LOGINMaeve’s POV I helped him pack his bags on Sunday morning. That was the specific task I had not anticipated would be as difficult as it turned out to be. I had known the departure was coming for three weeks, ever since the Colorado management team had sent over the digital contract and the dates on our calendar had transformed into a countdown. I had spent those three weeks preparing for the separation the exact way I prepared for any difficult logistical hurdle. I used a methodical approach and a deliberate emotional distance that I had developed into a survival skill since I was eight years old, back when I first realized that the world did not stop spinning just because you were having feelings about it. I had looked at the team travel sheets. I had researched the commercial flight paths between Providence and Denver. I had identified every single multi-day gap in the Colorado regular-season schedule, matched them directly against my assignment calendar at Northeastern, and adj
Declan’s POV Dan called me on a Wednesday afternoon in October, and I recognized the specific quality of his voice within the first two words of his greeting. It was not his minor-league voice. It was not the casual, conversational tone he used when he was checking in on my caloric intake or giving me administrative updates about the Providence training facility. This was the voice he used when a room full of executives had just reached a consensus. I had heard Dan use this particular register exactly twice before in my professional life, and both times had preceded a major shift in my career. "Colorado reached out to the office this morning," he said without any preamble. I sat down heavily on the old sofa, my hand tightening around the receiver. "Give me the details." He laid out the parameters of the deal. It was a full NHL roster spot, guaranteed from day one, with first-line consideration by the third week of the season if their current left wing’s hamstring did not pass the
Maeve’s POV Six months into our life together in Providence, the dishes became the physical manifestation of every unspoken pressure in the room. It was never actually about the plates or the forks left soaking in grease. That was the hidden tax of sharing a tiny apartment with another person when you both possessed a biological connection that had no off switch. The dishes were simply the breaking point at the end of a brutal Tuesday evening. I had been at the legal aid clinic since eight o’clock in the morning, followed immediately by three consecutive seminars from noon until six. By the time I boarded the cross-town bus, my eyes were burning from reading forty pages of Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad Company by the dim, flickering overhead light. The text had barely registered, maybe sixty percent retention at best, which was completely unacceptable for someone trying to prove she belonged in a courtroom. When I finally unlocked the door at eight-thirty, the first thin
Declan’s POV The apartment was dark except for the blue and white glow of the streetlamp filtering through the blinds. Maeve was lying with her head on my chest. Her finger traced idle and absentminded patterns against my skin, circling the place where my heart beat a steady rhythm for her. The boiler in the basement was doing its usual clank and hiss. It was a noisy and unreliable piece of machinery, but it had become the soundtrack to our new life together. In the silence of the room, every sound felt magnified. "Declan?" she whispered. Her voice was small and fragile, the way it only got when we were completely alone in the quiet hours of the morning. "Yeah?" I asked, my voice thick with sleep and the comfort of her weight against me. "Do you ever regret it?" she asked suddenly. "The career path and the fact that the big agencies aren't calling back anymore. The Providence locker room instead of the big league stage in Boston." She paused for a long time, and her finger stopp
Maeve’s POV The jersey was massive on my frame. It had the name HAYES stitched across the shoulders in bold block letters, and the number seventeen was a white and gold weight against my back. Declan had handed it to me this morning with a shy and uncharacteristic hesitation. He had told me to wear it only if I wanted to, but the bond had already made that decision for me. It hummed with a fierce and protective pride that demanded visibility. I was done with the shadows and the carefully curated disguises. Today, I was going to be exactly who the universe intended me to be. The arena in Providence was a sharp contrast to the high-gloss spectacles of the NHL rinks I had visited as a child. It was smaller and grittier. It felt more intimate, almost like a community center with a high-stakes secret hidden within its cold walls. You could hear the puck thud against the boards like a heavy heartbeat. You could see the ice shavings and the sweat flying off the players' helmets when
Maeve’s POV The first rejection arrived from Yale on a Tuesday in August. It came in the form of a sterile, automated email that landed in my inbox precisely at ten o'clock in the morning. I had been sitting on our secondhand sofa, the fabric slightly scratchy against my legs, waiting for the notification with a sense of impending doom that I had tried to disguise as pragmatism. I told myself that I expected it. I told myself that Yale did not just admit students, but rather curated a legacy, and the Collins name was currently draped in the kind of loud, messy tabloid noise that Ivy League admissions committees treated like a contagious disease. I read the paragraph about the unprecedented strength of the applicant pool and the careful consideration of the committee. I knew exactly what it actually meant. It meant that I was a liability they did not wish to manage. It meant that my mother’s reach was long, and her silence was more damaging than her voice could ever be. I closed t
Maeve's POVOlder omegas were nothing but lies. They spoke about knots like they were just things that locked you and your alpha together so he could knock you up. They were always so prudish about it, and God, I wished they’d told us the truth. I'd felt Declan shoot his seed inside me, and it h
Maeve's POVI had to stand on the tip of my toes to get my hand behind Declan’s head, but the moment he realized what I was trying to do, his eyes widened, and he closed the rest of the gap between us. The kiss started as a light brush at first. His lips were soft against mine, and I took my time
Maeve's POVWe were standing on the deck of the house. It was a pretty large space with a small sofa, a round table with two chairs, and some plants. There was a pool table on one side, a table tennis table, and a basketball ring. For a jock house, it was pretty. And it was clean. Color me surp
Maeve's POVMy mother called on Sunday at noon as usual. I was ready for her this time. I had spent the week building the version of myself that sounded settled, productive and completely fine, so when her contact photo lit up my screen, and I answered on the first ring. "Maeve." Her voice was pl







