I shower with the door cracked to let the steam escape; it curls around the mirror like a shy animal. When I wipe a circle with my wrist, my face looks back with more oxygen in it than most Decembers have offered. “Hi,” I tell her. She lifts her chin. We agree to be the same person in the kitchen and the corridor and the ballroom.
I pick navy. Not because he asked, not because of the ribbon, but because blue makes me feel like weather that can be generous and still demand a coat. Jeans, turtleneck, hair up. The ribbon stays on the dresser for a beat too long, theatrical. I roll it between my fingers, the velvet dragging against my skin with that familiar combination of luxury and trouble. I loop it under my cuff and leave the tails tucked. Not hidden. Not obvious. Mine.
The rink lobby always smells like popcorn at this hour, even when no one’s popped anything yet. It’s a ghost scent, warm and buttery and oddly bureaucratic. The plastic garlands survived another night; one bow droops like it had too much to drink. I fix it with two fingers and the satisfaction of tiny order. The vending machine hums its constant low E. Somewhere behind glass, edges scrape ice into confession.
“Early,” Dad says from behind me, and it’s a greeting and a test and a history lesson all at once.
“Couldn’t stay home,” I answer, and when I turn he’s in the jacket I bought him last year because the old one made him look like a man who’d given his best coat to a fire.
He studies my face like it’s a scouting report. He isn’t looking for guilt; he’s looking for fatigue, the kind that becomes sloppiness. I let him find only what I want found: a woman who slept enough to be dangerous.
“Final vendor confirmations?” he asks.
“In your inbox,” I say. “PR wants the run-of-show by noon.”
“They’ll get it when it’s right.”
“It’s right now,” I say, and the banter lands us on the narrow plank we can both walk without falling: respect disguised as sniping.
He nods toward the whiteboard in his office. “Five minutes, then I need to be on the ice.”
We stand shoulder to shoulder in front of columns of names and arrows. He taps an empty square. “Auction showstopper?”
I know what he’s fishing for. “Not dinner with the captain.”
His mouth twitches despite himself. “Good.”
“Pierce Langley added a cabin weekend,” I offer. “Ridiculously cozy, his words, not mine.”
“Cozy makes wives feral,” Dad says gravely, as if he’s warning me about a forecheck.
“Already budgeted for broken heels,” I say. “We’ll put the basket by the tree. He’ll feel like Santa.”
He grunts approval and hates that he’s amused by my competence; he hates that the amusement comes mixed with dread. I put a hand on the edge of the board to steady both of us. “We’re ready,” I tell him. “And I’m not a variable you have to outcoach.”
He doesn’t answer for a beat. When he does, it’s not coach. “I know who you are, Samantha.”
“Do you?” I ask, and it isn’t defiance; it’s an invitation.
He opens his mouth and closes it again, like the sentence he’s chewing would turn into a prayer if he let it out. “Don’t ask me to bless something I can only permit,” he says finally. “It’ll make me worse at both.”
I nod because it’s mercy for both of us to acknowledge that truth out loud. “I’m not asking that.”
“Good,” he says. “Then let’s go to work.”
The rink swallows him the way churches swallow pastors—whole and holy and convinced of purpose. I watch him for one extra beat because I am a girl who learned to love by watching a man commit to it like a profession. Then I turn toward my office and the spreadsheets that make other people’s generosity visible.
The day lifts and settles in equal measure. Two volunteers cancel; one texts to say her kid has a fever and the other simply ghosts. The caterer calls to ask if I want the cocoa bar before or after speeches; I tell him after and he blesses me through the phone like I saved him from a massacre of marshmallows. The florist sends a photo of garlands that are, in fact, asymmetrical in the way I requested; I send a heart back and then delete it because I’m not that girl. The DJ tries to sneak a novelty carol into the early playlist; I remind him this is an event, not a mall. He sends a skull emoji and then a thumbs-up, because men like him don’t know which face to put on respect.
Between calls, my phone sits face-down on the desk like a trained animal. When it buzzes, I let it. Twice. Three times. On the fourth, I flip it and treat myself like a person who makes choices on purpose.
Unknown:I’m leaving the north corridor alone like you asked.
Unknown:This is me being good.
Unknown:And this is me hating it.
I bite back the noise that wants to escape. The office door is closed; I could let the sound out and no one would hear. I don’t, because I like the way discipline feels when it’s self-chosen.
