Chapter 13 #2
Jace is the picture of composure, squatting in the middle of a cluster of kids, stick in hand as he sketches a play across the linoleum floor.
His voice is low, steady, a coach in miniature, and the kids lean in as though he’s teaching them secrets instead of hockey. Calm radiates off him like heat.
Beside him, Logan slides easily into the circle, suit jacket tugged open, tie gone. He lets one of the kids balance his phone on a tiny knee, showing off a highlight reel like it’s contraband.
His tone is smooth, practiced—PR polished without losing warmth—and the laughter he earns is effortless.
He’s the bridge, steady but approachable, a player who knows exactly how to give just enough of himself to make people feel like they matter.
And Maddox…
Maddox stands like a man on trial. Shoulders locked, jaw cut from stone. His hands hang useless at his sides, twitching once like he wants to shove them in his pockets and thinks better of it.
His eyes keep flicking to the cameras instead of the kids, tracking them the way he’d track a puck.
The contrast is brutal—Jace the calm anchor, Logan the polished face, Maddox the wall of ice and silence.
Dean would see liability.
The board would see a mistake.
But me?
I can’t stop seeing the weight under his stillness. The storm wound tight in the cage of his body, begging for a crack.
And God help me, I want to see what happens when it does.
One brave little boy tugs on Maddox’s sleeve, holding up a bright crayon. “Can you draw something?” he asks, hopeful.
The cameras pivot, hungry.
Maddox blinks down at him, huge and awkward, hand flexing once. For a heartbeat, I think he’ll kneel. I think he’ll take the damn crayon.
Instead, he clears his throat and gives the boy a stiff nod—more like acknowledging a teammate on the bench than responding to a child.
The boy’s smile falters.
My stomach twists.
Damn it, Lasker.
Jace, smooth as ever, leans in and picks up the crayon, sketching a stick figure goalie on the corner of the play diagram. The kids laugh, tension broken.
But Maddox…
He still looks like a man being marched to his execution.
The reporters sense it, smell it, and circle closer. Waiting for the stumble, the grimace, the proof that he doesn’t belong here.
My chest knots so tight it aches. I can’t tell if I should cringe or pray.
The crayon slips out of the boy’s fingers and rolls across the floor, rescued neatly by Jace’s calm hand. The kids laugh, tension easing, but Maddox still looks like a statue braced for a firing squad.
Before I can redirect, a nurse with kind eyes and quick instincts presses a book into Maddox’s massive hands. “Here, read this,” she says in a low, kind voice before stepping away.
The cover is bright with cartoon animals splashed across it. And I swear—he stares at it like it’s written in another language.
My stomach dips. Oh God. This is going to implode.
Then a small voice pipes up. “Mr. Lasker, will you read it? It’s my favorite.”
The sound comes from a boy in a knit cap too big for his head, pale skin waxy under the fluorescent lights.
He beams up at Maddox like the man just skated out of the TV and into his hospital room.
Hope, pure and unfiltered, shines in his eyes.
For a beat, Maddox doesn’t move. Then, with a rough exhale, he lowers into a crouch.
The movement is stiff, awkward, like he’s wearing his goalie pads instead of a suit.
He holds the book gingerly, as if the thin paper might split under his calloused fingers.
“Well, if it’s your favorite, I need to read it, don’t I?” His voice is rough but pitched low like a secret.
The boy nods so hard his cap slips sideways, and Maddox catches it with one big hand, tugging it back into place with surprising gentleness.
“What’s your name?”
The boy smiles shyly. “Connor.”
“It’s nice to meet you. You can call me Maddox.”
Then he opens the book.
The first lines stumble out of him, halting, like he’s testing how the words fit in his mouth.
The boy leans closer anyway, eyes locked on every syllable. Maddox clears his throat and keeps going, voice rough but steadying.
When he hits the villain’s dialogue, something unexpected happens. Maddox drops his voice lower, growling, giving the words weight.
The boy giggles, delighted, and Maddox’s brow flicks up in something like surprise before he rolls with it, doubling down on the act.
The kid laughs harder.
Another page, and Maddox softens his tone for the hero, slower, careful.
The boy’s hand creeps out, resting on Maddox’s, tracing the knuckles of the larger hand like it’s treasure.
Maddox doesn’t pull away.
He flexes his fingers once under the small hand, as though giving a piece of himself costs nothing at all.
And then—God help me—the man smiles.
Not the bitter curl I’ve seen when he cuts down a reporter.
Not the sharp, practiced smirk that says he knows exactly how to piss someone off.
A real smile. Raw, genuine, unguarded. It transforms his whole face, breaking something open inside my chest.
Heat surges through my body, hot and fierce, so sharp I grip my notebook tighter to keep from trembling.
The owner in me catalogs it instantly: perfect PR, the kind of clip the board will salivate over, the kind of moment that sells tickets and cements legacies.
Gold.
But the woman in me…well, she aches.
Because I can’t stop watching the way his shoulders ease when the boy laughs. The way that smile—unpracticed and so damn rare—changes everything about him.
It’s dangerous how much I feel just by seeing him smile.
This—this is what I knew was there. What Dean swore didn’t exist.
Cameras flash like lightning, catching it all, but for once it doesn’t feel staged. Doesn’t feel like PR.
It feels real.
And it undoes me.