Chapter 161 Someone Else's Blueprint

Chapter 161 Someone Else's Blueprint
Levi's POV

I don't call Coach Danvers back that night. I sit on the guesthouse porch with Anya asleep against my shoulder, the phone heavy in my hand, and I let the silence stretch until it's easier to just exist in it than to make it real by saying anything out loud.

The screen keeps lighting up periodically with unread notifications, Marcus, my father's assistant, a follow-up email from Danvers's office already outlining travel logistics like my answer is a foregone conclusion. I ignore all of it, watching the dark lawn instead, trying to figure out how something I've wanted my entire life suddenly feels like a threat.

She wakes up around midnight, blinking against the porch light, immediately alert in that way she's learned to be over the last two months. "You didn't call him back."

"I know."

"Levi." She sits up fully, rubbing sleep from her eyes, studying my face like she's trying to read a language she's only half fluent in. "Call him back. Whatever this is, you don't get to just, not deal with it because it scares you."

"It's three states away, Anya."

"I know where it is." Her voice stays steady, careful. "I looked it up the second you told me the name of the program."

"You looked it up?"

"Of course I looked it up." A small, sad smile. "You think I wasn't going to want to know exactly how far away the thing that could take you from me actually is?"

That admission sits heavy between us, honest in a way that makes my chest ache. I take her hand, needing the anchor of it.

"I don't know what to do with this," I admit. "Six months ago, this call would've been the easiest yes of my life. Development program, real shot at pro hockey, everything I've worked toward since I was seven years old handed to me on a silver platter." I shake my head. "Now all I can think about is a guesthouse and a kitchen table and you telling me you love me without an audience for the first time, and how none of that fits into a program three states away."

"You can't turn down your entire future because of me."

"You're not a footnote to my future, Anya. You're not something I'm choosing instead of hockey. I don't know how to make you understand that without it sounding like I'm being dramatic."

"It doesn't sound dramatic." Her voice cracks slightly. "It sounds like exactly the kind of thing that keeps me up at night, actually, because I don't want to be the reason you say no to something this big. I've spent this whole relationship terrified of being an obstacle in your life, the scandal, the danger, now this. I don't want to add 'the reason Levi didn't go pro' to that list."

"You wouldn't be the reason. The reason would be me actually weighing what I want against what looks impressive on paper, which is something I've never really been allowed to do before." I turn to face her fully. "My whole life, decisions have been made for me based on what looks right, what serves the family name, what keeps everyone happy except necessarily me. I don't want to make this decision that way. I want to actually think about what I want, for once, instead of just taking whatever door opens widest."

She's quiet for a long moment, processing, her thumb tracing absent patterns across my knuckles. "What do you want? If you strip away the pressure, the name, all of it, what does Levi actually want?"

The question sits heavier than I expect. I've spent so long being handed a version of success to chase that I genuinely don't know how to answer without defaulting to what I'm supposed to say. My father wanted me captain before I'd even made varsity. He wanted this recruiter's call before I understood what recruiting even meant. I've been living inside someone else's blueprint for so long that finding my own answer feels almost like learning a new language.

"I want hockey," I say slowly, working it out as I speak. "That part's not in question. I love this game more than almost anything in my life. But I also want" I stop, throat tight. "I want you. Not in some abstract, sentimental way. I want mornings at that kitchen table. I want to keep learning how to say things without an exit planned. I don't know how to want both of those things at the same time when one of them apparently requires three states of distance."

"There are programs closer," she says quietly. "You could look at other offers. Ones that don't put an entire country between us."

"Danvers made it pretty clear this is the top program. The kind of opportunity that doesn't repeat itself."

I hear how hollow the words sound even as I say them, like I'm reciting something someone else wrote for me instead of actually weighing what matters. "That's the thing everyone keeps telling me. That doors like this don't open twice. Nobody's ever once asked whether I want to walk through this particular door, or whether I'm just supposed to, because that's what a Thorne does when opportunity knocks."

"I know." She swallows hard. "I'm not saying don't consider it. I would never ask you to give up something like this for me, not really, not even though some scared part of me wants to. I'm just saying, there might be options in between the extremes. We don't have to solve the whole thing tonight."

Something in me loosens slightly at that, grateful for the reminder that this doesn't have to be resolved in one conversation, one porch, one midnight moment of panic.

"I'll call him back tomorrow," I say. "Ask more questions. Figure out what this actually looks like before I let myself spiral about all the ways it could end things between us."

"Okay." She leans her head back against my shoulder, and we sit there a while longer, the porch quiet except for the crickets and the distant hum of the estate's security lights. "Whatever you decide, Levi, I need you to know I'll be proud of you either way. I just needed to say that honestly, before either of us starts pretending this is simple."

"It's not simple," I admit. "Nothing about us has ever been simple."

"No," she agrees, a small laugh escaping despite everything. "But it's been worth it."

I want to believe that's still true no matter what happens next. I'm holding onto that thought, trying to let it settle into something solid, watching the way the porch light catches the exhaustion and hope tangled together on her face, when my phone buzzes again, not Danvers this time, but an email notification, subject line blank, sender unknown.

I open it despite every instinct telling me not to, and the words on the screen make my whole body go cold.

Going somewhere, Levi? I'll be watching either way.