Page 137 of Gamebreaker

Cam was looking at me.

She'd stopped walking, just for a moment, at the edge of the court near the bench. Her amber eyes were on mine across fifteen feet of hardwood, and for three seconds, the arena noise compressed into nothing. The crowd, the music, the halftime announcer, all of it went distant and irrelevant, and there was just Cam's face and the unguarded ache in her expression that she hadn't managed to lock down in time.

She looked exhausted. She looked like a week of bad sleep and worse feelings. She looked exactly the way I felt.

She looked at me like I was something precious she'd lost and couldn't stop hopelessly reaching for.

Three seconds.

Then she looked away. Turned toward her bench, toward Coach Lopez, toward the controlled professional world where she knew exactly who she was and what she was doing. Back to being Captain Russo, where everything made sense and nothing was allowed to hurt her.

I turned back to Mia, who was very deliberately looking at the halftime performers.

I breathed. In through the nose, the way my therapist had taught me, who I was definitely going to call again on Monday and finally tell the truth to because I could not keep processing this alone. Out through the mouth.

I was not going to cry in this arena.

I was not going to cry in this arena.

The halftime performer did something impressive with a basketball that, under normal circumstances, I would've appreciated, and I watched it very hard with absolutely dry eyes.

Totally fine.

Completely fine.

This closure plan was going incredibly well.

The Fangs won. Of course they did. Twenty-six points, thirteen assists for Cam, numbers I overheard a man behind me reciting to his companion with an enthusiasm that bordered on religious. The whole crowd was on their feet before the final buzzer.

I clapped. I genuinely clapped, which was something I'd never expected to be doing at a basketball game five weeks ago.

Isla was already texting Trish, pulling us toward the tunnel before the final horn had fully faded. I followed because the alternative was announcing that I'd rather sit in the emptying arena alone like a person who'd completely lost the plot, which, honestly, wasn't far from the truth.

Trish emerged from the tunnel sweaty and grinning with the blinding, gorgeous glow of someone who'd just won a playoff game, and it looked incredible on her. She kissed Isla, hugged Mia, hugged Laine, and turned to me with a look in her eyes that was doing a lot of things at once.

"Harper," she said gently, draping an arm over my shoulder. "Good to see you."

"You too." I meant it. "Great game. You were incredible."

"Thanks." She paused, and it was the kind of pause that meant she was deciding something. "You staying for the team celebration?"

The team celebration. Where Cam would be. Where I would have to exist in the same room as Cam and pretend the last six days hadn't happened, pretend those three seconds at halftime hadn't nearly undone me, pretend I hadn't memorized the exact way she'd looked at me across the court like I was the most devastating thing she'd ever seen.

"I don't think that's a good idea," I said.

Trish nodded. Slowly. Then, quietly enough that it didn't carry to the others: "She asks about you. Every day. Doesn't text because she knows you need the space. But she asks."

I stared at her.

I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't have a comeback for it, which was disorienting, because I always had a comeback. My brain, which could generate a perfectly timed sarcastic response to almost any situation known to humanity, went completely offline and offered me nothing.

She asks about you.

Every day.

"Okay," I said finally. Because what else was there to say?

Trish gave me one last look, something between sympathy and respect, then turned back to her wife, and I stepped away from the tunnel entrance into the corridor beyond, where the crowd noise was slightly less oppressive.