Inside the building, everything smells like polished floors, cold air conditioning, and expensive equipment that has never belonged to people like me. For one second, I am back in another hallway, years ago, waiting outside another locker room while James told me he would only be five minutes and somehow made me wait thirty instead.
I stop walking. Leo notices immediately.
“You don’t have to go in if you change your mind,” he says quietly.
“I didn’t,” I answer.
I just needed a second.
James is exactly where Leo said he would be.
He is near the back hallway leading toward the practice rink, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed like he’s waiting for someone else. He looks like he hasn’t realized yet that he was the one waiting.
He sees me before I say anything. And he smiles. That same smile. The one that used to make me nervous in ways I didn’t understand yet.
“Lisa,” he says, as if this is a coincidence rather than something inevitable.
“James.”
His eyes flick briefly toward Leo. Then back to me again.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he continues casually.
“I did,” I answer.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. And in that silence, I realize something surprising. I’m not scared of him anymore. Not even a little.
“You shouldn’t have gone after Blake,” I say finally.
His expression doesn’t change.
“I didn’t go after anyone.”
“You did.”
“It’s hockey,” he shrugs.“People get hit.”
“That wasn’t a hit,” I reply.
“It looked like one to the referees.”
“It didn’t look like one to the league,” Leo says calmly beside me.
James’s attention shifts again. Slower this time. More careful.
“And you are?” James asks.
“Someone with access to video review committees, sponsorship boards, and three different legal departments that are currently very interested in what happened on that ice,” Leo replies evenly.
James’s smile tightens slightly.
“There’s nothing illegal about a hit during a game.”
“There is when four players collapse on one target simultaneously after a prior altercation off the ice,” Leo says.“Especially when there is footage of you initiating physical confrontation with the same individual in a public setting two nights earlier.”
James looks at me again. Something colder replaces the confidence in his expression.
“You brought a lawyer?”
