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Maybe waking tomorrow morning and discovering that whatever this thing was between us hadn't vanished simply because we'd slept.

I watched him for perhaps half a second longer than I should have before forcing myself toward the tunnel.

We'd won, I'd played well, and Max had looked every inch the captain everyone expected him to be despite everything waiting for him outside the arena. Whatever was happening between us hadn't destroyed either of us, and as I headed down the tunnel, I let myself wonder whether maybe we'd both been wrong about how complicated this had to be.

Maybe I could have something good without constantly waiting for someone to take it away.

That dangerously hopeful thought lasted until I reached my stall and picked up my phone.

Four missed calls and three messages waited for me, all from Dad, with the first arriving midway through the second period.

Nice goal.

The second had followed seven minutes later.

Your captain looked pleased.

The lightness I'd carried off the ice disappeared as I stared at the words. Around me, the locker room remained loud with music, laughter, and the familiar postgame chaos of twenty men celebrating a two-one series lead. A few minutes ago I'd been part of it, still riding the high of the win and wondering how quickly Max and I could escape everyone else.

Now all I could think about was why Dad had been watching closely enough to notice Max's reaction.

The third message answered that question.

Call me. We need to renegotiate.

My stomach tightened because there was nothing ambiguous about that.

I'd been paying him since I was drafted, with the amount increasing every few months because apparently even blackmail was subject to inflation, but the arrangement itself had always been horrifyingly simple. I gave him the money every month and, in return, Dad stayed away. He didn't contact the team or speak to reporters, and he didn't send anyone the video of my mother running down those metal steps with seven-year-old me behind her, my hands hitting her back before she fell.

As long as I paid, nobody else had to see what I'd spent most of my life trying not to remember.

Nobody had to know I'd killed my mother.

My phone vibrated before I could open the call screen.

Your captain seems very protective of you.

A different kind of fear began crawling through me because this wasn't the first time he'd used those words. The earlier message had unsettled me, but after tonight—after Max's reaction to my goal, the looks we'd exchanged, and the moment between us after the final horn—I finally understood what Dad had been doing.

He'd been watching closely enough to notice us.

Maybe he'd seen the same television coverage everyone else had: Max looking at me after my goal, me looking back, and Max touching the back of my neck after the final horn.

Things that meant nothing unless someone was deliberately searching for something to use.

Another message appeared.

I wonder if he'd still feel that way if he knew what you did.

The room seemed to tilt.

Around me, Keegan was loudly accusing someone of stealing one of his shoes while Cole insisted nobody wanted his disgusting shoe, and Dante and Baelor were still arguing about which of them deserved more credit for my goal.

Everything around me was normal and happy, exactly what I'd allowed myself to believe I might finally have.

When I looked across the locker room and found Max talking to Kinkaid near the door, that possibility suddenly seemed impossibly fragile.

As though he felt me watching, Max turned, and the moment our eyes met, his attention shifted completely away from whatever Kinkaid was saying. His expression sharpened, concern replacing the remnants of the smile he'd been wearing, and I knew he'd already realized something was wrong.