Chapter 8 - Reese
Reese
“Salt Lake winds do nothing for my hair,” Josie muttered as we stepped out of the elevator. She tried patting down a flyaway, gave up, and let Cass tug her toward the dining room. The rest of the team filtered ahead in loose groups, half-awake but mostly ready for the early fixture.
“You two are more excited for this game than the guys are.” I was making small talk. God help me.
“I’m excited about starting the playoffs by going viral,” Josie said with a shrug. “Can’t speak for Cass, though. She’s just a groupie.”
Cass slapped her arm playfully. “I’m training the new guy on the skate mount I designed. Try again.”
Their shoulders bumped as they walked, the kind of easy closeness that came from months of red-eye flights and late-night hotels and showing up for their guys even when it meant taking a time-out from their own lives. A familiar face in a strange rink. A thread back to home.
I trailed a few steps behind them, wondering if my face on the bench reminded Theo of the hole we’d dug ourselves. Because that was all I thought about when I watched him out there. I still wasn’t sure if I was helping him or hurting him with this deranged plan.
The dining area wasn’t crowded, just that hum of off-ice energy from athletes trying to fuel for later. Cutlery clinked, chairs scraped, someone called for more oatmeal. The pre-game machinery turning over.
Then I caught sight of Theo.
He’d come in with Hunter, both of them carrying that loose morning swagger that said they weren’t feeling the pressure yet.
Hunter said something I couldn’t hear, and Theo laughed.
Head thrown back, shoulders relaxed, a completely different man from the one who sat on my table a few nights ago refusing to admit anything hurt.
I slowed, hands tightening around the strap of my bag. If he could look like that, maybe I was helping. Or maybe I was making things worse. Pull too hard on a damaged shoulder and it tears. Pull too hard on a stubborn athlete, and the same thing happens.
“Reese.” Van der Berg’s voice carried that morning gravel he blamed on allergies. “We need to talk.”
My stomach dropped. His face gave no clues about whether this talk would be monumental or not no matter how hard I stared at him. I swallowed, my mind instantly jumping to those bullshit reports I’d been handing him that claimed every Surge player was fit to play.
I forced a nod. “Now? What about?”
“Yes, now. Sit with me.”
We paused at the entrance to the dining room and my pulse crawled higher with each moment he didn’t say anything.
I tried to think of a good lie and came up empty.
If he’d found something in Theo’s file, I was out.
Trainers didn’t survive shit like that. So much for a promotion.
I’d somehow found a way to fail yet again, and could already imagine the awkward conversation with my parents.
He opened his mouth to say something, and I braced for it.
“Reese!”
Holly waved from a table on the far side of the room, and signaled the empty chair next to her. Saved by the PR bell. She had impeccable timing, though I doubted she knew she’d just salvaged my job and possibly my entire career.
“I’ll catch you after the game.” I slipped away before he could reel me back in.
Theo glanced up as I passed his table. Just a flick of his eyes. Nothing that helped me figure out if I was steering him toward a stronger game or a shorter season.
“Sit,” Holly said the second I reached her table, already nudging a cup toward me. Something herbal floated off it. Calming, allegedly. Useless in the moment.
“I’m assuming you saw the email last night,” she said, flipping open her iPad.
“I… skimmed it.” A lie. The subject line was enough to put me off.
“Okay, well, short version: the announcement about Niels is being bumped up. Management wants it out after the game.”
My fingers tightened around the mug. I didn’t dare take a sip. Not with the state my bowels were in. “Today?”
“Today.” She adjusted her seating and angled the screen toward me, a draft statement glowing back.
“I’ve rewritten the release to stress continuity.
Stability. All the words McAvoy won’t complain about.
People are going to panic about a trainer exiting mid-playoffs, and we can’t afford that narrative right now. ”
Her voice kept going, smooth and practiced, but my attention slid sideways.
Across the room, van der Berg shared a table with McAvoy.
Two coffee cups untouched between them. McAvoy leaned in, elbows planted.
Van der Berg had that pinched concentration he got whenever he was about to deliver news no one wanted.
Neither looked like men discussing a farewell party. Or anything good for that matter.
Holly was still talking. “So from a strategic standpoint, highlighting your involvement is exactly what we need. You’ve been front-line all season.
The players trust you. The fanbase knows you.
Naming you interim head trainer today tells everyone the team isn’t scrambling. Are you—? Are you listening?”
I dragged my gaze back to her. “Right. The team isn’t scrambling.”
My pulse had settled somewhere under my jawline, tapping at a pace I couldn’t distract myself from. I tried for a smile, but don’t think it happened quite the way it was supposed to.
She studied me for a beat longer than I liked. “Look, I know this seems like a lot, but it’s good. You should see his face when your name comes up in our higher-level meetings. Coach sings your praises. The guy practically worships you.”
I huffed out something between a laugh and a cough. “That’s flattering.”
“It is. And you need to lean into it during the press cycle.” Holly packed up her iPad and went back to the tasteless herbal concoction in front of her. “I’m scheduling you for a short post-game presser. Statement only. No questions. Just enough to give structure to the narrative.”
I nodded without registering what she was saying. My eyes had drifted again.
McAvoy rubbed the back of his neck. Van der Berg remained stone-still, staring at the table. Something heavy hung between them, a weight I couldn’t identify from here. That wasn’t transfer talk. That was “There’s a fire, and we’ve just found the match.”
Van der Berg made me. That was the only explanation.
He’d seen my lies in the reports, and told McAvoy. He was waiting for confirmation before he marched me into HR and torched my career.
“I’ll walk you through all of it,” Holly said, tapping her fingers on the cup. “You’ll get a script. I’ll be two feet away during the presser. Audience will be minimal. The only priority is— Reese?”
I startled back to her. “Sorry, I— I’m listening. Just thinking about… all of it.”
“Hey.” Her tone softened. “This won’t eat you alive. I’ve got you.”
I wished I could have believed her.
Across the room, van der Berg’s gaze snapped up. Directly at me. No blink. No warmth. The kind of look that said he’d been waiting for a moment to pin me to a wall and ask a question I didn’t want to answer.
My spine jolted, and the chair scraped under me as I shot to my feet.
“Where are you going?” Holly straightened. “We’re not done.”
“I forgot something for my kit bag,” I said, words tumbling out before I could tidy them. “I have to go. I’ll see you at the arena.”
“Reese—?”
But I was already moving, weaving between tables, bag strap cutting into my shoulder. I didn’t look back. Didn’t glance at van der Berg’s table as I passed. Not with that look of his still burning a hole through my ribs.
If he wanted to talk after the game, he’d find me. Right now, I needed distance. And air that didn’t feel like it carried my entire career dangling by a thread.
*
The cold inside the Delta Center hit me the same way arenas always did. Manufactured winter, and lights bright enough to bleach every coherent thought from your mind. I climbed over the boards and dropped onto the trainer bench, sorting my kit bag so I had something to do with my hands.
Van der Berg was on the far side, down on one knee as he checked Mason’s knee brace. He didn’t look my way, which should have calmed me. It didn’t. Nothing could’ve calmed me after what had happened at breakfast.
“Press is calling this a formality,” Coach spoke to the guys. “But we know we play every game as though it’s a final. Get out there and give me your best shot.”
The guys rushed over the boards and onto the ice in a force of sticks slapping ice and calls to kick ass. The noise from the arena felt warped under the weight sitting at the base of my throat.
I caught van der Berg’s gaze as he sat down, but quickly trained my eyes onto the ice. Still, it was as if I could hear his thoughts, heard him laying into me for faking the fitness reports.
The puck dropped and minutes seemed to blur.
My head wasn’t in Salt Lake, let alone the game. It was in that dining room with van der Berg watching me like I’d written my confession across my forehead. Every hit on the ice sounded like a countdown to getting fired. Every shift Theo took made my pulse thud under my jaw.
A Utah forward cut through our zone, and Theo lined him up against the wall. Clean contact, clean recovery. Except his right shoulder dipped on the push-off. A ghost of compensation, easily missed. But I saw it. I knew what was happening under that strapping, and I hated it.
My stomach twisted.
He skated back into position, shaking it off while talking shit to Hunter the way he always did. By the time the next play started, he was back to his usual self. Mostly. More weary on the body checks, and that fucking shoulder never really recovered its proper hold.