“This is reckless,” I say, because ritual requires a protest.
He huffs a quiet almost-laugh. “The reckless thing would’ve been walking to your apartment with half the media outside.” He tilts his head, studying me under the humming lights. “You okay?”
No. Yes. Neither. I step closer until the scuffed ghost lines on the ice cross under our feet like veins. The cold finds my ankles; the chill is clean and mean and exactly what I need. “Ask me something easier,” I say, softer.
He doesn’t. He takes a breath that looks like surrender and moves one blade closer. We’re a stick length apart. Close enough to feel the heat he carries under the hoodie, far enough that an overhead camera could call it a meeting. The thought makes my chest ache.
“Thank you for not answering my texts,” he says, and it’s somehow not sarcasm. “I would’ve said the wrong thing.”
“You did,” I say, but I say it gently. I need you. No one else. The words are stitched into my pulse, a complication and a comfort. “You always do.”
He lets that land. This is new—him not arguing, not rushing to fix what can’t be fixed with speed. “I was a storm,” he says, matter-of-fact. “I made a lot of noise and called it gravity.”
“And I left,” I answer, because the truth belongs on the ice where the lines are honest. My voice bounces up into the rafters and comes back changed. “Not because I didn’t love you. Because loving you felt like disappearing. Every room was about you. Every decision. Every look. I started measuring myself in inches of your shadow. I didn’t know how to be seen without being seen through you.”
He doesn’t flinch. He nods once, a slow acceptance that makes my eyes sting. “You didn’t disappear,” he says. “I just… didn’t get out of your way.” A beat. “I can. I will.”
The ice creaks, settling, the sound like a distant whale call under our skates. My fingertips go numb inside my gloves and I curl them anyway because habit makes fists easier than open hands. “There’s a device review at seven,” I say, because facts keep me upright. “If they pull messages and find gaps, they’ll make up the bridges. That’s what they do.”
“Then we don’t give them bridges,” he says. No bravado. Just calm. “I told Nolan I’ll take the hit. Suspension, fine, whatever keeps you intact. We put boundaries on paper, double-staff everything, open doors, body cam if they want it. I don’t care how performative it is if it keeps you standing where you earned it.”
The word earned lands warm. The last of my breath wavers.
“You can’t fix the past,” I say.
“I can change the present,” he answers. “And stop pretending that protecting you and protecting us are different jobs.”
The hum of the lights swells. I look down at our skates—his black, mine scuffed white—and then up again. The space between us feels like a decision waiting to happen. I skate the last two feet and stop on my edges so our breath mixes in the cold.
“Okay,” I say, voice steady in a way my hands aren’t. “Then say what that looks like. Not promises. Plans.”
He doesn’t reach for me. He reaches for structure like it’s a rope. “No apologies,” he says, and the lack of them lands like respect. “Plans.” His breath ghosts between us. “Tomorrow: I meet Nolan at eight with Ducks and Adams in the room. We put it in writing—every treatment door open, second staff present for anything longer than five minutes, cameras welcome. I’ll eat the fines if they try to hand you one. PR can publish the protocol like a transparency stunt if they need the show.”
I search his face for the old reflex—the swagger, the trust me that used to make me feel like a coin flipped in the air. It isn’t there. What’s left is steadier and harder to argue with. “Media?” I ask.
“Hard boundaries,” he says. “No off-the-cuff. If someone aims a mic at you, it hits me first. If they say your name, I say team. If they push, I walk.” He ticks the points off on gloved fingers. “No private hallways. No lingering in tunnels where athumbnail can make up a story. If I have something to say about you, I say it to you or I say nothing.”
It’s so simple my chest hurts. “And when they ask why the protocol exists?”
“Because stars are idiots,” he says, deadpan enough to make me snort. Then quieter: “Because we’re serious about standards. Because the work matters more than the rumor.”
My blades whisper as I rock gently on my edges, the sound like a match struck in the hush. “And if Nolan says it isn’t enough?”
He doesn’t flinch. “Then I sit until it is.” A beat, honest and bare. “I already told him to take me before he takes you.”
Something loosens in my throat I didn’t know I’d been holding since the elevator. I swallow hard and it still doesn’t go down all the way. “That’s not the win you think it is,” I manage. “If you sit, I become the story anyway. Look what she cost him.”
“I can survive a story,” he says. “I won’t survive being the guy who let you get erased.” The words don’t punch; they land and hold.
I tip my head back until the rafters fill my vision—steel ribs, banners sleeping. “Compliance is at seven,” I remind us both. “Device review. They’ll poke holes until the outline spells whatever they want.”
“Then we give them pages they can’t rip,” he says. “Julia can loop in counsel by six. We log every treatment you’ve done for me this season, every minute, every witness. We show the paper trail that should’ve existed all along.” He grimaces. “That’s on me. I like closed doors because they feel like control.”
“They feel like risk,” I say, and the word leaves condensation in the space between us. “We’re not kids. We can want this and still choose air and light.”
He nods, a small, fierce motion. “Air and light,” he echoes. “Rules we write and keep.” He pulls his phone from his hoodiepocket, thumbs moving. “I just texted Julia: I want the protocol drafted by morning. I asked Adams and Ducks to sign. If Nolan balks, he can put his name on the refusal.”
The text bubble on his screen pulses, a distant city blinking. He tucks the phone away without checking the reply and looks at me like the plan is only useful if I believe it. “You won’t disappear,” he says, quieter now. “Not on my watch. Not on theirs.”
