My Ex's Rival Has My Heart

the rival

I should have known Olivia was hiding something.

She was terrible at lying.

By the time we sat in the little café downstairs, she’d already taken three sips of her coffee without actually drinking any of it. The cup kept moving from one hand to the other. She kept looking at the door like she was waiting for an escape route.

“Just tell me.”

She sighed.

“Fine.”

She leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“The Falcons don’t just want a photographer.”

I frowned.

“What else?”

“They want you to work closely with Nate Callahan.”

I nearly choked on the coffee I hadn’t meant to drink yet.

“Nate Callahan?”

Olivia nodded.

“You know him?”

“Everyone knows him.”

Even I knew him.

Nate Callahan was the reason Mason had spent half his career furious. The two men had been rivals since college. Same draft year. Same position. Same division. Every time they played each other, sports media turned it into war. Mason once called Nate arrogant in an interview that aired nationally. Nate smiled into the camera and said Mason was only angry because he couldn’t beat him clean. The clip had gone viral for weeks. Mason had watched it three times in a row in our old apartment, jaw locked, phone in one hand and a beer in the other.

“Why would they want me working with him?”

Olivia shrugged.

“Because he’s a nightmare.”

“That’s comforting.”

“He isn’t actually a nightmare.”

“You just said he was.”

“I said he’s a nightmare for the PR department.”

She pulled out her phone and scrolled until she found what she wanted.

“Nate’s sponsors are threatening to drop him.”

“Why?”

“Because of his reputation.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Nate has a reputation?”

Olivia gave me a look that said I was being deliberately slow.

“He’s a hockey player. Of course he does.”

“Fair.”

She turned the phone so I could see the headlines. Nate leaving a nightclub at two in the morning with his arm around a woman whose face was blurred. Nate arguing with a reporter outside the arena, finger pointed, mouth moving too fast. Nate refusing to answer questions about a late hit that had put another player out for two weeks. Nate walking out of an interview halfway through because the host brought up his contract negotiations.

“He’s been getting worse,” Olivia said. “His team wants him to look more stable before the season starts. The board is nervous. Sponsors are nervous. Everyone’s nervous.”

“So?”

“So they’re trying to give him a new image.”

“What does that have to do with photography?”

“You’ll be taking the photographs.”

I frowned.

“That’s it?”

“Not exactly.”

She hesitated. The coffee cup made another trip from one hand to the other.

“There’s a campaign.”

“What campaign?”

“Family. Community. Charity. The Falcons want Nate to look like a normal human being who cares about kids and hospitals and the city. They want soft lighting and genuine smiles and photos that make people forget the nightclub exits and the walked-out interviews.”

I laughed once.

“Is he not a normal human being?”

“Oh, he’s very human. That’s part of the problem.”

“Then what’s the rest of the problem?”

“He’s apparently incapable of behaving like one in front of cameras for more than thirty seconds at a time.”

I smiled despite myself. The image of some tall, broad hockey player scowling through a carefully staged charity shoot was almost funny. Almost.

Olivia leaned back in her chair.

“He’s also Mason’s biggest rival.”

There it was.

The part she had been waiting to say.

I looked at her.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Maybe.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want anything to do with Mason.”

“This isn’t about Mason.”

“Everything involving Nate Callahan eventually becomes about Mason. You know that. The media will make it about Mason the second they see my name next to Nate’s. ‘Ex-girlfriend of Chicago captain now photographing his rival.’ They’ll ask questions I don’t want to answer.”

Olivia’s expression changed. Softer, but not softer enough to let me off the hook.

“Maybe that’s exactly why you should take the job.”

I stared at her.

“No.”

“You’d be working in hockey again.”

“I don’t want hockey.”

“You used to love photographing games. You used to talk about the sound of the ice and the way the light hit the boards during warm-ups. You used to stay late after practices just to get the empty rink shots because you said they felt honest.”

“Before Mason.”

“Exactly.”

I looked down at my coffee. The surface had gone still. That hurt. Because she was right. I had loved it. The cold air. The focus. The way the camera let me stand close to something electric without having to be the one under the pressure. Before I started measuring my life by someone else’s schedule. Before every good photograph I took had to be scheduled around a flight or a game or the possibility that Mason might need me home.

“You think I should walk back into that world just to prove something?” I asked.

“I think you should walk back into it because it’s yours. Or it used to be. And because sitting in that studio taking baby portraits is fine, but it’s not the thing that makes your hands stop shaking when you pick up the camera.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“It’s true.”

My phone buzzed on the table between us.

An email from the Falcons. Interview confirmed. Tomorrow. Ten a.m. Media department conference room.

I stared at the screen.

Olivia smiled. “Well?”

“I haven’t agreed.”

“Your interview is tomorrow.”

“I can still cancel.”

“You won’t.”

I looked at her.

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re smiling.”

I touched my face. The muscles felt foreign. I wasn’t smiling. Except maybe I was. The smallest, most reluctant curve at the corner of my mouth. The kind that showed up when something dangerous and interesting had just been placed in front of me.

Then another message appeared.

This one from the Falcons’ media director.

One more thing. Nate specifically requested that you handle his campaign.

My smile disappeared. I said it before I even meant to.

“Why?”

Olivia leaned closer.

“I don’t know.”

I kept staring at the message. The words didn’t change. Nate specifically requested that you handle his campaign. No explanation. No context. Just the fact of it sitting there like a challenge.

“Nate Callahan doesn’t know me,” I said.

“Maybe he does.”

“That’s not a reason to request me.”

“Maybe he wants the best photographer available. Maybe he saw your old portfolio. Maybe he’s just trying to get under Mason’s skin and you’re the cleanest way to do it.”

I flinched. The idea landed harder than I wanted it to.

“That’s worse.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be anyone’s weapon.”

“Then go into the interview and decide for yourself. Ask the questions. Look him in the eye if he’s there. Figure out if this is about you or about him.”

I set the phone down. My pulse was too loud in my ears.

“And if it is about him?”

Olivia met my eyes.

“Then you walk away. But at least you’ll know you walked away on your own terms instead of running because Mason’s shadow is still long enough to reach New York.”

I didn’t answer. The café around us kept moving. Someone ordered at the counter. A spoon clinked against a saucer. None of it felt real.

I stared at the message again. Nate Callahan didn’t know me. At least, I didn’t think he did. So why had he requested me?