“Now our team buys their team a beer.”
Max chuckled. “You know what, I’d like to take back my earlier assessment about the absurdity of these customs.”
“Oh?”
“In my initial rush to judgment, I misread the whole let’s-go-to-the-patch-and-buy-a-consolation-beer as a simplistic nod to some nice Canadian politeness, but after being in the crowd for a while—” she gestured to the throng of people dancing and shouting to be heard over the music—“I see you’re all geniuses who’ve developed an elaborate decorum as a cover for getting a little tipsy.”
Callie cracked a smile. “Well now, that’s some top-notch investigative reporting.”
“Hey, it might be an in. Beer is a common draw across a lot of sports.”
“We drink whiskey, too, and rum,” Callie said, “all under the guise of staying warm on the ice.”
“Now you’re talking. That’s a selling point most of America can get behind. Get drunk, throw stones. Actually, that sounds a lot like our political climate.”
Callie laughed again. “I think I should be offended by that summation, but honestly I’m just so tired.”
“Physically or emotionally?”
“Why choose when I can have both? Add mentally to the pile as well.”
“Ah, the trifecta. I know it well.” Max held out her beer bottle. “To being too exhausted to take offense.”
Callie clicked her own bottle against Max’s.
Max grinned and took another swig of her beer, then swallowed with some force.
“You don’t have to drink that.”
Max took another big gulp, this time barely holding her grimace. “If we drink faster, we get to leave sooner.”
Callie thought about saying they didn’t have to drink it at all. They could just leave their bottles on the bar and walk away, but suddenly she didn’t want to. Something about Max’s gray eyes, or the mirth in her grin, or the flicker of challenge in the set of her shoulders as she lifted the beer to her lips once more made her want to stay.
Callie mirrored the movement and began to drink. She kept her eyes locked on Max as they both swallowed gulp after gulp, neither one stopping to breathe, much less take a break until they’d both drained their drinks completely.
Lightheaded and fighting back a laugh, Callie slapped her bottle onto the corner of the bar. “Done.”
“So done.” Max plunked her bottle down, too.
“Shall we?”
Max motioned for her to lead the way, and she did. She threaded her way back through the crowd, brushing off blurry well-wishers and muffled congratulations as she went. She didn’t stop at the table where Brooke and Ella sat. She merely dropped a few bills on the table as she passed and called, “Next round’s on me,” and kept on walking, secure in the knowledge Max was right behind her.
Max didn’t know what had come over Callie. Maybe she didn’t chug beers very often, but neither did Max. And as she swerved a little bit off the snow-dusted sidewalk, it became apparent why. She didn’t like feeling out of control. Not even a little bit. As Callie squinted at the dimly lit path before them, she sighed, and Max had to wonder if the skip had a few control issues of her own.
“I’m staying at the Best Western.” Max pointed to a green, rambling, two-story building in the distance.
Callie slapped her on the back. “Me too.”
“Aren’t we living the swank life.”
Callie laughed. “I’m rooming with Layla. How’s that for splurging?”
“Wow, high roller. At least I got my own room, and it’s on the second floor, so I have an expansive view of the parking lot and the back of the convention center.”
“Me too. We’ve got this.”
It hadn’t occurred to Max that they might not have this until Callie felt the need to state it.
“No problem. Do you need me to help you carry your stuff?”
Callie lifted her empty hands and stared at them for a second. “I don’t have my stuff.”
“We can go back in there—”
“No!” Callie covered her mouth. “I mean, please don’t make me go back to the table. Layla will make me stay and have another beer, and I usually only have two, and I nurse them all night, and shhh, don’t tell, but I leave the second one by, like, the leg of the table instead of drinking it all.”
Max eyed her more carefully. The buzz she felt humming about the edges of her own nerves seemed amplified in Callie’s pink cheeks and the grip she still held on her shoulder. “Wait, you normally nurse basically one beer all night?”
“Only at bonspiels,” Callie corrected.
“What about at other places?”
“I don’t drink at other places.”
“Okay, so you normally drink one beer every few weeks, and tonight you chugged two of them?”
“In”—Callie squinted at her Fitbit—“thirty minutes.”
“Okay, Skip,” Max said with a light laugh. “You’re going to stay right here.”
Callie looked back over her shoulder at the curling arena. “How about against that wall?”
“Okay, sure. You lean against the wall, and I’ll be right back with your stuff.”
Without waiting for a response, Max bolted around the main building and back into the Patch. The music and strobing lights assaulted her senses once more, but she pushed through the undulating masses on the dance floor to the table where she’d last seen Brooke and Ella. Thankfully they were no longer there, but a set of long black duffel bags were stashed under the seats.
Max crouched down, trying to figure out which one was Callie’s. If they all belonged to Team Mulligan, surely someone could bring Callie’s along later, but as she thought of the skip, tipsy and propping up the wall outside, she didn’t want to let her down.
The realization made her chest ache. She wanted to do something good. Something right. Something independent of what she’d been paid to do. And she wanted to for someone else.
Callie.
She wanted to make Callie smile.
She had such an amazing smile, sweet and broad, and when paired with those intense cat eyes of hers, the combination offered such—
A hand gripped the back collar of her coat and yanked her up.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Brooke snapped.
“Whoa.”
“What, ripping on us in print wasn’t enough?” Ella asked. “Now you have to rifle through our stuff?”
“No.” Max shook her head, which only made her vision blur. “I wasn’t—”
“You’re under the table picking up our bags. Did you really think no one was going to notice?”
“No. I didn’t think about other people, I—that sounds bad. I wasn’t thinking about you at all.”
Brooke snorted and gave her a shake. “Great excuse.”
“No, I was thinking about Callie.”
Their eyes narrowed, and she suspected her little bout of truthfulness hadn’t helped her cause. She glanced around to see several groups had turned to stare. She forced herself to take a deep breath, which wasn’t easy, as Brooke still had her practically dangling from her own peacoat. “Look, I’m sorry I made you think I had bad intentions.”
“Which time?” Ella asked.
“Any time.” Max sighed. “Callie’s outside. She didn’t want to come back in here to interrupt the festivities again, so she asked me to grab her bag.”
Ella snorted. “Sure she did.”
“She might have,” another voice said behind them.
Max craned her neck as much as she could in her current position and caught sight of Layla.
“Layla, thank God. You left us together, remember?”
“Yeah, let her go,” Layla said.
Brooke obliged grudgingly, and Max took a couple steps back until she bumped the table.
“I get that you all don’t trust me.”
Brooke snorted.
“Fair enough, okay, but you all saw me walk out w
ith Callie, and I only came back in here at her request.” Seeing only stone in Brooke and Ella’s expressions, she turned to Layla for help. “You can go outside and check if you want.”
“Yeah, I want,” Ella said. “I’ll take the bag.”
“I’ll do it,” Layla said quickly. Pointing at Max, she said, “You come with me.”
“We’ll go, too,” Brooke said. “Party’s over.”
“Nah,” Layla shook her head. “Party’s just getting started. Hold my beer.”
Ella pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest, but she didn’t follow as Layla gave Max a little shove toward the door.
The cold air hit her with sobering crispness as she pushed back outside. They didn’t say a word to each as they walked down the snowy path and rounded the corner. There, leaning against the metal wall in the glow of a floodlight, stood Callie Mulligan with her eyes closed and a dreamy little grin on her face.
“There she is,” Max said. “Go ahead and ask her.”
Layla shook her head slowly. “I’m good.”
“What?”
“I said ‘I’m good,’ Pencil Pusher. You want me to rethink that assessment, or you want to walk her home?”
Max met her dark eyes, searching for some answer or explanation.
Instead, Layla just held out the bag. “Take it.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled, wrapping her fingers around the handle, but Layla didn’t release it.
Looking up once more, she saw a warning where there hadn’t been one a second earlier.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Layla said flatly.
“I promise I’m not going to go through the bag or write something . . .” Her voice trailed off as the dead focus in Layla’s glare made it obvious that wasn’t what she’d meant. Her chest tightened again, and she glanced back to Callie, so beautiful and relaxed in this unguarded moment with her long hair stirring on a soft breeze and her lips parted softly.
Turning back to Layla more slowly, she shook her head. “I won’t, I mean I can’t, because I’m not, we’re not—”
“Good night, Max.” Layla released the bag and it fell with a flop against Max’s leg, the weight of it a tangible reminder of something she hadn’t asked to be saddled with.
“Wait,” she called, but Layla retreated around the corner.
“Wait what?” Callie asked, pushing off the wall. “Oh, you got my bag. That was really nice of you.”
Max bit her lip and shook her head. “I’m not really a nice person.”
“I have noticed that about you,” Callie said with a little laugh.
“Really?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay. I’m working through it.”
“You’re working through the fact that I’m not a nice person?”
Callie nodded and joined her. “Shall we walk and talk before you freeze?”
She hadn’t really noticed the cold with all the heat coursing through her, but she did feel the need to move around as a sense of unease overtook her. “By all means, lead the way.”
Unexpectedly, Callie looped her arm through Max’s, and with a little tug off they went.
“So, where were we?” Callie asked.
“Me not being a nice person?”
“Right,” Callie said. “Well, you haven’t been, which we both agree on now, but I think I get it, because I think I’m starting to get you.”
“How so?”
“I think you’re really driven, and you like to be in control, or at least in command.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“You see curling as beneath you, which kind of hurts my feelings, but it shouldn’t, because you don’t even really understand curling and you don’t really know me, so it says a lot more about you to dislike something you don’t even know about.”
“Ouch,” Max muttered, as the javelin landed in fair territory.
“Right?” Callie asked, sounding oblivious to the barb in her last comment. “No one likes to be judged, but I think maybe you did it because something happened that made you feel out of control, or maybe you actually are out of control, and you just wanted to get back in control as fast as possible.”
“Did I now?”
“Yes, and so instead of taking the time to really get to know me and my team and curling as a sport, you freaked out and decided it would be easier to just put us down. That way you get to feel a sort of control without doing any long, hard work.”
She frowned and let the words hang in the frozen air between them. Is that really what she’d done? Had she put someone else down to make herself feel better or stronger? She’d already realized her attitude hadn’t been helpful, but until this moment she hadn’t thought of herself as a bully. She didn’t like doing so now.
They reached the hotel, and Callie started up the stairs to the balcony circling the second floor. Max was just lost enough to let herself be led without thinking about their direction. Maybe that should have bothered her. Maybe a lot of things should’ve bothered her before now.
“I didn’t get into this business to tear people down,” she finally said. “I was drawn to sports because I liked the way they would bring out the best in regular people. I liked stories of people rising above.”
Callie smiled sweetly and slowed to a stop. “Me too. I like those beating-the-odds kind of sport stories. Rocky, or Rudy, or Callie.”
Max grinned back, despite the aches still pulsing at her core. “Callie? I haven’t seen that movie.”
“Maybe you’re watching it now. Maybe you could write it, or film it, or whatever you do. I really don’t know yet, but you said yourself that sports can inspire us to be better, to push, to grow and to face challenges.”
Max released Callie’s arm and turned toward the icy darkness that had settled over a grassy field. “I think I forgot that lesson when I needed it most.”
Callie propped her elbows on the wooden railing and rested her chin on her hands. Together they stared out at the starless emptiness. Everything felt so still and vast and cold, except for Callie huddled close beside her.
“I’m sorry,” Max finally said.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay to put you down in order to lift myself up.”
“No, but it’s okay to feel scared,” Callie whispered.
“I’m not scared,” Max said reflexively.
Callie took all the zing out of her defense by simply saying, “I am. I’m scared all the time.”
“Why are you scared?”
“Have you ever stood on the brink of everything you ever wanted, so close you can feel the breath of your dreams on the back of your neck?”
As if on cue, a soft breeze stirred her hair. All Max could say was, “Yes.”
“I’m there, Max,” Callie whispered. “A few more steps, a couple more stairs, and I can’t seem to take them. What if I never can? What if I’ve maxed out right here, and I don’t have what it takes to lead my team any further? What if I fall short mere meters from the finish line?”
Max fought the urge to offer simple assurances. They weren’t hers to grant, and they were both too smart to believe them. Part of what made the sports stories they clung to so enthralling was the very real possibility of failure that hung around every encounter. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t see that until now, either.”
Callie shrugged. “You didn’t want to. I don’t want to, either. Neither does my team, but we all live with it. I think you understand those fears. When I look into your eyes, sometimes it’s like a mirror to all the things I don’t want to see in myself.”
The thought hurt. Max hurt. Everything had hurt for so long, and no matter how much she tried to pretend it didn’t matter, she’d ended up hurting other people, too.
Then Callie said, “It makes me feel a little less lonely.”
“What?”
“To see you fighting. To see you refusing to give up no matter how many times you fall on the ice, or how many times someone refu
ses to be interviewed, or how many times you get benched. You just keep going. I’m not always sure why you do, but I’m glad you do. It makes me feel better about refusing to let go of my own drive even when everyone else looks at me like I’m asking too much, or pushing too hard, or being too unreasonable in my expectations.”
“What if they’re right about both of us? What if you and I are the crazy ones?”
“Then maybe we’ll just have to be crazy together.” Callie rested her head on Max’s shoulder. “Like just be obnoxiously driven to succeed at our own goals, but together.”
“That sounds both really dysfunctional and kind of nice all at once.”
“But I thought you weren’t a nice person?”
“I haven’t been.” Max sighed. “But I am trying now.”
Callie stepped away only far enough to look up at her. “I see that.”
“Do you?”
She nodded and furrowed her brow. “Can you see the same thing in me?”
Max nodded. “I do.”
“Good.” She gave a little half smile. “I don’t feel so tipsy anymore.”
“No? Well that’s good,” Max said, amused by the non sequitur.
“Yeah, seemed important to mention before I did this.” Then she leaned in, cupping Max’s face in her hands, and kissed her gently on the lips.
The move was just another in a long string of surprises Max had experienced since meeting Callie Mulligan, but it was by far her favorite. She would have to analyze and possibly even freak out about that later, but right now, with Callie’s soft lips against her own, she couldn’t manage to think of a later. Or her job. Or her fears. There was only Callie, her cold fingers, her warm breath, the press of her mouth, sure and skilled and so very right.
Max leaned into that kiss, not pushing or even asking for more, but accepting, the same way she accepted everything else from this woman. Callie managed to be sweet and fierce, strong and vulnerable, serious and stunning, and now sexy beyond belief as she tenderly bit Max’s bottom lip before pulling away and smiling.
“Good night, Max.”
She couldn’t even find the words to say good-bye. She stood there dumbly as Callie opened the door to her room and disappeared inside. She didn’t know what she should’ve done or said differently, but as she finally found the coordination to shuffle off to her own room, she figured she’d probably have all night to lie awake pondering those questions and so many others.
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