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Destiny

Team's heading to Sidebar. You coming, Cap?

Cam

Not tonight. Need to rest.

Destiny

You sure? You played amazing but you look miserable lol

Cam

I'm fine.

Destiny

Whatever you say, Cap.

I set the phone face down and went back to staring at the floor.

"We need to talk."

I didn't look up. I hadn't heard Trish come back in, but I'd known she would. She always stayed when she thought I needed someone to stay. It was one of the many ways she'd shown up for me over six years of being teammates and friends and keepers of each other's truths, and I'd never once thanked her properly for it.

"If this is about Harper..."

"Of course it's about Harper." She sat down on the bench across from me, still in her warm-up jacket, with that particular brand of Trish patience that meant she'd already decided how this conversation was going to go. "You're both miserable. You just played your best game of the season, and you look like you want to disappear. She showed up tonight looking like she hasn't slept in a week. Cam, this is tearing you both apart."

"What do you want me to do?" The words emerged raw, stripped of their usual composure. "Come out because I have feelings for someone? I can't make that decision for one person. It shouldn't work like that."

Trish didn't answer. She just looked at me.

"You're in love with her," she said. It wasn't a question.

The locker room was very quiet.

I could have deflected. I'd been deflecting for twelve years. I knew every move.

"Yes," I said.

And then my face broke without my permission.

It started in my jaw, a tremor I couldn't clench away. Then my throat closed, and my eyes burned, and I bent forward over my knees and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, and the sound that came out of me sounded like no part of the woman who'd just put up twenty-six and thirteen. It was low and broken and ugly, and it went on longer than I could stop it.

Trish moved. I felt the bench dip beside me, and then her arm came around my shoulders, heavy and solid, and she didn't say a single word. She just held on while I shook.

"I hid from her tonight," I said with a shredded voice when I could manage. "She looked back for me. After the game. And I hid behind security so she wouldn't see me."

Trish's arm tightened.

"I've done it all right," I said. "Twelve years. Every rule. Every interview. Every post. I did all of it right, and the one time someone looked at me and saw who I actually am, I hid from her. Like she was the danger."

"She's not the danger, Cam."

"I know." I dragged my hands down my face. "I know she's not."

Trish waited until my breathing slowed. Then she said, very simply, "Look at me."