“You can’t move practice,” she says automatically, trainer-brain kicking in even now. “But you can…tell me when you can be there, and I’ll schedule around it. We’ll pick appointments that don’t make us look like we’re hiding.” She grimaces. “God, I hate that sentence.”
“We’re not hiding.” I jot visibility on our terms. “We’re choosing.”
She nods, small, grateful. “HR policy.” The words taste bad enough that even I can hear it. “There’s a section on staff-player relationships. It’s vague. On purpose.”
“Julia can get the language; my lawyer can translate it into what they can and can’t actually do,” I say. “I want retaliation spelled out. I want a line between your job performance and your personal life that no one can pretend is blurry.”
Her eyes catch mine and hold. “You’re not afraid of what this costs you?”
“Terrified,” I say, because I promised her no more performance. “But the cost of not doing it is losing you. That’s not an option.”
Silence. Not empty—full. She reaches, slow like she’s testing ice, and hooks one finger in the belt loop of my jeans. It’snothing. It’s everything. “Feelings now,” she says, voice barely above the hum of the vent. “You said skeleton. We should make sure the heart fits.”
I set the pen down.
“I’m scared,” I admit. “Of failing you. Of being the headline you have to survive. Of getting this wrong and you paying for it.” The words come easier than I expect, like they’ve been forming behind my teeth for years. “I’m also…happy. In a way I don’t trust yet. Like when you’re down two and you can feel the shift coming, and if you say it out loud you’ll jinx it.”
Her smile is small and crooked and real. “I’m scared of disappearing into this,” she says. “Into you. I’m scared of people deciding what kind of woman I am because I fell for the guy who sells jerseys.” She swallows. “But I’m not scared of you.”
That lands in my chest like a clean pass. I grip the counter to keep from reaching for her too hard. “I won’t let you disappear,” I say. “If anything, I want the opposite. I want more of you everywhere. Your name in rooms that don’t start with a locker.”
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t look away. “Then the heart fits,” she says, a little wonder in it.
“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”
I tap the notepad. “Next five: calls. We loop in Julia and set terms.” The bubble thins at the edges; the kitchen feels smaller in a way I don’t like. “But we do it on speaker. Both of us or neither of us.”
Riley nods, steadying. “Both of us,” she says. “No more rooms you walk into alone.”
I flip my phone over and thumb open Julia’s contact. Riley watches my hands like they’re on a bomb. I hit speaker and setthe phone on the island between us, equal distance like a neutral zone.
It rings once.
“Tell me you’re inside,” Julia answers, no hello, voice clipped, Manhattan at midnight. A keyboard clacks under her words. “And tell me you did not engage with the camera on your fire escape.”
“We’re inside,” I say. “No engagement.” I look at Riley; she nods, chin up. “You’re on speaker. Riley’s here.”
“Hi, Julia,” Riley says. Her voice is level, professional. It makes me want to stand up straighter.
There’s a beat—the half-second where Julia recalibrates. “Riley. Okay. Good. Then let me be efficient.” Paper rustles. “Headline number one is contained for the night, but chatter is accelerating. We need a thirty-six-hour plan. No statements. No comments. You both go dark, physically separate for optics. Jason stays in his building. Riley, you stay off team property until I’ve cleared language with HR. We time any reveal for a Friday dump or a post-win high. We control the visuals—no windows, no silhouettes, no?—”
“No silhouettes?” I repeat, because if I don’t interrupt, I’m going to put my fist through the counter just to bleed off the pressure.
“It’s incredible what can be sold with a shadow, Jason.” I can hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. “Sponsors are skittish. One will pull creative if this escalates. I’ve got three journalists on ice who will stay there if you give them nothing. That means distance. Silence. Controlled timing.”
Riley’s fingers find that lemon slice again, rolling it against the glass. “You want me to not show up to work,” she says, steady.
“I want you to not give anyone an image they can use to make your life smaller,” Julia replies. “Compliance is alreadysniffing around your device review. Let them come up empty. Meanwhile, I’ll draft two tracks: one if we get ahead of it, one if we bury it. But the rule for both is the same—no public proximity. Not until we dictate terms.”
I stare at the phone like it can feel me glaring. “Dictate terms how?”
“By making them need you,” Julia says, pragmatic to the bone. “You play. You win. You smile. You do a charity skate with kindergarteners and never look at the trainer’s bench. Riley, you quietly overdeliver somewhere they can’t cut you—front office analysis, remote protocols. Then, when the numbers are in our pocket and the noise dies, we announce something that looks like a well-managed transition instead of a scandal.”
Riley’s breath catches. I feel it more than hear it. I hate that she’s imagining herself in a room away from ice because somebody likes the story better that way.
Julia keeps going. “I don’t need you to like this. I need you to survive it. Distance. Silence. Controlled timing.”
My knuckles are white on the counter’s edge. “Julia?—”
