Mina straightened. “I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“Mikel just did an interview—with some gossip site or something—he said… he said you cheated on him. That you’ve been with Nikolai behind his back. That you’re some clout-chaser.”
The words hit harder than any check I’d taken on the ice. I felt the air get sucked out of the room.
“What?” Mina whispered. Her eyes locked with mine, wide and stunned, the blood draining from her face.
“He said you used him to get access to the team. That you and Nikolai have been sneaking around for weeks.” Paige kept going, her voice rising. “Mina, it’s spreading like wildfire. Screenshots, memes—everyone’s talking.”
Mina snatched up her phone and started scrolling. Her fingers trembled. I stepped closer, but the screen lit her face with a harsh blue glare. Headline after headline. Rumors, lies, speculation. A damn circus.
“No…” she said, so soft I barely heard her.
I saw her crumble, just slightly—shoulders hunching, breath caught in her throat. “They’re saying these things about me?”
My hands itched to grab her, to hold her, to protect her from all of it—but when I moved toward her, she flinched. Just a fraction, but it was enough to freeze me in place. That tiny recoil hurt more than a punch to the gut.
“It’s everywhere!” Paige shouted from the phone. “Mina… this is really bad.”
I looked at Mina and saw the storm rising behind her eyes. And I knew one thing for certain: I was going to make this right. No matter what it cost me.
“It’s not true,” Mina said, barely above a whisper. Her voice cracked around the edges, and I swear I felt my heart split right down the middle. “It’s not… that’s not what happened.”
“I know,” Paige replied gently, her panic dulled to something softer now. “I’m going to try to shut this down. But it’s already spreading. Fast. You need to get ahead of it before it spirals completely out of control.”
Mina set the phone down like it had burned her. It clattered onto the counter, the call still technically connected but forgotten. She wrapped her arms around herself, shoulders caved inward, like she was trying to make herself disappear. I recognized the posture. I’d seen it before—after a fight, after a bruise, after Mikel made her feel small.
My fists clenched. I didn’t even realize it until my nails bit into my palms.
The air between us thickened, heavy with silence. Shame clung to the walls, uninvited and suffocating. For the first time in days, the warmth between us faltered.
“This isn’t true,” I said, my voice cutting through like a blade. “You know that.”
Her eyes snapped up to meet mine. I caught the flicker of raw hurt there, right before anger lit up her expression like a flash fire.
“What does that matter?” she shot back, her voice trembling. “What I know doesn’t matter! What they see, what they believe—that’s what they’ll hold on to.”
She wasn’t wrong. I hated that she wasn’t wrong.
“It doesn’t matter what they think,” I said, stepping closer. “I’ll protect you.”
She blinked at me like she didn’t believe it—like the words were too much, too soon, too good to be real. Her lips parted, trembling. “How?” she asked, so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. “He already has everyone eating out of his hand. He made me look like…”
She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
I closed the space between us until I could feel the heat of her skin against mine. “Mina,” I said, steady and low, “I won’t let him win.”
She looked up at me, a flicker of belief fighting its way to the surface. But her hands were still shaking. Still gripping tight to nothing like she might fall apart if she let go.
Her phone buzzed again.
Another wave of notifications lit up the screen—more headlines, more tags, more comments. I didn’t need to read them. I could see the damage in her face.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt powerless. Not against an opponent on the ice. Not against a ref or a penalty or even a bad play.
This was worse. This was whispers turned into knives. This was a thousand strangers tearing her down in real-time.
I stepped forward and took her hands—no hesitation this time. They were cold, tense, but she didn’t pull away.
