Julia’s shoe nudges mine—warning, sympathy, both. “We’re minimizing risk,” she says, softer. “This is for you, too.”
“For the brand,” I correct. Chalk on my tongue.
The suit steeples his fingers. “We’re not policing feelings. We’re protecting wins. Distractions cost games. Games cost millions. It’s math.”
He’s not wrong. He’ll never be right in a way that matters to me.
“Say the line,” I tell Julia. She rips the Band-Aid.
“Stay away from Riley.”
Her name in the small room laces my chest two eyelets too tight. On the mute TV, my arm rises, the opponent flinches, the ref’s hand shoots up—loop. It always does.
“What if I don’t?” I ask, because I can’t help it, because there’s a part of me that would skate through fire if she stood on the other side.
“Then you lose money you don’t care about,” the suit says, “and she loses a career she worked her whole life to build.”
The ficus wheezes. So does the fan.
I nod once. “I hear you.” Swallow a mouthful of ice. “Eyes on the game.”
Julia exhales; tension leaves her posture by degrees. “Good. We’ll run interference with media.” She hesitates. “Try not to give them anything to interfere with.”
“Tell the blogs I’m illiterate,” I say, standing. The wrist throbs; the tape holds. So will I. I have to.
I push out into the tunnel. Colder air carves the heat off my skin. The boards rumble like thunder. Rules are easy until the door you’re not supposed to open swings on its own.
The tunnel spits me back toward the room like a puck off the boards. I set my pace to the arena’s hum—steady, ruthless—and string the rules in my head like laces I won’t let snap. Eyes on the game. No off-hours. Training staff are Switzerland. Riley is a country I’m not allowed to invade.
I shoulder through the door, the smell of sweat and rubber slamming into me, and pretend I don’t immediately scan forblonde hair in a ponytail. Collins is teaching a rookie how to rip sock tape, which is like teaching a goldfish the backstroke. Helmets hang crooked. Someone’s playlist bleeds tinny bass. Ordinary. Safe.
I sit, dig out a fresh roll, and start over on the wrist because doing something with my hands keeps the other itch down. Wrap. Smooth. Anchor. The joint complains; I tell it to take a number. Second period in three minutes. If I focus on forecheck angles and where their D overcommits, there’s no room for the shape of Riley’s mouth when she says deep breath like she doesn’t remember saying it to me in a bed I can’t forget.
“You look mean,” our goalie says, flopping into the stall next to mine. Still in his chest protector, a medieval beetle.
“I am mean,” I say. “I’m also busy.”
He grins behind his mouthguard. “Good. Stay that way.” He taps my taped wrist with his stick—gentle for him. “Don’t make me stop more odd-man rushes because you’re daydreaming about HR violations.”
I glare. He laughs like a man protected by both pads and friendship. “Eyes on the game,” I tell him. Myself. Anyone who needs it.
He points his stick at my chest. “Then stop staring at the door.”
“I’m not,” I lie, and the universe hates liars because that’s when the handle turns.
The room inhales. She steps in with a blue ice kit banging her knee and a clipboard that could cut a man if she decided it should. Hair escaping its elastic. Cheeks pink from tunnel cold. Eyes steady on the job—not on me—except they flick once, and the hit lands center mass.
“Heads up, fellas,” she calls, crisp. “Quick checks before the horn. Anyone bleeding I haven’t met yet?” A few smart answersdie when she sweeps them with a look. Power, quiet as deep water.
She moves efficiently, a constellation of small mercies: gauze on a split knuckle, a towel snapped at a neck, a word in a kid’s ear who skates on nerves. I watch and I don’t—because watching is standing on a cliff, and I promised myself I’m done with gravity.
My phone buzzes facedown in the stall:Julia: Cameras nearby. Stay away.The screen goes black, warning swallowed.
Riley reaches our row. My row. Silence cones around us like we’ve been dropped under glass. I flex my wrist as if to remind us both why she’s here.
“Lane,” Coach says across the room, clipped, neutral. A boundary chalked on concrete. “Make it fast.”
“Always do,” she answers, calm as a scalpel. She stops in front of me, cooler thunking by my skate, and finally lets her gaze lock on mine. Not a challenge. Not permission. A test I can pass if I want it enough.
