I swallowed. “Okay. And the All-Star competition part? What's that?”
Ignatius’s expression brightened in the way that meant he was about to lecture. “The All-Star Weekend is a circus on ice. There are skill contests—fastest skater, hardest shot, trick shootouts, accuracy challenges, you name it. It’s entertainment. Flash. Showing off.”
“Cole doesn’t…show off.”
“Yes,” Ignatius said dryly. “Which makes him accidentally impressive. Cameras love him.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “And then there’s a game?”
“A three-on-three mini-tournament between divisions,” Ignatius explained. “Fast, chaotic, thrilling. No one hits each other because getting injured at All-Star Weekend is embarrassing, but everyone wants to look good doing it.”
“And Cole is…just going to do that? After everything?”
Ignatius looked at me then—really looked—and his voice softened.
“He deserves to be celebrated,” he said. Ignatius softened—actually softened—and set a coffee in front of Cole. “You deserve this,” he said. “And before you start doubting that, let me remind you that the All-Star selection is the highest honor in the mid-season calendar. Only the best get chosen. This isn’t pity. It’s recognition.”
Cole stared down at the steam rising from the cup like it might show him the future.
“I can’t believe…” He swallowed. “The fans voted for me?”
“All of them,” Ignatius said.
"You need TikTok,' I said immediately, my mind running through possibilities. "Do you have Insta?"
Ignatius looked at me before Cole did. "What was your last job?"
I flushed. "Not marketing if that's what you were going to ask."
"No," Ignatius said agreeably. "It was rental management, but I wondered if they made you do more."
I flushed. He knew. Of course he did. Was this where I got thrown out?
"Rental management?" Cole asked. "Like you're a landlord?" He looked at me with simple curiosity, but I knew that expression would soon be disgust. No one else had ever believed me.
“How about you start from the beginning,” Ignatius asked.
I swallowed hard. “Right.” But why bother when no one ever believed me? “I worked in tenant relations for a real estate group. Managing complaints, notices, rent processing. I liked the job. I was good at it.” I paused. “Most of the tenants were working-class families. Single parents. Immigrants. People who couldn’t fight back against the system if something went wrong.”
I hesitated, breath snagging in my chest. “The owner’s nephew started…changing things,” I said. “He’d move notice dates backward in the system so it looked like tenants had been warned about arrears when they hadn’t. He’d ‘lose’ payment records. And then he started fast-tracking evictions on buildings he wanted cleared out.”
Cole’s jaw clenched beside me. “For redevelopment.”
“For profit,” I agreed. “He didn’t care that those people had nowhere to go. He didn’t care that some of them were already struggling. He just…wanted them gone.”
Ignatius’s voice dropped into that dangerous, quiet register dragons used when I imagined they were one breath away from fire. “And where do you come into this?”
I dragged a shaky hand through my hair. “I reported it. Three times. My supervisor told me to stop ‘misinterpreting procedural discretion’—whatever the hell that means—but I kept documenting everything. I thought if I kept a paper trail, someone would have to do something.” A bitter, humorless laugh slipped out of me. “They did something, all right.”
Cole’s hand brushed my leg—just enough to remind me he was there, listening.
“The nephew panicked,” I said quietly. “He claimed I was ‘causing trouble,’ that I’d misunderstood routine processes. And then he told upper management that I was the one backdating eviction notices.” My voice shook. “The company sided with him. They always do with family.”
“They fired you,” Cole said, voice soft and careful.
“On the spot.” My throat tightened. “They told me I’d put tenants at risk. Said my actions were unethical. And then—they told me they’d make sure I’d never get hired by anyone else in property management. Ever.”
Ignatius didn’t move, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
