Banks:You home?
Me:Yeah. Why?
Banks:I’m coming over. Don’t argue.
I don’t get a chance to argue. Ten minutes later, there’s a knock on my door, and when I open it, Banks is standing there looking like someone stole his girlfriend. Which is concerning, because Banks doesn’t have a girlfriend, and his default expression is already pretty grim.
“What’s wrong?” I step back to let him in. “Did something happen?”
He walks past me into the living room, then turns around with his arms crossed. “Sit down.”
“I’m not sitting down. You’re freaking me out. Just tell me—”
“There’s a rumor going around.” His voice is flat, careful. “About you and Tori.”
The floor drops out from under me.
“What kind of rumor?”
“The kind where Reed’s been telling anyone who’ll listen that he saw you two at the hotel in Minneapolis. Middle of the night. Her room. Door closing.” Banks holds my gaze. “It’s spread through the whole facility. Dana knows.”
I’m going to kill him.
I’m going to find Grayson Reed, wrap my hands around his throat, and squeeze until that smug little smile disappears forever. I’m going to—
“Zay.” Banks steps closer. “Breathe.”
“He’s been after her for weeks.” My voice comes out rough, barely recognizable. “She turned him down, and this is—this is retaliation. This is him being a petty, vindictive piece of—”
“I know what it is.”
“And now she’s going to pay for it? Her career is going to suffer because some entitled asshole couldn’t handle rejection?”
“That’s how it usually works, yeah.”
I’m pacing now, unable to stand still, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. All I can think about is Tori’s face this morning—the way she smiled at me across the training room, careful and secret, like we had all the time in the world to figure this out.
We didn’t. We don’t.
“Dana pulled her into her office about an hour ago,” Banks continues. “I don’t know what was said, but James saw her leaving, and she looked...” He pauses. “Bad. She looked bad.”
That’s why she hasn’t texted back. She’s been getting interrogated about us while I sat here refreshing my phone like an idiot.
“I have to talk to her.”
“You will. But first, you need to calm down and think about what you’re going to do.”
“What I’m going to do?” I stop pacing and stare at him. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to march into Dana’s office and tell her it was all me. That I pursued Tori, that she tried to maintain professional boundaries and I pushed past them, that if anyone should face consequences, it’s—”
“And then what?”
“Then she keeps her job. Her reputation. Everything she’s worked for.”
Banks shakes his head slowly. “And you get what? Suspended for conduct violations? Fined? Benched during a playoff push?”
“I don’t care about any of that.”
“You should.” His voice hardens. “Think about Maze, Z. You get suspended for misconduct, you miss games—that affects custody optics. Sienna’s been quiet lately, but what if that changes, you really think her lawyers won’t jump on something like this? ‘NHL player suspended for inappropriate relationship with staff member’—that’s exactly the kind of ammunition they’d love to have.”
