The answer arrives almost before the blue bubble finishes being born.
Unknown:Copy.
Unknown:On your right.
Unknown:Always.
Evening folds over the building like a blanket. The staff leaves one by one. I shut down the office and walk the concourse, the emptiness of the rink a place I could live if it were offered. At the top of Section 103, I sit where I always sit when I need to know if I’m telling myself the truth.
The ice gleams. The seating will be where it always is, the banners will be where I always put them, the garlands will be a little crooked by the middle of the night because people are not furniture. Somewhere in that crowd will be a man who can cause chaos by walking in a straight line and a father who can silence a room with a whistle. Somewhere between them will be me, wearing blue or red or both, pressing my fingers once to the ribbon at my wrist if I want the captain at my right hand, tucking it into my clutch if I need him to stay sunlight and not a flame.
I don’t rehearse speeches. I rehearse breaths. In. Out. The animal of morning grew up today; it doesn’t show its teeth when the door opens in my head and a man steps through and saysminelike he’s found a place to put his knees.
On my way out, I stop by the equipment room to drop the labeled surge protectors where they’ll be found by a grateful, sleep-deprived new father. A scrap of gaff tape clings to my boot; I peel it off and stick it to the back of my phone like a talisman. It readsRIGHTin black sharpie because someone was labeling which cable went where, and I take it as an omen I don’t even need to pretend to doubt.
The night outside stings my cheeks. Snow flurries perform for streetlights. My car is at the far end of the lot, under the lamppost that leans like it has opinions about gravity. When I unlock it, the interior light photographs me and announces: this is a woman who picked her weather.
I don’t check my phone in the car. I don’t need to. I know how tomorrow will go: work, breathe, dodge, choose. And the day after: dress, ribbon, doorways, donors, my father’s jaw, my lover’s calm.
I drive home and sit in the driveway long enough to feel like a person leaving one world for another. Inside, I pour mint tea I don’t intend to drink and lay out the gala file like I might sleep on it. The house feels less haunted tonight. Not because ghosts left, but because I finally learned where to put them.
Before bed, I stand at the dresser and lay the ribbon flat with both hands, smoothing it the way you smooth a chart before you draft an ambition. “On my right,” I say out loud to the empty room, and the words don’t echo. They land. They stay.
I slide under the covers and close my eyes and for once the animal of night doesn’t crouch at the foot of the bed. It curls beside me like a dog and lets me sleep.
In the morning, I will wake and my ceiling will still be my ceiling. My father will still be my father. Triston will still be a weather system I can feel in my bones when he’s a hallway away. And the gala will be two days out, a train everyone hears and no one can stop, and for the first time since October, I will not flinch when I hear it. I will select my dress with hands that don’t shake. I will draw my eyeliner on as if it’s war paint I wear to a party we built.
And when the room tilts, as it always does, I will put my fingers to my wrist because I want the man on my right, and he will come because I asked, and my father will breathe likea man who knows weather never obeys you, it negotiates. And I? I will be the woman who stopped running, who learned the difference between harm and danger and chose the latter with eyes open.
The chapter I’m writing is not about the night I gave in. It’s about the morning I decided to keep it.
Chapter Eight
Triston
Ialways thought I was good at patience. Hockey teaches you that — wait for the pass, wait for the crease to open, wait for the shot that wins the game. Patience makes champions. But tonight? Tonight patience feels like a prison I built myself.
The gala’s already humming when I walk in. The hotel ballroom is strung with lights, garlands draped like someone bottled December and spilled it across the walls. Tables glitter with glassware, auction baskets gleam under spotlights, and a hundred voices tangle together in polished laughter. To anyone else, it’s just another fundraiser. To me, it’s a stage I’ve been avoiding for months.
Because she’s here.
Sammie.
She’s not hiding tonight. I know it the second I see her. That velvet dress clings like it was sewn for her body, the deep blue daring the world to take notice. Her hair’s up, elegant but with just enough defiance to make me think of her tangled in sheets. She’s moving through the room with that practiced grace — the one that makeseveryone underestimate how much control she actually has. She doesn’t just work this gala. She owns it.
And I can’t breathe.
Every donor I shake hands with, every sponsor who wants a smile — they’re background noise. My teammates laugh, the cameras flash, and all I can do is find her. Again and again. Like my eyes forgot how to see anyone else.
She glances at me once across the room. One second, maybe less. But it hits like a puck to the ribs — sharp, breathtaking. Her lips part just slightly before she looks away. I see the memory in her body, the way she stands taller, the way she steadies her hand around the champagne glass. She’s thinking of last night too. Of my mouth on her skin. Of the way I whispered promises I meant.
I’ve been telling myself to keep it hidden. That I could protect her better in the shadows. That restraint was love. But watching her walk through this crowd, radiant and unafraid, I realize hiding isn’t protecting her. It’s stealing from her.
I’m done.
Wayne sees me see her. Of course he does. He’s stationed near the tree, jaw set like granite, shaking hands while his eyes scan the room like he’s still on the bench calling plays. When his gaze locks on mine, it’s all warning.Remember who you are. Remember who she is.
I tip my glass to him like the cocky bastard he thinks I am. But I don’t look away. Not this time.
