My stomach dropped, sudden and stupid. “You tell them no?”
“You tellmeno.” His tone went sharp, like steel on steel. “Is there a problem I should know about?”
I stared at my reflection in the glass. Eyes bloodshot, hair slicked back with leftover sweat. “No,” I said.
He didn’t buy it, but he didn’t call me out either. “Then tell me why a reporter fromThe Ice Linecalled my office asking about you. The same one who ate you alive after the suspension.”
I felt the floor tilt. “Sullivan?”
“That’s the one. He’s sniffing around Crestwood. Says he’s‘writing a feature on the league’s development programs.’Which is bullshit. He’s digging for dirt.”
I swallowed hard. “You think he knows something?”
“I think he’slookingfor something. And if there’s anything you’re not telling me, now’s the time, Calder.”
For a second, I almost said it. Every word of it: the girl with fire in her eyes, the one I now have to coach like she doesn’t exist. But the words jammed in my throat, too heavy to drag out.
“There’s nothing,” I said. “Just work. I give you my word.”
Gideon paused long enough to let the lie hang between us. “Make sure it stays that way.”
The call clicked dead.
I stayed there, phone pressed to my ear, until the screen went black. Distracted. Off my game. The words echoed around the locker room, bouncing off steel and tile. Outside the glass, the rink lights dimmed, leaving the ice in shadow.
I slid the phone into my pocket and tried to breathe past the weight in my chest. Sullivan prowling around meant one wrong look, one overheard word, and the rumors wouldn’t stay whispers.
I’d thought I could manage it—keep it buried under drills and discipline. But Gideon’s voice still rang in my head, colder than the rink air.
If there’s anything you’re not telling me.
There was. And it had a name.
The walls pressed in on me, the call with Gideon still echoing, so I pushed out of the office before I could talk myself into another lie. The low roar of blades on ice filled the hallway—steady, alive, cleansing in a way I didn’t deserve.
I stepped into the rink; the chill bit through my shirt. They were still scrimmaging. Sam must’ve kept the pace after I stormed off. Smart move.
And there she was.
Billie burned down the ice like nothing outside those boards touched her. The puck stuck to her tape as if she bent gravity. She cut through two defenders, flipped it cross-ice, set up a one-timer so clean it silenced the bench for half a second before the celebration broke out.
I stayed half-hidden behind the glass, hands jammed in my pockets, pretending to study spacing. Lie number forty-something today.
Every time she pivoted, the cold light caught her eyeshield, flashing silver. She didn’t look at me once, and somehow that hit harder than the stare she’d given me last night before walking away.
She wasn’t skating angry. She was leading.
Between shifts, she crouched beside the freshman winger—girl barely eighteen—showed her how to shift weight through the turn. Pointed, demonstrated, made the kid laugh. Then she smacked her stick on the boards, calling her back into rotation, checking that everyone was set before the whistle went again. Natural command radiated off her; no ego, no grandstanding, just control born from knowing the game in her bones.
Not good. Worse. Because leaders were rare. Because captains carried programs. And because now I’d seen what she could be, I knew exactly what I’d ruin if I didn’t fix myself fast.
She drove another breakout, shouting orders over the sound of skates and sticks—voice sharp, confident. The kind that made people follow without thinking. The pass sequence she ran could’ve belonged to an academy veteran, not a college rookie. When the goal horn shrieked again, she didn’t celebrate. She skated straight to the girl who missed a feed and patted her gloves, talking her through it. Composure. Presence.
I felt pride twist straight into my gut and settle there like a knife.
You want her to succeed? Then stay the hell out of her way.
My own voice in my head, merciless.
