“Let’s start with an easy question,” he says, smiling like this is all harmless fun. “How’s the season going for you so far?”
I answer automatically, using the media-safe words I’ve said a hundred times. “Good. Strong. The team is determined to keep the Cup in Portland again this season.”
Alycia stands just off to the side, watching with that professional focus she wears like armor. Except it’s much thinner today. Her eyes flick to mine for a half-second, like she’s checking for damage. A part of me wishes she wouldn’t, while another part is glad she does. And I don’t know which hurts worse.
The reporter nods along, oblivious, and moves to the next question. “What about team chemistry? Are you fitting in well with the other players?”
“We’re a team. Of course, we have squabbles here and there, but we always come back together in the end. Everyone on this team is family…. Some more than others,” I reply, except the word feels heavy in my mouth, too close to the truth that the only chemistry I can think about is the kind I’m not allowed to touch.
He laughs lightly, shifting his stance. “And what about off the ice? Fans can’t stop talking about the two of you after the gala.”
Alycia’s head jerks, and I feel the shock of it like a hand around my throat. My heartbeat spikes so fast itfeels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest, a wild, uneven rhythm that rushes up the back of my neck until the whole rink tilts a little. The lights against the ice blur at the edges, and suddenly, every sound folds into a dull roar behind the one truth pounding through me: I can’t breathe with her standing this close and pretending none of it ever meant anything.
The reporter shifts his weight, warming up to whatever lighthearted nonsense he thinks he’s about to ask, and I try to brace myself for it. “Fans want to know, what’s the secret to the two of you? With your busy schedules and media pressure, somehow, you’re already the league’s favorite couple. What’s the longevity plan?”
The word longevity lands like a blade driven straight into the softest part of me.
Alycia laughs before I can breathe, that smooth, airy PR laugh she uses when she needs to redirect the entire world without letting any of it touch her. The sound stretches thinly over something raw. I watch her shoulders lift just barely, like she’s bracing for impact even while she’s smiling.
“Oh, you know,” she says, sliding effortlessly between professionalism and performance. “Kyle is very easy to work with. He makes my job simple.”
It’s a lie so polished it almost sparkles, but I feel the hit like a punch to the ribs. Her laugh lingers in the air between us, all shine and no warmth, and the ache that’s been buried under my skin for days finally breaks open.My heartbeat rattles against my sternum in a way that makes it difficult to stand still under the lights. The room tilts—not dramatically, just enough that the edges blur—and all I can think is that she’s here beside me, pretending we were nothing, when every memory in my body is screaming that we were something that mattered.
The reporter turns back to me, expecting a matching smile, waiting for the easy lie that will tie the entire scene together. But I can’t give him that. Longevity. Future. Us. Words I should be able to dodge without effort. I’ve done it a thousand times in a thousand interviews. But right now, they feel like they’ve been carved into the ice beneath my feet, impossible to ignore.
Alycia lifts her chin when the reporter looks at her again, and it makes my chest tighten, because I know what it costs her to hold herself that still. I know the way she locks her breath behind her ribs so no one will hear it shake. I know the exact degree her smile shifts when she is trying to protect something she won’t name. And watching her do it now—for them, for this event, for the job she loves, for a version of herself she’s terrified to lose—it hits me with a force I’m not ready for. Something inside me shifts so violently I almost flinch because I finally understand the shape of the pain I’ve been dragging around for days. The ache in my chest, the numbness, the way every breath feels wrong without her in it, isn’t the sting of something almost real slipping through myfingers. It’s love. Unmistakable. Bone-deep. Terrifying in its clarity. Love.
I love her. Not in that stupid, distracted way I used to mistake for something meaningful.
I love her in a way that rewires everything and makes every inch of distance between us feel like a wound, in a way that makes watching her pretend we’re nothing feel like standing in the wreckage of a life I didn’t realize I’d already built around her.
She laughs again for the reporter—soft, bright, professional—but the sound cracks faintly at the edges, a hairline fracture only I seem able to hear. She’s hurting, and there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do to reach her through the walls she built to survive someone else’s betrayal. Walls she thinks she needs to protect herself from me, too.
Every inch of me tightens—my jaw, my throat, the grip on my stick—all of it straining under the pressure of feeling too much at once. I want to step closer and tell her I see her. I want to rip that tablet out of her hands and replace it with mine. I want to make her smile the way she did before she convinced herself that wanting me was dangerous. But I can’t do any of that without breaking her carefully crafted world.
The reporter turns back to me, having no idea of what he cracked open inside me. Something too vulnerable to hide behind media training or the role I’m supposed to play here. I feel the truth barrel up my spine with a force that leaves me no room to lie. I can’t give him what he wants when she’s standing there,forcing herself to be untouchable. Not when I’m standing here, trying not to fall apart from loving someone who’s convinced the safest choice is walking away from me.
So, I reach for the thin, brittle thread of composure that barely feels like mine and force a smile that doesn’t belong on my face. “Longevity,” I echo, the word scraping out of me like something dragged across stone. “Right.”
I don’t wait for the reporter to thank me or for Alycia to pretend this moment isn’t collapsing under its own weight. My skates cut a sharp line in the ice as I turn away, not fast enough to be dramatic, but fast enough that every camera angle catches the shift in my posture as I skate off without looking back.
Someone calls my name, but I don’t care. I can’t hear anything past the roar under my skin. I push through a group of onlookers near the boards, ignoring the startled looks and whispers. The second the blades hit rubber matting, the anger kicks harder, turning every heartbeat into something jagged. The hallway blurs around me—concrete, fluorescent lights, posters of last season’s championship win—all of it pressing against me like a too-tight shell as I shoulder through the door into the locker room. The second the door shuts behind me, the dam inside my chest doesn’t crack open; it explodes.
I rip off my gloves, throwing them against the far wall so hard they knock over a stack of spare towels. My helmet follows, but this time, the force I put behind it isenough that it smashes into a locker with a hollow crash echoing like a gunshot. The sound ricochets through the empty room, vibrating through steel and turning the entire space into a chamber of noise and heat and fury.
But it’s not even close to enough.
The fury in my chest burns too hot to contain; the flames lick up my throat until my vision whites out around the edges. I grab my stick with both hands and whip it against the bench. The crack reverberating through the room does nothing to break the emotions swirling inside me. I swing again. And again. Each hit reverberates up my arms, rattling bone and splitting the shaft until splinters burst outward like shrapnel across the rubber flooring. A guttural sound I don’t recognize tears out of me. Every emotion is tangled so tightly there’s no telling where one ends and the next begins. I grab the bench and shove it so violently that it screeches across the floor, skidding unevenly until it slams into another locker with a clang that rattles all the way up the wall.
But it’s still not enough.
My fists slam against the locker door too many times to count, the metal denting under my knuckles, and hot blood blooms in a sharp sting that barely registers over everything else. I want to stop, but I can’t. Little pieces of Alycia play through my mind, each one causing my anger to swell. Her laugh. Her mask. Her distance. The way she looked at me like she felt everything, too, but was still willing to walk away. It allcrashes down at once, every emotion I’ve kept locked behind my ribs erupting in a violent rush that leaves me shaking.
I rip open my stall door so hard it bangs off the hinge before I kick a stool, and it goes airborne, smacking against the far wall before dropping sideways, spinning slowly on the tile like something disoriented. The destruction should exhaust me. It should drain out the anger. But it only exposes the hollow, gutting terror of losing her when I just realized I love her.
“Jesus, Kyle—” Cole’s voice hits me from the doorway, but I don’t turn to look at him.
Every muscle in my body is shaking, every inhale burning like cold air pulled through open wounds. My hands are still clenched, nails biting into my palms as if letting go means falling apart completely. Cole steps in slowly, like he’s walking toward a wild animal he doesn’t want to spook. He takes in the shattered stick, the discarded gear, and the state I’m in.
