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9
CALLUM
“ A fter our talk in my office the other day, I wanted to give you a heads-up—” Coach Beck starts.
“Good morning, boys,” a voice that sounds like nails on a chalkboard sing-songs walking up behind us in the hotel lobby as we prepare to get on the bus for the stadium.
“Damn it,” Coach mumbles under his breath.
“Why is she here?” I hiss frustratedly.
“She’s the team publicist. Why else? Press,” he answers as she makes her way to the front of the lobby where we’re all huddled around.
I grit my teeth. A big part of me was still hoping by some stroke of luck, I imagined it and Blair didn’t skate back into my life Friday afternoon, but that was just wishful thinking.
Clasping her hands together, she says, “As of today, we’ll start filming game day fits.”
There are groans and a few nods of acceptance as though the idea isn’t all bad. It’s easy content, seeing as how we dress up anyway. However, because it’s her idea, I hate it. Game day fits are just another guaranteed forced-proximity situation with the one girl who has the power to make shit hard for me.
“I’m sure you guys have seen other sports teams doing it, and before you start naysaying that it’s unoriginal, blah, blah—you’re not wrong. However, we don’t need to recreate the wheel for everything, and game day fits are something people like. Your swagger, the way you walk, the way your suit transforms you, and the confidence you exude wearing it are all ways people connect with you. I’m not asking you to put on a performance for the camera…” She looks around, making eye contact with a few of the guys before finally landing on mine and adding, “At least not yet.” She quirks a brow before dropping my gaze. “I want this to be organic, but if you have one of those faces that screams fuck off, we may need to have some one-on-one sessions.”
Coach Beck clears his throat beside me before cutting through the crowd and heading to the front. “While we’re on the topic of one-on-ones starting this week, Blair will be making house calls to conduct player interviews, film you in your home, and ask you some relatable questions. Snippets will be used for promotional purposes, commercials, and pre-game content, and full interviews will be available on the team’s website.”
Fuck my life. There’s no way she’s getting a one-on-one interview with me. Admittedly, I Googled Blair last time we sat on the tarmac, waiting for takeoff. A few of the guys were tossing her name around, and after I left home, I didn’t keep tabs on her. I had no reason to. Her dad is still the head coach at Boston College, and she went to work for her mother’s struggling PR firm. The struggling part is what caught my attention. I found it strange that the owner of the Kings would entrust her company with the team’s image. There’s a possibility that he and his wife know the Wyndhams.
Her dad has been involved in hockey since he was a kid. His network is extensive, but something in my gut feels off. It’s likely just the anxiety being around her brings into my life, given how she played a pivotal role in my split with Eloise back in high school. I shake my head and approach the door as I begin conjuring up the best excuse I can think of to get me out of a one-on-one. I don’t want to let Coach Beck down. If I throw my career away, I want it to be on my terms, not because I couldn’t control my reactions to Blair Wyndham.
“Balfour, wait up,” she calls out behind me, and I instinctively grind my teeth, but I can’t find it within myself to stop. “Cal.” A hand wraps around my forearm, and I stop. Her touch ignites a silent inferno. “Did you not hear me?”
“I did,” I answer curtly.
“What’s with the cold shoulder?” Her big brown eyes find mine, stunned as if she really doesn’t know why I wouldn’t care to talk to her.
I may have used her, but she wasn’t an unwilling participant. She always wanted to be more and had no qualms about chasing me, even when I was with Eloise. The second I used her to get back at Eloise, she turned into Queen B. I made it clear there would never be an us, thinking it would take some of the wind out of her sails, but it did no such thing. All she cared about was being seen with me. As much as I hated it, I allowed it. I allowed it because I was fucking hurting. I wanted Eloise to feel every ounce of pain I felt in her betrayal, but that was then; it’s not now.
Her hand runs up my arm. “Are we not friends?”
I hear a camera clicking, and my head snaps toward the sound. I shrug off her hand and beeline straight for her camera guy. “Erase it,” I demand, stepping into his personal space.
“I’m just capturing content.”
“That’s not content, and I didn’t give my consent. Delete it now!”
“Cal, relax, he’s with me. This is Demetri. He’s part of my team,” Blair tries to explain as if that makes any of this better. I know exactly what kind of picture he just captured and how it looked, and Blair Wyndham is the last person I trust with it.
I ignore her comment and grab him by his collar. “Don’t look at her. Look at me. I said delete it. I’ve asked you twice now. I won’t ask again. My next move will be smashing that camera to pieces.”
“This is what I was hired to do, Cal,” Blair says behind me, her voice firmer.
“A picture with you isn’t content. You’re not part of this team, you’re not a wife or a friend…” I turn my head in her direction. “You’re nobody.” My eyes hold hers, and a normal person would expect to see hurt reflected in them, but no, if there’s hurt, she hides it well. If anything, I see challenge. Or maybe it’s just the taste of a bitter past rearing its ugly head; either way, I’m done with it. I turn back to the camera guy whose name I’ve already forgotten. “What’s it going to be?”
“I’ll delete it,” he stumbles over his words. I release him and cross my arms. When he sees I’m not moving, he adds, “Oh, you mean now.” I watch as he holds the recorder where I can see and scrolls through the pictures he snapped of the two of us. After selecting all of them, he presses the delete button. “Satisfied?”
“No, satisfied would have been never having this conversation. If you value your job, you won’t take any more pictures of me with that woman. Are we clear?”
“Callum, you can’t be serious?” Blair cuts in.
“Dead serious. Don’t cross me, Blair. Not on this.”
I turn back to the camera guy, and without prompt, he says, “We’re clear. No pictures of you and Blair.”
As I make my way toward the bus, I pause when I reach her side. “Oh yeah, and don’t think I don’t see right through your one-on-one interview requests. There will be no me and you alone in the same room. You want an interview… Coach Beck better be with you.”
I clench my jaw in irritation as I walk off. I tried telling myself it was the scars of a messy past casting doubt on the coincidental circumstances that seemed to bring us back together, but that was before she instructed her crew to take those pictures. She knew what she was doing. Blair Wyndham is still a snake, pretty on the outside but full of venom.
W e won last night, and it felt like I pulled my weight and then some for the first time in a while. There was a shift inside of me. I think part of it came from knowing I had my girl back home waiting for me, and I told the one from my past to fuck off. There’s a time and a place to hold your tongue, making sure a complication knows its place is well worth the hate I spewed.
Here’s the thing: I’m not that guy. I know the fans see me as a loner, hard, maybe even a little pompous, but that wasn’t done without intention. I prefer them looking the other way because it keeps what I care about private. Eloise and I have never wanted Adler to be raised in the public eye. She had that and ran from it, going as far as to forfeit her inheritance to forgo being tied to the legacy. When you have something special, you keep it close and protect and defend it at all costs because you know it’s irreplaceable. That’s what my family means to me. It’s what my charity work means to me and the people I choose to call friends. They get the real me. I pour into the things that make me feel good. The rest is just noise.
That noise will stop the second I step foot in my condo. It’s the peace I know is waiting for me in the ten steps it takes me to walk off this elevator and reach my front door. All I wanted to do the second the buzzer sounded was hold Eloise. I wanted to inhale her sweet scent and feel her soft body mold against mine. The few steps between the elevator and my door feel like a mile as the anticipation of missing out on seeing her in the exact place I’ve dreamed about having her since we were teens looms.
As soon as I open the door, I see Dash passed out on my couch, a scene that, under different circumstances, might eat at my sanity, but not today. Not even after Eloise missed our call last night. My feet carry me down the hallway as yet another anxious moment weighs on my nerves. After the game, I called her as I said I would, and she didn’t answer. Knowing she had a man in the house, friend or not, didn’t help. Before sending Jenkins up with a phone again, I pulled up my security camera above the door in my main living area. From where it’s positioned, I can view the entire condo. That’s how I knew Eloise wasn’t ignoring me to spend time with another man. Instead, she was passed out in my bed, just like we’d discussed. We were supposed to fly home on the team plane, but I told Coach Beck I had a family emergency, and he allowed it. I’m sure the withdrawals from missing my girl had stress written all over my face. Needless to say, I caught a red-eye home in hopes of not missing this moment. The one where I walk into my master bedroom and find the girl of my dreams peacefully asleep in my bed.
I know I told her I’d respect her boundaries. In fact, I went a step further and asked her to trust me with them. That meant sleeping in separate condos, on the floor, and in a chair, but I’m exhausted, and her scent and the warmth I see as my eyes settle on her sleeping form wrapped in my blankets steal my resolve. It’s just a few seconds, I tell myself as I put one foot in front of the other and make my way to the bed.
I bask in her warmth and manifest a future where this is my daily reality. One where I’m not an unwelcome guest in the middle of the night but rather the person she wants by her side. I want to be the guy her hand reaches for, the warmth she can’t bear to sleep without. They’re only stolen seconds, ones she’ll be none the wiser of because, by the time she wakes, I’ll be gone. She’ll never know I lay beside her. Thoughts of sneaking out of bed to order her breakfast were the last ones I had before gentle breathing and notes of lavender lulled me into a deep slumber.
I’ve never been a deep sleeper. My entire life, I’ve had this nagging need to sleep with one eye open. While my home life was far from perfect, it wasn’t horrible. However, I always felt this bone-chilling ache in my soul that whispered there’s no rest to be found here. It’s why I can’t be sure if it’s old habits or movement from the sleeping form beside me that has my eyes flashing open from a dead sleep. Still, when they focus on the body before me, there’s no fear or trepidation, only softness and light as I peer into the ethereal shades of blues locked on mine. There’s no running. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Her eyes were like a prison, not the kind made of stone walls and iron bars but the ones we can’t escape because we created them ourselves. I don’t care that I’m a prisoner of my own device. I’ll happily throw away the keys if I get to keep moments like this. These are the moments I live for.
“You’re here.”
“I am.”
“You called?”
“I did.”
“You’re not mad?”
“I could ask you the same.” I toss the question back. I’m not mad. There’s no fucking way I could be angry with her by my side.
Her brow creases as the realization sets in. I crossed one of her boundaries. “No.”
I breathe deeply through my nose, slightly relieving tension I hadn’t realized was slowly building. I have a million things I want to ask. At the top of the list: Does that mean we can start sharing a bed? I know questions like that are futile. She might not be mad, but I know that thought is a stretch. It was only a few days ago that she allowed me to touch her. So instead, I ask, “Did something change?”
“I missed you.”
My heart starts beating triple time as a flood of emotions courses through my veins as thoughts of what missing someone means. Unable to resist, my hand cups her face, my thumb gently grazing her cheek, and her eyes flutter closed. I inch my body closer. “You have no idea how much that confession means to me.”
“I think I might know a little something about it because saying it out loud almost made me sick.”
“Why?” My eyes search hers.
“What if you didn’t miss me back?” Her eyes dart away. “You didn’t say it back.”
“You can’t be serious right now.” I throw my leg over her and pull her close. “The second I called and you didn’t answer, I checked my security camera and booked a red-eye home just so I wouldn’t miss watching you sleep in my bed for the first time.”
Her hand lazily traces the embroidery on the panel of my shirt. “First time,” she repeats. It’s not a question but rather a spoken thought while she flips through our shared history. “This isn’t my first time sleeping in your bed while you’ve been away.”
“No, but it’s the first time I’ve caught you in it. We’ve never shared a bed.” It’s been a dream ever since I met her. We made a baby together and had our fair share of fucking, but never in a bed. It was always quick, parties, locker rooms, cars but never a bed. I tip her chin up. “You really thought I didn’t miss you?”
She gives me a soft smile. “I watched you sleep for five minutes before you opened your eyes. I assumed you came home for one of two reasons. One, you were mad I didn’t answer the phone, or two, you missed me. But when I said it, you didn’t say it back and…” She rolls her lips. “I’m not above fishing for the words I hoped to hear.”
“If my words aren’t confirmation enough”—I subtly adjust my hold so she can feel her effect as I rock my hips into her stomach—“this is what holding you in my bed does to me.”
She pulls in a stuttered breath as my hardened length pokes her, and I see a ghost of my own desire mirrored in her eyes before we hear. “Lou, are you awake yet?” Followed by heavy footsteps thudding down the hall.
Her eyes widen, and she clears her throat before pushing against my chest. “Yeah, I’m awake, but I’m?—”
“Not alone,” Dash finishes her sentence as Eloise sits up in bed.
“Cal caught a late flight home last night,” she says coolly, though I know she’s anything but. She’s acting like a kid who just got caught with her hand in the candy jar, and I’m loving every second of watching how riled up I just made her.
Dash runs his hand through his short golden locks. “Yeah, I can see that.” He gives me a nod in greeting before chucking his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll give you guys some privacy. I need to shower anyway.”
“Sure. You know the code already,” Lou says, wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling them to her chest.
“Yep.” He pops the P as he turns on his heel.
I wait until I hear the front door close behind him, and then I sit up and kiss her shoulder. “We need to talk about that.”
“I know.”
Her quick agreement surprises me. “You do?”
“Yeah, I’ll stay here…” She clears her throat before adding, “In the spare bedroom while he’s in town.” She turns her head toward me, resting it on her shoulder, and asks, “Do you want to go back to sleep, or do you want breakfast?”
“That depends…” My fingers skim down the back of her arm. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Not me.” She grabs a stray decorative pillow and tosses it into my chest. “I’m going to shower, and then I’ll make you something,” she says as she climbs out of bed.
“I don’t expect you to cook for me, Eloise. I can order us something.”
She turns her expression serious. “I want to cook for you. I’ve woken up to breakfast every morning since I arrived. It’s my turn to return the favor. Rest. I’ll come get you when it’s ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I stretch my arms above my head and lie back down. She may have left my bed, but her scent and warmth remain, and I know I’ve already pushed her boundaries as far as they will extend for today, so I let her go. Today is a win. My girl was in my bed and now she’s staying at my home. There will be no going back. This time she’s staying for good.