Chapter 9 #3
"You're absolutely glowing. It's disgusting." She pulled out a bag of pretzels and ripped it open with more force than necessary. "I take it coffee went well?"
I felt heat creep up my neck. "We just talked."
"Uh-huh." She popped a pretzel into her mouth, chewing slowly. "And that's why you've checked your phone four times in the last two minutes?"
I hadn't realized I was doing it. I shoved the phone into my pocket, mortified.
"It's fine," Nancy said, her voice softening. "You're allowed to be happy, Cinder. It's not a crime."
"I know that."
"Do you?" She studied me with those sharp eyes that saw too much. "Because you look like you're waiting for something terrible to happen."
She wasn't wrong. Even now, with the taste of Taz still lingering in my memory, part of me was braced for impact. For the other shoe. For the moment when everything good turned to ash in my hands. "Old habits," I said quietly.
"Yeah." She squeezed my arm. "Well, maybe it's time for some new ones."
The plane leveled off, and I let myself glance toward the front of the cabin. Taz sat with Max and Keegan, his head bent over something on his phone. As if sensing my attention, he looked up.
Our eyes met.
He didn't smile—not exactly. But something in his expression shifted, warmed, and I felt it all the way in my chest. A promise. A recognition.
I see you.
I looked away first, my heart hammering, and pretended to focus on my tablet while Nancy made a sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh.
"New habits," she repeated. "Starting now."
The hotel in Phoenix was nice—modern, all glass and clean lines, with a lobby that smelled like eucalyptus and money. I checked in with the rest of the medical staff, got my room key, and was halfway to the elevator when a hand caught my elbow.
Taz.
"Hey," he said, his voice low enough that only I could hear. "You okay?"
"Fine." I glanced around, suddenly aware of how many people were milling through the lobby. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You seemed... distant. On the plane."
"I was working."
His mouth twitched. "You were staring at the same page for twenty minutes."
Damn. He'd noticed.
"I'm just..." I exhaled slowly, trying to find the right words. "Processing. Last night was a lot." The goodbye this morning had been hurried, shy.
"Good a lot or bad a lot?"
"Good." I met his eyes, letting him see the truth there. "Definitely good. I'm just not used to good, I guess."
Something softened in his expression. "Neither am I."
We stood there for a moment, the lobby noise fading into background static. I wanted to touch him—wanted to reach out and press my palm against his chest the way I had last night, feel the impossible cold of him and know it was real.
But we were surrounded by teammates and staff and anyone with a camera phone, so I just nodded instead.
"I'll see you at dinner?" I asked.
"Yeah." His hand brushed mine, so quick I might have imagined it. "See you then."
He walked away, and I watched him go, my skin tingling where he'd touched me.
New habits, I reminded myself. Starting now.
I made it to my room, dropped my bag on the bed, and was about to start unpacking when my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
My stomach dropped before I even read it.
I need to speak to you once you get rid of the steroid-fueled jackass.
The words blurred, then sharpened. I read them again. And again.
Gavin. It had to be Gavin. The same possessive, threatening tone he'd used in the parking lot.
My hands shook as I typed back: Leave me alone.
The response came immediately: Don't be an infant. I need to talk. You owe me that much.
The shame hit again—I'd been trained. I could identify abuse patterns in patients with my eyes closed—the way they flinched at loud voices, the way they minimized injuries, the way they defended the person hurting them with that desperate, rehearsed certainty that made your chest ache.
I'd sat with women in the ER who told me he didn't mean it and it was my fault and you don't understand, he loves me, and I'd held their hands and gently, patiently helped them see what they couldn't see from the inside.
And then I'd gone home to Gavin and done exactly the same thing.
Not the hitting. He never hit me. That was the part I kept getting stuck on, the excuse I'd built my denial around like a fortress.
He never raised a hand. He never had to.
He had words, and words were blunt instruments in the right hands—capable of removing vital parts of you without leaving a visible mark.
It started so small I didn't even notice.
A comment about my clothes—you're not wearing that, are you?
—delivered with just enough humor that pushing back felt like overreacting.
Then my friends. They don't really get you, Cin.
Not like I do. Then my schedule, my hobbies, my opinions, all of it gradually reshaped to fit the mold he'd decided I should occupy.
He'd tell me things that contradicted my own memory, and when I objected, he'd look at me with that patient, pitying expression.
That's not what happened, babe. You're remembering it wrong.
You do this sometimes. And I'd think—maybe I do.
Maybe I'm the unreliable one. Maybe he sees me more clearly than I see myself.
Because that was what I'd been trained to believe long before Gavin ever touched me. Not at work. At work I was confident, but home was a completely different story.
I sat on the edge of the hotel bed and stared at the generic carpet and thought about my parents.
About the night my father had stood in the kitchen doorway, face empty, voice flat, and told me I was an abomination.
About my mother folding my clothes with trembling hands, tucking in my toothbrush, her tears falling on my favorite hoodie while she packed me out of my own life.
I stared at the screen, ice spreading through my veins that had nothing to do with Taz's temperature. This was different. This was Gavin refusing to accept that I'd moved on. That I had someone who actually cared about me.
My thumb hovered over Taz's contact. I should tell him. Should let him know what was happening.
But the old instincts were too strong—the ones that said handle it yourself, don't be a burden, don't give anyone a reason to leave.
I deleted the messages instead and then blocked the number.
And tried very hard to pretend my hands weren't still shaking.
The next morning started wrong.
I felt it before I saw it—that prickle at the back of my neck, the sense of too many eyes in one place. The hotel lobby was crowded when we came down for the team breakfast, players milling around in various states of alertness, staff checking schedules on tablets.
And then the doors opened.
Reporters flooded in like water through a broken dam. Cameras. Microphones. Shouted questions that overlapped into chaos.
"Cinder Adair!"
I froze mid-step, my coffee cup suddenly too heavy in my hand.
"How do you respond to allegations that you're using your position to get close to players?"
"Sources say you were fired for leaking confidential patient information—do the Dragons know about your history?"
The questions came faster than I could process them, each one a knife sliding between my ribs. I felt the blood drain from my face as cameras swung toward me, flashes going off in rapid succession.
Gavin. This had to be Gavin. The texts, the threats—he'd made good on them.
I took a step back, then another, my training screaming at me to find an exit, to get away from the exposure before—
The temperature dropped.
Not gradually. Not subtly. The air around us went from normal hotel climate to breath-fogging cold in the space of a heartbeat. Frost crept across the nearest window, spreading in delicate fractals that would have been beautiful if they weren't terrifying.
Taz stood near the elevator bank, his face completely blank, but I could see it—the way his skin had gone waxy pale, the way his breath came out in visible clouds.
His hands were clenched at his sides, and the cold was radiating off him in waves strong enough that the nearest reporter actually stumbled backward.
"What the—is the AC broken?"
"Why is it so cold?"
The confusion bought us seconds. I moved without thinking, shoving through the crowd toward Taz, my medical instincts overriding every other impulse.
Cole appeared at my shoulder, his expression tight with understanding I didn't have time to question. "Back exit," he said quietly. "Phoenix is holding it open."
"Taz." I reached him, grabbing his arm despite the cold. His eyes found mine—wild, panicked, the same look I'd seen in the locker room when no one believed me about his temperature. "I need you to come with me. Right now."
"I can't—Cinder, I can't stop it."
"You don't have to stop it." I kept my voice steady, calm, the same tone I used with patients in crisis. "You just have to walk. Cole's going to get in front of you, and I'm going to stay right here. We're going to the back exit. That's all. Just walking."
Cole moved smoothly, positioning his body between Taz and the cameras. The reporters were still confused by the cold, some of them rubbing their arms, others checking their phones like the weather app might explain what was happening.
"One step," I said. "Then another. I've got you."
Taz moved. Stiff, mechanical, but moving. The cold followed us like a living thing, frost spreading across the marble floor in our wake. I kept my hand on his arm the whole way, feeling the temperature drop further with every step, watching his breath crystallize in the air.
We made it to the back corridor. Phoenix held the service door open, his expression sharp with concern as we passed through.
"Stairwell," Cole said. "Two floors up, there's a conference room the team uses. It'll be empty."
We climbed. Taz's legs seemed to be working on autopilot, his focus turned inward in a way that scared me more than the cold did. The stairwell walls developed a thin layer of ice as we passed.
The conference room was blessedly empty. I guided Taz to a chair, then dropped to my knees in front of him, pressing my hands against his cheeks despite the cold.
"Hey. Look at me." I waited until his eyes focused. "You're safe. We got out. The reporters are downstairs, and they can't get to us here."
His laugh was more of a rasp. "They weren't threatening me."
"They were threatening someone you care about." The words came out before I could stop them. "That's the same thing to you, isn't it?"
The cold was still rolling off him in waves, but it felt less aggressive now—more like a storm settling than one building. He nodded, almost defeated.
Cole and Phoenix stood by the door, giving us space while keeping watch. I appreciated it more than I could say.
"I'm going to check your temperature," I said quietly. "Not because I'm going to escalate to anyone. Not because I think you can't handle this. Just because I want to know. Okay?"
Taz nodded slowly.
I pulled out the portable thermometer I'd started keeping in my pocket—a habit from the first game that I'd never broken. Pressed it to his forehead. Waited.
Eighty-six degrees.
My heart stuttered. That should’ve been impossible. That should’ve been fatal. And yet here he was, breathing, talking, looking at me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"It's low," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "But you're conscious and responsive. Your pupils are reactive. You're not shivering, which—" I stopped myself. "Which I'm starting to think is normal for you."
"Normal," he repeated, something bitter in the word.
"Your normal." I set the thermometer aside and took his hands in mine. "I'm not going to pretend I understand what's happening with your body, Taz. I don't. But I'm also not going to dismiss what I see just because it doesn't fit in a textbook."
His fingers twitched in my grip. "Most people would run."
"I'm not most people."