Heat crawls low in my stomach—irritation, clean and restless. The kind that wants teeth.
I keep my face neutral. Because this is the first real consequence of deployment: I’m not just Zoë Barnes tonight. I’m Zoë Barnes through Gio Rossi. And the part my body registers before my brain weighs in is that the weight settles instead of repels. My instincts recognize it. Adjust. Like I know exactly what to do when the room decides I matter for the wrong reasons.
We reach our row, and the section swallows us—knees, coats, paper cups, the constant scrape of bodies settling likeownership. The rink glares white below, glass and boards and bright, stupid optimism. The kind of place where people think the crowd makes them invisible.
It doesn’t.
I slide into my seat and feel it immediately: attention holds its angle. Tracks. Waits. Measures how I’ll behave now that a role’s been assigned.
Genny sits straight-backed, hands folded like she’s at a hearing. She doesn’t scan; she reads by vibration. Clara crosses one leg over the other, calm as a blade. Talia settles two seats down, shoulders loose, eyes fully on me. Maya leans forward, elbows on her knees, phone finally pocketed. That’s her restraint.
Genny’s voice drops. “They moved you.”
I don’t blink. “I walked in.”
“You walked in,” she agrees, “and the section re-categorized you.”
Clara’s gaze flicks toward the student section, already standing for warmups. “Their attention isn’t on hockey yet.”
Maya lets out a laugh that dies fast. “They’re watching a crisis.”
Talia’s eyes stay on my face. Quiet. Unmoving. “They’re watching what you do with it.”
That lands under my ribs, heavier than the looks. Because it’s true. I’m being evaluated—measured for compliance, for softness, for explanation, for proof I deserve whatever story they’re drafting.
I roll my shoulders once. Reset. “I’m giving them nothing to consume.”
“No,” Clara says. “You’re setting a standard.”
Genny’s mouth barely moves. “Different.”
Maya turns, head angled like she’s about to poke a bruise. “So are you two—”
“Tread carefully,” Talia says, flat.
Maya’s lips part, then stop. The question hangs like a threat without clearance. “I was going to ask if—”
I hold her gaze. Still. Grounded. Present. I let the silence answer for me.
Genny’s eyes flick to my face. Something like approval tightens her expression. “There it is.”
Clara exhales through her nose, almost amused. “Confirmation without confession.”
Maya slumps back, irritation flashing. “Okay. Fine. Be ominous.”
Talia keeps her focus on me. “You’re exposed.” Observation, not comfort.
“I am.”
Around us, the section settles into a new certainty. Like my refusal to explain licensed their assumptions and made them harder to undo. I feel the narrative lock—not because I spoke, but because I held.
Warmups end. Lights shift. The arena tightens into purpose. The Titans spill onto the ice in a rush of blades and shoulders, and there he is—Rossi, number 22, carving a clean arc along the boards like the geometry belongs to him.
He always skates like this is personal. Like the ice owes him something.
It settles me. It always has.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, voice loading before my brain reins it in.
