And Holly… Holly wasn’t here to smooth it over.
I let out a long, harsh breath, gripping my stick like a lifeline, and realized the playoffs weren’t just about winning on the ice anymore. They were about surviving everything else too.
25
Holly
I adjusted my blazer one more time, smoothed the hem of my pencil skirt, and tried to convince myself that I belonged here. The office smelled of expensive coffee, new furniture, and that faint ozone scent that always lingers in gleaming high-rise buildings. Everything gleamed. Everything was pristine. And every polished surface, every quiet corner, every carefully curated piece of modern art on the walls screamed control.
I tapped my keyboard a little too loudly, scrolling through a press release that had been drafted and re-drafted three times before hitting my inbox. My new boss, Juliet, was hovering over my shoulder, a mug of coffee in hand and a grin that made the stress of a thousand corporate headaches seem manageable.
“You’ve got this, Holly,” she said, pointing at a sentence I’d highlighted in red. “Maybe swap out ‘leveraging our key demographics’ for something a little punchier. You don’t need to sound like a robot.”
I glanced at her, smiled, and nodded. “Got it. Punchier, not robotic.”
“Exactly.” She laughed, the sound warm and real. “That’s why I hired you. You can make the stuffy stuff sound like people actually want to read it.”
I felt a tiny spark of pride, the kind you get when someone notices your skill without ever patronizing you. Juliet was everything Bob Trent was not: smart, funny, patient, willing to explain without lecturing, genuinely approachable. It should have been enough. It should have made me settle in, feel at home in this corner office, high above the streets of Chicago. But it didn’t.
I watched a junior staffer walk by, balancing a stack of notebooks and an armful of sticky notes, and I thought about the chaos back in San Antonio. That locker room, the smell of ice and sweat and adrenaline, the way Hunter’s presence seemed to fill a room without him even saying a word. Here, there was no droning muttering, no shouting in hallways, no sudden bursts of laughter at a joke half-heard across the room. No unexpected chaos to handle or personalities to navigate. Just clean lines, quiet voices, and spreadsheets that needed attention.
I printed the release, scanning it one last time, then sighed. Everything was correct, everything polished. Nothing would explode mid-interview, nothing would go sideways during a press junket, nothing would make headlines because of a misstep on my part. The safety net was intact. The world was orderly.
And yet.
I tapped the corner of the paper with a pen, the click against the plastic a tiny, hollow sound in the quiet office. I remembered the chaos of Game 1 against Minnesota. The way Hunter had skated across the ice, heart hammering, blocking shots with split-second decisions that left the crowd cheering and the cameras rolling. I remembered him after the fight at the bar, standing there like he’d been punched through the world, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong while keeping the team from falling apart. And I remembered the way I’d had to step in, every calculated word, every spin, every carefully positioned gesture to make sure the team’s reputation survived while he—
I shook my head and set the paper down. The contrast between that life and this one was glaring. Here, the only things in danger weretypos and deadlines. There were no humans depending on your decisions in the middle of high-stakes chaos. No phones lighting up with urgent texts about media crises, no players’ egos to smooth over, no adrenaline-fed fights to manage.
“Lunch?” Juliet’s voice pulled me out of my head. “I’ve got a sandwich for you. Tuna, extra capers. You’ll thank me later.”
I laughed quietly. “You know me so well already.”
“Come on, eat.” She waved me over. “You’ve been at it for three hours straight. You need a break.”
We walked to the small kitchenette together. I grabbed a chair, balanced the bag on my lap, and started peeling back the wax paper. It was all orderly here, even lunchtime. Just tuna and capers and the faint hum of the air conditioning.
“You okay?” Juliet asked, raising an eyebrow as she sat down across from me.
I stared at my sandwich and shrugged. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”
She tilted her head, curious. “About the release?”
“No,” I said, voice low. “Other things.”
I wanted to sayhim. Hunter. The way he’d skated, how I’d watched him absorb chaos and still somehow come out the other side looking like a hero. The way I’d gotten used to managing the storms around him, and now… now I wasn’t there and it was just the hollow echo of what we’d built together.
“You miss it?” she asked gently. “The other job. Back in Texas?”
I couldn’t help the small smile, even if it was tinged with frustration. “Every damn day.”
She laughed softly. “I get it. There’s a buzz you can’t replicate in a boardroom, no matter how swanky the office or how perfect the deadlines.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I think the chaos was addictive and I’m fighting through withdrawals.”
It was a joke and she was supposed to laugh, but she didn’t. “Sounds like you’re fighting ghosts. But at least you’re on solid ground while you do it.”
I nodded, appreciating her perspective, but it didn’t reach the part of me that ached for San Antonio. For the sharp focus of Hunter’s eyes when everything else blurred. The way he moved through it like he was born for it, even when I was trying to corral him, guide him, protect him.
