Page 110 of Playmaker

I focused on him and drew in several long breaths, expelling them slowly. “Okay, thanks.”

“I think this freak-out isn’t because you made the wrong decision. I think it proves it’s the right one. Because you’re pushing out of your comfort zone, and it’s scary, but it’s good.”

“It’s going to be so far out of my zone. I never planned on anyone like him.”

“Did you call him?”

I shook my head. “I needed to sit on it first. Do my freaking out.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

“I have no idea how we can possibly work. We both have challenging careers, we’ve never discussed children, I’m a fashion disaster and it’s his, I don’t know, love language.”

“And yet?”

I bit my lip. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I want to be with him, and not just because of the sex. I’ll even watch hockey if he wants. I think…” Another long breath. “I must love him.”

The words felt awkward and yet, a relief.

Darcy’s grin split his face. “I’m so happy for you, Callie.”

“His goddaughter calls him Kook.”

Darcy fell back on the cushions. “I’m swooning here.”

I dropped back with him. “It’s too late to call him now. He’s training and doing, like, practice games.”

Darcy rolled his eyes. “You have a lot to learn. And after he went to your office, you need to do something a little better than sending him a text.

“Like what?”

“Hmmm. Let me think.”

* * *

Cooper

“You don’t haveto do this,” I said.

I hadn’t heard from Callie, and the days had moved on leaden skates. Hunts had dragged me out to the Top Shelf for a guy’s night. Pretty sure it was as much about getting away from Hailey for a bit as anything else. He looked way too happy for bro-consoling-bro time.

He shrugged. “You’d do the same for me.”

I would. I had, back in college, and again when he and Faith were doing long-distance for the first year after we graduated. I’d helped him plan out the proposal he’d put together for her when she came home that Christmas. Since that year, they’d been together, and he hadn’t needed cheering up for anything Faith-related. When he’d had to retire, I’d been there for him. So, he owed me.

“No news is good news, right?” He held up his glass and I touched mine to his.

He was right. Callie hadn’t said no. But she hadn’t said yes, and I was afraid the longer she spent in her own head, without me there in person to tip the scales in my favor, the likelier she was to run. I had to give her space though. I’d pushed all I could.

I’d expected Hunts to invite some of the team to come out with us. If his plan was to distract me or cheer me up, him sitting across from me without speaking wasn’t really working. Instead of talking, he was preoccupied, staring past me toward the door and the bar.

Which, now that I thought of it, was sketchy as hell. I was about to ask him what was up when an expression crossed his face—it lit up like when Faith appeared. Was that his plan? I turned around, but what caught my eye wasn’t Faith.

It was a green dress. A fucking ugly green dress. With shocking red hair above it.

The noise around me faded, like the volume of the music and conversations had been dialed down. Everything around that green dress was muted, forming a flat frame around Callie. The blood in my veins slowed, and my entire body was cold and frozen in place.

She walked toward our table, biting her lip. She was nervous, but she was here. Fuck, she’d decided. And suddenly I didn’t want to know. I’d rather live in a limbo where she hadn’t yet said no.

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