“I want you to contain it,” Coach corrects. “Before it spreads past campus. Past this building. Past the program.”
Contain. Not clarify. Not deny. Control.
“I’m not the one talking,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “But you’re the one they’re watching.”
That lands heavier than an accusation.
“If this turns into a distraction,” he says, “I’ll act. For the team.”
No threat. Just fact.
“I won’t let it touch the ice,” I say.
He studies me a beat longer than necessary. Measuring. Then a single nod. “Be smarter than whoever started it.”
Rylan again. That promise. That smug certainty he could throw anything and I’d be the one to bleed in public.
“I am,” I say.
And it isn’t bravado. It’s a decision.
Coach opens the door. When we step back in, the room goes quiet again.
Adrian watches my face. Dante pretends he isn’t. Cole’s shoulders hold too rigid. Declan meets my eyes and doesn’t look away.
No questions. No cover.
Exactly how it should be.
Coach leaves. The door shuts.
I grab my helmet and don’t explain a damn thing. The rumor isn’t a fire yet. It’s a fuse. And I don’t need every detail of who lit it to recognize the match.
I heard the threat. The grin stayed with me.
I know the type of man who uses a whisper column like a blade because he’s too much of a coward to swing his own.
I make one choice and lock it down hard enough it feels like steel behind my ribs:
I’m not letting this become a story I react to.
I’m making it a story I control.
After the morning skate and a shower that doesn’t touch the pressure, campus feels louder. Class change hits like a wave—bodies moving, noise climbing, everyone pretending they aren’t clocking the tension.
The student center sits on my route to my next class, which means the café is too.
Which means eyes.
I see Zoë near the café before she sees me.
Or maybe she sees me and decides the reaction isn’t worth the cost.
Either way, she’s still. Phone in hand. Posture locked. Holding her ground. Staying out of it.
That’s new.
