29. Callahan
Callahan
Tomorrow Round Two starts, and I should be thinking about matchups and forecheck pressure—not standing here waiting for a woman who’s been avoiding me like I’m the next mistake she can’t afford.
The video room is quiet in a way that feels intentional. The lights are dimmed, the massive screens are dark, and the chairs are pushed in too neatly, as if someone designed this space specifically for distance.
I stand near the long laminate table and wait.
I am the captain of this team. I’ve been trained for years to lead, to be the steady hand when the game goes into overtime, and to be the voice of reason when the bench starts to boil over.
But standing here in the dark, I don’t feel like a leader.
I feel like a man watching his world catch fire and realizing he’s the one holding the match.
I think about the locker room just a few hallways away, the guys who look to me to set the tone for the entire organization.
If they knew what I was thinking about right now—if they knew I wasn’t thinking about the power play or the playoff bracket, but the way the light catches the stray hairs on Iveline’s neck—I’d be a hypocrite.
I’ve told them for years that nothing comes before the logo on the front of the jersey. And here I am, ready to put everything at risk for the woman who wears the whistle.
She’s been avoiding me.
It isn’t subtle, and it certainly isn’t accidental.
She doesn’t meet my eyes during drills anymore. She doesn’t hover behind the bench during scrimmages, and she doesn’t linger with that quiet, magnetic intensity she used to bring into every room.
Now, she positions herself exactly two steps farther away than necessary.
Her voice is clipped, her tone so professionally neutral it borders on cruelty. Every word is correct. Every instruction is precise. Every interaction is clean.
I’ve seen her guarded before; I’ve seen her shut doors with elegance and leave people standing on the other side wondering what the hell they did wrong.
But this is different. This is armor built overnight, hammered into place by fear and headlines and the kind of scrutiny that never really washes off.
The heavy door creaks open.
Iveline steps in, her tablet tucked under her arm, her posture already composed into that rigid, unbreakable line.
She stops short when she sees me.
For half a second, I see something flicker across her face—surprise, calculation, and a flash of something entirely unguarded. Then, the resolve snaps back into place like a visor.
“Callahan,” she says evenly.
“I need five minutes,” I reply. I don’t move from my spot near the table.
Her jaw tightens. “I’m busy.”
“So am I,” I say, my voice dropping an octave. “And you’re avoiding me.”
She exhales sharply through her nose and sets the tablet down on the table with deliberate care. “This isn’t the place for this.”
“This is the only place,” I counter. “You’ve made sure of that by making it impossible for us to be alone anywhere else.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “What do you want, Callahan?”
There is no softness in her voice. There is no warmth. There is no Ivy. There is only distance sharpened into a blade meant to keep me at bay.
I take a step closer, lowering my voice so it doesn’t carry into the hall.
“I want to know why you won’t look at me.”
She lets out a short, humorless laugh that sounds like breaking glass. “You don’t get to ask that.”
“Like hell I don’t.”
Her eyes flash with a sudden, brilliant anger. “You don’t get to question my professionalism because you are uncomfortable with the silence.”
“This isn’t about discomfort,” I snap, my own frustration bubbling to the surface. “This is about you freezing me out like I did something wrong.”
“You did.”
The words land hard.
I go still, my heart thudding against my ribs.
“What did I do wrong, Iveline? Tell me.”
She hesitates.
It is barely a moment, a tiny hitch in her breathing, but it’s enough. It’s enough to crack something open. It tells me that this isn’t just anger—it’s fear wearing the most expensive armor money can buy.
“Tell me,” I repeat, quieter now, stepping into her space. “Because right now I’m guessing. And my guesses are a lot worse than whatever truth you’re holding onto.”
She turns away from me, pacing the small width of the room once. Her fingers thread through her hair, which usually sits in a tight, punishing bun. Today, it is flowing freely over her shoulders, looking like even her hair is losing its grip on control.
“You touched me,” she says, her back still to me.
“To steady you,” I manage to say. “You were falling.”
“In front of the cameras,” she adds, spinning around to face me. “In front of everyone. In front of the media.”
“I didn’t think about the optics, Ivy. I just saw you—”
“No,” she cuts in, her voice rising. “You didn’t think. You never have to think about the consequences because you’re the golden boy. And I’m the one paying for it. I’m the one whose career is a punchline on the morning news.”
“I would do it again.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know it’s a mistake.
Her breath catches in a shallow hitch, and for a second, she looks like she’s forgotten how to exhale. She doesn’t look away this time; she looks right at me, her eyes glassing over as that professional mask finally hits the floor and breaks into pieces.
She looks small. She looks human. And for the first time since I’ve known her, she looks like she has absolutely nowhere left to hide.
“You ruined everything I worked for,” she says, her voice trembling.
Guilt hits me first, heavy and sickening. Panic follows right behind it.
My chest tightens and my breath thins out because every instinct is screaming that this is real—that I crossed a line I didn’t fully understand until this very moment.
I saw it as a rescue; she sees it as an execution.
And before I can stop myself, the words slip out. “I don’t know what you want from me anymore.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“That’s the problem,” I say, the heat rising under my skin. “You never do. You never let anyone in, and you never let anyone help. You just stand there in your tower and wonder why it’s so cold.”
She flinches—barely, but enough to make me regret the sharpness of my tongue.
“This isn’t about wanting,” she says quietly, her voice sounding small in the vast, dark room. “It’s about consequences, Callahan. Real ones.”
“Consequences for who?” I step in, the frustration bleeding through my words. “Because last time I checked, I’m taking the heat in the media too. I’m the one being called a distraction to the team.”
“No.” Her voice is sharp and final. “You’re the one who survives it. You’re the franchise player. You’re the captain. You break a rule and people laugh it off as ‘passion.’ I break one and I lose everything I’ve clawed for since I was a child.”
I go still. The words hit somewhere I didn’t know was exposed. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Ivy. I would never try to hurt you.”
“You don’t have to try. You just have to exist.” She takes a shaky breath, forcing it steady with a visible effort. “You walk into a room and everyone bends around you. You’re the center of the gravity here. I’m just trying to stay on my feet.”
“I wouldn’t let you lose anything,” I say, my voice thick. “I’d walk away before I let them take this from you.”
She laughs—a soft, bitter, and devastating sound. “You can’t stop it. You can’t fix it. And you certainly can’t protect me from a world that has been waiting for me to slip up since the day I was hired.”
I take a step toward her. She steps back immediately, hitting the edge of the table.
“Then tell me what to do. Tell me how to act so they leave you alone.”
“Don’t—” she whispers, her eyes glistening. “Don’t put me in a position where being near you costs me everything I’ve built. I can’t afford that.”
My throat tightens until it hurts. “I’m not asking you to give anything up.”
Her laugh is soft and broken. “I’m tired, Callahan. I’m so tired. And wanting you costs more energy than I have left.”
Silence settles over us—heavy, final, and suffocating. It’s the kind of silence that feels like a heavy vault door closing.
She looks away first, because she has to maintain the mask.
I look at her, because I simply can’t stop myself.
And neither of us says the thing sitting between us like a massive, purple bruise: If this were any other world, I’d choose you in a heartbeat.
“I built this,” she snaps suddenly, her voice shaking now but steady enough to cut like a skate blade.
“Every inch of respect. Every ounce of authority. I fought for it in rooms where men laughed at my name. And one moment—one hand on my waist—and suddenly I’m not a coach.
I’m a headline. I’m a scandal. I’m a girl who got lucky. ”
I step closer, careful now, reaching out but not quite touching her. “I never wanted to be the reason you hurt, Ivy.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re the one holding the knife?” she demands. She refuses to let the tears fall, her eyes burning with a mixture of fury and betrayal.
The words are a physical blow to my chest.
I realize now that heroes are often just people who don’t know how to mind their own business, people who break things while trying to save them. I realize that in trying to keep her from falling, I ignited a wildfire around her reputation.
“I can’t pretend this doesn’t matter,” I say quietly, my voice cracking. “I can’t pretend that I don’t want you.”
“That’s the problem, Callahan. That is exactly the problem.”
“No,” I say, closing the last inch of space between us. My voice is low and steady now. “That’s the only honest thing left in this entire building.”
The air in the video room thickens into something heavy and electric that presses against my lungs until there is nowhere left to breathe.
My pulse is a hammer against my ribs, a rhythmic, demanding thrum that drowns out the logical voice in the back of my head screaming about HR, about the press, and the specific, career-ending clauses in my contract.
I don’t plan it.