“Are you saying you’ll accept a suspension?” someone manages.
“I’m saying I won’t let you make Riley the price of my learning curve,” I answer. “If there’s a consequence to pay, it’s mine. You don’t gut a woman’s career because two adults madeprivate choices and then did the professional thing when it mattered.” I hold the room’s stare until it looks away first.
“Mr. Maddox,” another voice tries, more cautious now, “do you grasp what sitting would mean for your season? For the franchise?”
I glance toward the owner because you don’t talk about a man like he isn’t in the room, even when you’re inviting him to hate you. “I grasp what it would mean for my son or daughter someday to google their mother’s name and see it tied to a scandal she didn’t create,” I say. “I grasp that I can skate again. She doesn’t get to rewind a reputation.”
A camera’s red tally light blinks like a heartbeat. The hum of the lenses feels different—less like a hive, more like a room deciding what kind of story it’s in.
From the wing, Riley doesn’t move. She doesn’t have to for me to feel the gravity of her attention. I remember her in the kitchen last night, hands around a glass of water instead of a grenade, sayingboth of us or neither of us. This is both of us.
The moderator clears his throat and tries to pivot to a safer sport question, but no one bites. We’re not talking plus/minus today. We’re talking terms.
Julia’s pen pauses just long enough for her to breathe, then resumes with a single underlined word I know without reading:control. She doesn’t like how I took it. She’ll figure out how to use it.
A rustle near the aisle draws my eye—navy blazer, sponsor pin, a man already halfway up from his seat like he’s going to step out and call his board to tell them the asset’s gone feral. He turns as if the door is the smartest play.
Not yet, I think, pulse steadying into something that feels a lot like purpose. “One more thing,” I say, leaning into the mic as he starts to slip.
“Sir,” I call, not sharp—clear. The sponsor rep pauses, half-turned, performing indifference for anyone still filming. His pin blinks under the lights. The door is three strides away. He’s calculating whether walking out gives him leverage.
“You can call me,” I say into the mic, voice steady enough to hold a room. “You won’t bully her.”
He pivots back, smile thin. “This isn’t about bullying,” he says for the tape. “It’s about brand alignment.”
“Then align with facts,” I answer. “Our medical oversight was independent. Rehab logs are timestamped and available. Riley’s evaluations weren’t part of my contract incentives. You want receipts, we’ve got receipts. What you don’t get is a woman’s livelihood to feed your optics.”
A low wave moves through the seats—reporters recalibrating, handlers texting under the table, a couple of cameras zooming in like they’re afraid to miss the inch where tone becomes precedent. In the last row, Nolan goes statue-still. Julia doesn’t move either, which is how I know she’s working ten steps ahead.
The rep adjusts his cuff. “Our concern is exposure,” he says. “Families watch these games.”
“Families,” I repeat, letting the word settle. “Including the one I’m building with a woman whose work you’re diminishing with euphemisms. If you pull exposure, pull it because my Corsi is off or because you don’t like my zone entries. Don’t pretend it’s morality when it’s fear.”
A couple of reporters can’t help their faces; they weren’t ready for advanced stats in a morality play. Fine. I brought numbers to a knife fight.
Somewhere in the middle rows, a phone vibrates loud on a tabletop—then another, then a third, a ripple of muted buzzes like the arena concourse when a goal goes in and everyone’s notifications catch up. I don’t have to look to know what it is.Fans. The ones who actually watch us work instead of arranging us into a brand deck. The momentum in the room tilts a degree.
The rep glances toward the door again. I give him something to carry back to whatever boardroom he’s sprinting to. “If your question is whether I’ll make you whole for standing by decency—yes,” I say. “Call me. But not about Riley. She’s not up for negotiation.”
He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t leave. He exists in the aisle for one long beat, wishing he had a better exit line. Then he steps back into his row and lowers himself into his seat like gravity just remembered him.
A hush settles—the kind you get before a faceoff when every player knows the next touch of the puck sets the shift. I let it ride. Hands easy on the podium. Breath even. Offstage, Riley shifts her weight; I hear the whisper of her blazer sleeve and it steadies me more than any crowd ever has.
“Next question,” I offer, and no one takes it immediately. The room isn’t sure if it’s supposed to keep playing the game it came to play.
The quiet breaks in a new direction—a shoe scuff, the faint click of a badge lanyard, that particular hush that follows authority into a room. A man in a navy blazer steps out from the side aisle where the cameras can’t quite see until he wants them to. League crest on the lapel. Clipboard under his arm. Eyes like hard water.
“Mr. Maddox.” He doesn’t use the mic; he doesn’t have to. His voice carries in that polite, lethal way you only learn from years of making bad news sound like protocol. He turns fractionally, enough for the cameras to catch the insignia. “Ms. Lane.”
Offstage, Riley stills. I feel it more than see it. The room’s attention angles toward the wing like it’s following a spotlight it can’t see.
“Closed-door compliance review,” the official says. “Now.”
The word lands like a puck dropped without a faceoff. No build. No warning. Just the start of a play you don’t get to set.
At the back, Nolan is already on his feet. Eyes cold, jaw set, tie straightened with a motion so smooth it reads as threat if you’ve ever been in a room like this. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t need to. The message is the same as always: be manageable.
Julia’s hand tightens on her pen until her knuckles pale. She’s on her feet a beat after Nolan, game face back on, calculation flicking through her eyes so fast it might as well be code. She doesn’t saystick to scriptthis time. There isn’t one.
