“Hey, Skip,” Layla said softly, as the clock began ticking on their official nine minutes of warm-ups. “A word?”
She paused, looking from her best friend toward the hack. “Sure it can’t wait?”
“Yeah,” Layla said, with unusual seriousness.
She stepped back, motioning for Brooke and Ella to continue their slides. “What’s wrong?”
“You got enough regrets.”
The comment hit her square in the chest.
“I know you’re trying to compartmentalize, but it’s not working.”
Suddenly it hurt to breathe. “You waited until now to do this?”
Layla grinned, but it came off looking more sad than anything else. “Timing matters. Once the minute is gone, it’s gone. And you’ve been working your whole life to be in this minute right here.”
“Do you honestly think I don’t know that?”
“Yeah. Or maybe you knew it, but you forgot, because I can tell from the glassy glaze over those tiger eyes that you are not here right now.”
“I’m here,” she said emphatically.
“You’re not. You’re reliving every other game, every other mistake, and I suspect you’re reliving a conversation that took place three weeks ago.”
“I’m not.” Or at least she hadn’t been, but now that Layla mentioned it, all the pain and confusion of those moments rushed back to join the pain and confusion of the present. She hung her head.
“You don’t get a do-over on any of it,” Layla said softly. “You can’t go back and say things differently any more than you can pull a rock back into your hand once you’ve released it.”
She nodded. She knew this. She knew all of it with body-crushing certainty. She didn’t need anyone else to tell her those mistakes would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“But you can change shots you haven’t made yet,” Layla continued. “You can use those regrets to help you ward off others.”
She lifted her eyes as a hint of something stirred inside her.
“Don’t try to hide from the pain. You already tried that. It hasn’t worked. You’re going to have to embrace it.”
“It hurts too much.”
“Use that. Grit your teeth, accept it, and then let it fuel you.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” Layla pushed.
She shook her head.
“Callie, you have turned every doubt, every naysayer, every slight and sting you’ve ever suffered into more logs on the fire.” She locked eyes with Callie. “Do it again. You need to stare your regrets in the face and say, ‘You’ve taken enough. You don’t get to steal this dream, too.’”
A whoosh of air left her lungs.
“Come on.” Layla nudged her with her broom. “Say it.”
“You don’t get to steal this dream, too,” Callie whispered.
“Give it more,” Layla urged. “The past doesn’t define my future.”
“The past doesn’t define my future.” Her heart rate responded to the mantra by kicking up a few notches.
“There you go.” She nodded. “You don’t get a do-over, but you get to decide where you go from here.”
“I get to decide,” she said more convincingly, as she felt the blood pumping through her limbs.
Layla punched her in the shoulder. “No more regrets.”
“No more regrets,” she agreed, and this time she really meant it. “I’m ready to leave it all out on the ice.”
“Then, let’s do it.” Layla made a sweeping gesture toward the hack, and Callie took her position.
Clutching a stone in her hand and eyeing the button, she straightened up, then swung back. This time instead of trying to block out the pain, she breathed it, the ache spearing up under her ribs once more. She welcomed it, channeling everything that had scared her and pressed in on her and kept her awake at night. With an exhale, she pushed off, and the world whisked away. It was as if she’d blown all that negativity out into a cloud before her and then propelled herself right through it. Everything blurred for a brief second, then a space at the end of the tunnel came into sharp focus as the rest disappeared.
She was back.
Somehow time managed to both slow and speed up at her will as the match began. She seemed to have all the hours in the world stretching before her, but she no longer needed them. She could anticipate a shot before it left someone’s hand, and she could counter a play before it came to fruition, which was a damn good thing, because everything her opponents set out to try seemed to hit. One golden shot after another landed exactly where they wished, and her team matched them blow for blow.
Somewhere behind her, the scoreboard showed the balance teetering on one point here, another there, with no lopsided numbers to be found. She didn’t need a scoreboard to tell her what she’d known all along. Her team was every bit as good as the number one team, even on their best day.
By the ninth end, little had given way, not the score, which now had them up five to four, or her team’s determination or the sharp shard of grief pushing in her ribs. As she strode down the ice, she met first Brooke’s eyes, then Layla’s, then Ella’s. This was the moment she’d led them to. The moment she’d inspired them to, the moment she’d promised them. More than that, though, it was the moment she’d promised herself. The moment she’d studied and fought and worked and sacrificed everything for. Would it all be worth it?
She settled into the hack, ready to find out.
She raised her eyes to home in on the spot Brooke indicated with her broom. She couldn’t relive her misses. She didn’t have time for doubt or room for speculation. She couldn’t even begin to consider what the other team would do with the hammer. She had one shot to make.
She pulled back, pushed off, and whispered, “No regrets.”
Then she let go.
She didn’t hold her breath or squint or stay low. She didn’t have to.
“It’s perfect,” Brooke called, but even that confirmation was unnecessary. The rock would land exactly where she’d willed it to. Vindication, at least for now, said she should have been elated. She’d done no less than the best anyone could do, and it was out of her hands, both literally and figuratively.
She smiled a subdued sort of smile and stepped to the side as the number one skipper in the world clutched a hammer in her hand.
“You didn’t make her job easy,” Layla said, coming to stand behind her.
“No.”
“I’d rather be us than them right now.”
She couldn’t disagree, but neither could she summon much glee. She couldn’t summon much trepidation, either. She didn’t feel much of anything, actually. It was a hollow sort of sensation after a lifetime of emotion around this sport—and several weeks of internal chaos.
The final stone was released by someone else, in a moment she couldn’t control, a moment completely separate from who she was and all she’d ever done. Someone else got to make the final call, and she watched with detached interest as the rock smacked a guard that then careened into the outer rings before bouncing off of another stone. It continued spinning wildly into the rock she’d just placed on the button until it pushed Callie’s stone out and sat squarely in her place.
A series of groans and cheers went up around her as the realization of what they’d all seen rippled like shock waves through the arena. Down on the ice, the same emotions erupted in amplified jubilation and agony, but Callie felt little of either as Danielle rose and walked toward her, hand outstretched.
“Good curling, Callie,” she said, with abundant emotion, the primary one seeming to be relief.
Callie clutched her hand tightly, and sincerely meant it when she said, “You, too. You earned it.”
Danielle laughed weakly. “Not by much.”
Mercifully, her teammates caught up to her in a rush, mobbing her with praise and allowing Callie to slip back from the fray, right into Layla’s arms.
“I’m okay,” she said, as
her best friend squeezed her tightly.
“You played flawlessly,” Brooke said from the side.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You couldn’t have done any more than you did today,” Ella piled on. “It was a frickin’ honor to be out here with you.”
She smiled weakly and stepped back far enough to meet Layla’s sympathetic gaze. “I have no regrets about this game.”
Layla nodded and then swallowed, as if too overcome with emotion to acknowledge the entirety of that statement.
Callie released a shaky breath. “I put everything I had up against the best in the world, and I just came up short.” The thought didn’t make her sad. She merely felt numb at the realization that her best wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough today. Maybe it never had been. She wasn’t the best curler. She wasn’t the best skipper. She wasn’t the best person.
The last item on the list was the only one that hurt.
She had paid a heavy price to learn that lesson, and while she now knew for certain how it felt to leave everything she had to the game, she couldn’t say for sure if that knowledge had been worth what she’d surrendered, and she likely never would.
Turning slowly around to look first at her friends, her teammates, and her colleagues, she widened her gaze to sweep over the crowd of other players and spectators watching them. This community had given her so much. It was impossible to fault them. Any lack undoubtedly existed in herself. The numbness spread until it nipped the tips of her fingers and toes like the cold she’d lived in for so long. Still, she continued her deliberate turn until, when she nearly reached the place where she’d begun, her eyes swept across a familiar image, and her heart beat so hard it cracked the ice encasing her.
There in the front row, edging her way along the banister toward the stairs, eyes locked on her own . . . she might not have believed it, if not for those eyes.
“Max,” she called. Then she ran.
If she’d thought her heart had stopped beating the moment Callie saw her, the impact of their bodies colliding jolted it back to life with a shot of pure electric energy. They clutched each other tightly as Max teetered on the bottom step of the bleachers. She wasn’t sure she would ever regain her balance around this woman, and she wasn’t sure she cared, if only Callie would hold her this tightly forever. Still, she had things she needed to say, and she’d had enough spectacle to last her a lifetime. She didn’t need to subject either of them to a grand public declaration, so she slowly steered them away from the riser and around the corner, far enough that no cameras could follow.
“You came back,” Callie whispered into her neck.
“I couldn’t stay away.” Max kissed her temple.
Callie turned her head and returned the kiss fully on her lips.
Her knees nearly buckled at how amazing that felt, but Callie pulled back quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean to do that. I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean to presume. I know I made so many mistakes, Max.”
“Not as many as I did. I broke my promise.”
“You worked so hard for that opportunity, and I knew how much it meant to you. I should’ve been happier for you. I should’ve celebrated with you. I should’ve been happy for what you were gaining instead of focusing on what I was losing.”
“You had every right to be mad at me.”
“That’s the thing.” Callie cupped her face in cold hands. “I wasn’t mad at you. I was sad and scared of losing you. I didn’t want to admit that, not to myself and not to you, so I fell back on the only thing I’ve ever fallen back on, and I made everything about curling. I didn’t lie exactly, but I didn’t tell you the whole truth either, and I have regretted that every minute since you walked out the door.”
“What’s the whole truth?” Max asked, then held her breath.
Callie bit her lip as her eyes began to water, and Max’s heart hung suspended on whatever those tears meant.
“So help me, God,” Callie finally whispered, “the whole truth is, I’m crazy about you, even crazier than I am about curling.”
“That’s pretty crazy,” Max said, pulling her in tightly once more.
“So much crazy,” Callie mumbled against her shoulder, “and I don’t even know what that means for us. I know it doesn’t solve a damn thing, and you still have your job, and it’s still a priority for you. I don’t want to lose the things I love either, even if things are shifting for me, and I’m willing, but . . .” Her voice drifted off as their bodies shook. “Are you laughing?”
“I am,” Max admitted, the trembling between them only growing. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny, but I can’t help it. I was so scared, and now I don’t know what to do. This is not the reception I was expecting.”
Callie leaned back and wiped a tear from her eye. “But it’s a good reception, right? Please say it’s the reception you hoped for.”
“Way better.” Max tried to bite back a smile. “Even if you did steal my thunder a little bit.”
“What thunder?”
“I thought I was the speechwriter in the couple,” she teased. “Then you have to go and outshine me there, too.”
“I didn’t make a speech.” Callie sniffed. “I don’t write speeches.”
“Well, if you just ad-libbed that, I feel even less secure in my abilities, because the speech I’ve been writing in my head all week pales in comparison.”
The corner of Callie’s mouth twitched up. “I want to hear yours.”
“Oh no, it’s not nearly as good. I was going to apologize for walking off a job that, as it turns out, was way better than the one I left it for.” Shame crept up and warmed her cheeks. She wished they could just skip this part and go back to kissing, but Callie deserved to hear it as much as Max needed to get it off her chest. “Then I planned to tell you how you were right all along about everything, about curlers and your team and the sport as a whole being a hidden gem of really awesome people—er, athletes.”
Callie rolled her eyes.
“No, I’m serious. I meant both people and athletes. I know I’ve said that before, but this time I’m going to prove it because I’m selling my apartment in New York. I bought a really good camera, and I’m going to make a documentary about curling and about you specifically if you’ll agree to let me follow you all the way to the Olympics.”
Callie shook her head, her expression filled with a sadness Max had never seen there before. “I just came in second at nationals. My best wasn’t good enough. It might never be. And even if it is, I’m going to start next year in the same position I started this one in. I’m a very long way from the Olympics.”
Max shrugged, then hooked a finger under Callie’s chin and gently tilted it back up. “It can be a very long movie. You have time, and so do I. We both do, together, if you want it.”
Callie sniffed back another crying jag. “That’s a pretty good speech.”
“Yours was better.”
“Why?”
“Oh, you had all these emotions, and you kissed me, and—”
“No.” Callie laughed. “I wasn’t asking for a speech analysis. I mean, why would you give up all your high-powered contacts and contracts to follow me around?”
“Well, two reasons. One, turns out that making a documentary about someone interesting actually appeals to me a lot more than shouting questions at people I don’t particularly like.”
“And the other reason?”
“I love you.”
This time there was no restraint in Callie’s smile. It was almost a shame to smother such a radiant expression, but Max kissed her anyway.
Epilogue
Callie took one more deep breath of the steam-laden air in the tiny hotel bathroom. The tension had begun to lift from her shoulders the moment her last rock had left her fingers three hours earlier, but the wet heat of her extra-long shower had gone a long way to accelerate the process. Now she planned to finish decompressing with the inc
redibly sexy woman waiting on the other side of the door. She opened it, buzzing with anticipation, only to roll her eyes at what she saw.
Max stood a mere two feet in front of her, still fully dressed in her on-air slacks and deep red button-down shirt with her now ever-present video camera lifted to her eye.
Callie wanted to be annoyed that she’d finally left behind four days of tournament work only to find Max hadn’t gotten the “out of office” memo, but she couldn’t contain a little smile. She found that happening more and more these days.
“How does it feel to be the Players’ Champion?” Max asked in her most professional voice.
“They don’t call it that,” Callie said. Stating the obvious, she added, “And you cannot use any documentary footage in which I am wearing only a towel.”
Max’s grin grew wider than the edges of her video camera. “I’ll only shoot from the neck up. Now answer my question.”
“Well first of all,” Callie said, wrapping her towel a little tighter around her chest, “my team won the Players’ Championship.”
“And what did you shoot throughout the tournament?”
“About 97 percent.”
“Is that a record?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to look it up.”
Max turned the camera around so the lens faced her. “Note to self: Look up official records to prove Callie is the greatest Players’ Champion who ever lived.”
“Again, not a thing,” Callie corrected. “My whole team won the tournament called the ‘Players’ Championship,’ and it’s not the same thing as the national championship, which we lost, or the world championship, which we didn’t qualify for, you know, because we lost nationals.”
“And who won the world championships?” Max prodded.
“The Swedish national team.”
“Oh interesting.” Max played a little dumb, and Callie felt a setup coming on. “Remind me: Who did you beat today in the final game of the tournament?”
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