I step back from the podium. The pages I never used slip off and fan across the stage. I don’t pick them up. I can only move because someone takes my elbow and steers me into the corridor.
Our PR woman keeps a hand on my arm as if I might fold in half and not get back up.
“Logan, we need to get you out of here,” she says. “Now.”
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Security is escorting Ms. Stone?—”
“Reese.” The word scrapes. “My date.”
“I don’t know,” she says, softer. “We’ll try to reach her.”
She guides me into a storage room that’s been turned into a war room in under a minute. Fluorescent lights. Folding chairs. Cleaning supplies shoved to one side. Our GM, legal, PR, and Coach Martinez crowd in. The door clicks shut and the sound ricochets around my skull.
The questions hit in sequence.
“Did you know?”
“Have you had any contact with Ms. Stone since…?”
“Do you recall the timing?”
“We’ll need to arrange a paternity test.”
I sit because my knees decide this is over. Sweat chills under the tux. I pull at the bow tie; it resists. My fingers give up.
“Give him a second,” Coach says, taking the chair across from me and blocking the rest. He waits until I look up. “Did you know, Logan?”
“No,” I say, and I feel involuntary tears coming out. “I swear to God, Coach. I didn’t know.”
He holds my gaze, measures me the way only he can do, then nods once. “Okay.” To the room: “Everybody simmer down.”
My phone vibrates like it’s possessed. Teammates, unknown numbers, probably the media. I swipe past them all and hit Reese’s name. Straight to voicemail. Her voice is bright and normal and from a different lifetime. I don’t leave a message. What is there to say that doesn’t sound like a lie?
“Statement tonight,” PR says, already typing. “Brief. Acknowledgment. Request for privacy. No specifics. We’ll run it by legal and Logan before it goes out.”
Legal steps forward, grim and precise. “We’ll contact Ms. Stone to arrange paternity testing. Regardless of outcome, we need to be prepared for filings, including potential temporaryorders. We’ll also need to review any previous correspondence that may have come to the team office.”
PR glances at me. “We’ll audit mail and email logs.”
All the words hum in the air like machinery I don’t know how to shut off. Underneath it: one fact, plain and massive.
I have a son.
And I didn’t know.
I picture all the things I missed without knowing I was missing them: first steps, first words, first time he laughed so hard he hiccuped. My father once told me you don’t outrun your past; you just learn how to carry it. I thought he was being dramatic. Not now.
“Logan.” Coach’s voice again, closer to human than manager. “We’ll handle the logistics. Your job right now is not to make this worse. No statements on your own. No texts to reporters. No social. Understood?”
“Understood,” I say. It sounds like someone else said it.
I check my phone again. Nothing from Reese. I hit call anyway. Straight to voicemail. I hang up and stare at the black screen until it reflects my face back at me—pale, unfamiliar.
PR reads the draft: “This evening, a personal matter was brought to Logan McCoy’s attention at the Blades Foundation Gala. Logan is taking appropriate steps to address it privately. He asks for respect and privacy for everyone involved. No further comment will be made at this time.”
“Fine,” I say, because I can’t craft something truer than that right now.
