Concrete sweats. The tunnel smells like hot rubber and victory gone thin. Julia materializes at my elbow like she’s been poured from the cinderblock—tablet in hand, headset crooked, eyes bright with bad news arranged in bullet points.
“Walk,” she says. “No stops.” Sponsor logos ripple down her screen like a stock ticker of my sins. “Vectra wants a morals-clause addendum effective immediately. Minimal bonus exposure until ‘the situation stabilizes.’”
“Define stabilizes,” I grunt.
“Silence, contrition, preferably a staff reassignment.” She doesn’t look up. “WaveTech is ‘re-evaluating’ Q3 unless we ‘restore brand confidence.’ FreshFuel wants you on their podcast to talk ‘values.’” Air quotes while walking. She knows better.
“Not doing a podcast.”
“Agreed.” She ticks a box. “ArenaVision pulled mixed-zone and will run clean B-roll. League left a voicemail about Code Twelve. Compliance interviews staff at seven.” She glances up, reading my pulse off my face. “I know.”
We pass the logo wall. My reflection—sweaty, lip split, eyes hot. Familiar and not. “Say it,” I tell her.
“The math says scapegoat Riley,” she answers, stitch-precise. “Cheapest fix, highest perceived value to sponsors, lowest cost to the product on the ice. You are not a cheap fix.”
“We don’t do cheap.”
“We do wins. So we give them a story that keeps you playing and keeps her employed. That requires paper.”
“It’s drafted,” I say. “Open doors. Second staff. Logs. Witnesses. I want Nolan, Ducks, and Adams signed by eight. Publish it if they need the show.”
“Good. Sponsors love a laminated boundary.” Pride tugs one corner of her mouth; dread tugs the other. “If they still want blood, we give them yours—fine, suspension, community service, anything that doesn’t take your stick off the ice. But if it comes down to ‘her or the money’…” She lets it hang. We both know the rest.
“My money doesn’t matter,” I say, and the franchise money laughs behind my teeth. “I told Nolan to take me before he takes her.”
“Of course you did.” She swings her tablet between us, blocking a roaming camera. “Shower. Boring hoodie. Go home. No comments, no side doors, no detours past brand row. Keep your phone on for me and off for everyone else.”
“Make it expensive if they come for her,” I say.
“They will,” she answers gently. “And we will.”
I strip the night off in pieces. Jersey. Pads. Salt drying on my skin. The shower hammers heat into my shoulders until anger thins, then scalds, then runs off in dirty threads. Knuckles swell under the spray—stupid, honest.Enough shoulds.I shut the water and let the drip count me back from a ledge.
Hoodie. Cap. The uniform of nothing to see here. I keep my head down through the loading dock past diesel and busted pallets. Security offers the side door with a look. I take the same hallway as everyone else because hiding is its own headline.
Outside, the air bites. The drive home is muscle memory—red to green to red, city stacked like blocks. The radio stays off. A billboard flashes our logo and a brand I’m supposed to thank; my jaw clicks and resets. I breathe through it.
Home is lit the way someone kind leaves it—foyer dimmer set to mercy. My shoes thump down; the house exhales. Her shampoo catches me in the hallway before the corner—clean, eucalyptus, something floral I can’t name—and my balance shifts six inches left like the floor moved.
She’s on my couch. Legs tucked under. Hoodie sleeves shoved to her elbows. Blanket thrown wrong like she tried to be still and couldn’t. Damp hair. Smaller than usual and somehow untouchable. The TV is on mute, a panel of men with opinions mouthing BREAKING like the word does anything.
Her eyes find me and search for damage the camera missed. I start to apologize and she kills it with one shake of her head.
“How bad?” she asks.
“Bad enough.” I take the far cushion because I promised myself not to crowd her. The space between us is exactly the width of a coffee table and a lawsuit. It feels obscene.
Her gaze drops to my split lip, the angry red across my knuckles. A small wince. “Did it help?”
“No.” Copper on my tongue. “Made me want to do worse.”
The quiet knows both of us. The vent hums a baseline under my ribs. Then she reaches across the wreckage of the night and sets her hand on mine—small, warm, decisive. No speech. Just physics: two bodies sharing a load.
Noise dials down like someone found the right switch. Breath goes in without scraping on the way out. Her palm is smooth, mine raw; for once the math balances.
“I’m here,” she says. Not a promise. Not a threat. A pin on the map so I don’t get lost. “Breathe with me.”
So I do. Count to her silent beats. Match her lungs the way I match a line-mate’s stride. The room stays small and good. The world can have its chyron. I have this. For the first time since the faceoff, my jaw unclenches and stays that way.
