movement clearly hurts her head.
Scottie announces they’re on their way to her place, Dean confirming it in the background, and then she hangs up before Iveline can argue.
By the time we reach her apartment building, she has gone quiet.
I don’t wait for her to try and walk; I carry her inside, ignoring the curious looks from the few people in the lobby.
Her apartment is small. Much smaller than I expected for someone with her background.
It is a true studio—one room pretending to be three. The bed is only a few steps from the door, the kitchenette is tucked into a corner with a single burner and a kettle, and a narrow set of doors leads to what must be the bathroom.
There isn’t even a window—just four walls and the soft, constant hum of the heater.
It should feel impersonal and temporary, like a hotel room, but it doesn’t.
It is clean and organized, almost ruthlessly efficient. Everything has a place, and there isn’t anything extra cluttering the surfaces.
Yet, there are pieces of her everywhere.
Books are stacked in uneven towers on the floor, the titles in languages I can’t even begin to pronounce. A pair of skates is drying on a towel by the radiator. A mug with a chipped rim sits on the counter, looking like something she uses every single morning without thinking.
And then I see the thing that hits me the hardest: a framed photo on the tiny side table by the bed.
It’s a picture of her as a teenager, standing beside a woman who looks exactly like her. They have the same eyes, the same posture, and the same stubborn set to their chins. They are bundled in thick wool sweaters, with snow falling behind them like a memory she keeps close to her heart.
Something tightens in my chest.
I am standing in the sanctuary of the woman I’ve spent weeks trying to provoke. I am in the private space of the woman who keeps every part of herself locked down behind steel doors. She lives in a space this small, and yet she still manages to take up entire rooms when she walks into them.
I set her down gently on the bed. She lets out a soft, pained sigh—the kind that slips out before she can stop it—and the sound nearly breaks me.
I shouldn’t be here.
I’m not the guy who knows how to fluff pillows or check temperatures or care for someone who is hurting. But as I look around her living room, I realize I don’t want to be anywhere else.
I want to know what she reads. I want to know why she keeps that specific photo out. I want to know the version of Ivy that doesn’t have a whistle around her neck.
“Your shoulders,” she murmurs, her eyes closed. “Are annoyingly nice.”
I freeze. “…What?”
Heat crawls up my neck, slow and unwelcome. Compliments don’t usually land like this—soft, unguarded, and aimed straight under my own armor.
“Comfortable,” she adds, her voice trailing off. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Too late, I think, but I don’t say it.
Scottie and Dean arrive ten minutes later like a whirlwind. They are fussing, assessing, and moving at a speed that makes my head spin. Scottie presses the back of her hand to Iveline’s forehead and swears under her breath.
“She’s a furnace, Dean. A literal furnace.”
Dean exhales sharply, rubbing a hand over his jaw as he looks at Ivy. “She didn’t look this bad on the phone earlier.”
“She didn’t sound this bad either,” Scottie snaps, already heading for the kitchenette. “Because she lies. Constantly. About everything involving her own well being.”
Scottie’s voice fills the small room with purpose rather than panic.
It is the sound of someone who knows exactly what to do when things go wrong.
“I’m right here,” Iveline mumbles from the bed.
“Barely,” Scottie fires back without looking up.
Scottie straightens, already in motion again, rifling through drawers like she’s preparing for battlefield triage. Dean hovers behind her, hands on his hips, scanning the room like he’s trying to identify every possible threat to Iveline.
“Alright,” Scottie declares, grabbing her coat. “We need supplies. Real supplies. Not whatever expired ibuprofen she probably has shoved in a drawer somewhere.”
Dean nods once, decisive. “Pharmacy run. Hydration, electrolytes, fever reducers, soup, the works.”
Ivy groans weakly. “I don’t need—”
“You need all of it,” Scottie cuts in, already marching toward the door. “And maybe a priest.”
Dean squeezes Ivy’s ankle gently as he passes. “We’ll be back in twenty. Don’t move. Don’t argue. Don’t try to run practice from the bed.”