Chapter 23 - Nicole
Nicole
The cafe was quiet by design. Small tables, neutral music kept low enough to disappear into clinking cutlery and the murmur of conversations that stayed carefully uninteresting. It was the kind of place people picked when they wanted to be seen behaving themselves.
James sat across from me with his jacket folded over the back of his chair, sleeves rolled as if this were any other weekday lunch. His posture was relaxed. That alone made my teeth press together.
I set my phone beside my plate, screen down, a small boundary I could move if I needed to. The chair legs scraped when I crossed my ankles, the sound louder than I intended. James glanced up, then down again, the faintest lift of his brows acknowledging it without comment.
“So,” he said, fingers closing around his water glass. “Thanks for meeting me.”
I didn’t answer right away. I picked up my fork, nudged at the salad I hadn’t touched, then met his eyes. “Don’t confuse this with courtesy.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile. He didn’t apologize either. “I figured you’d want to talk.”
“That’s generous of you.” I kept my voice level, pitched just above the music, low enough that the table beside us wouldn’t hear my words. “Given how much you’ve already said without me in the room.”
His jaw worked once, and he took a sip of water to hide his growing agitation. “You know I didn’t want it to go this far.”
I let the silence stretch just long enough to make him uncomfortable. A server passed behind me carrying plates, steam rising and gone in a blink. Somewhere near the window, a couple laughed. Life continued as if nothing had detonated at all.
“You pressed charges,” I said. “That wasn’t the system running on its own. That was a choice.”
James lowered his voice. “He hit me.”
“He intervened.” I leaned forward, just enough to make the point unavoidable, my elbows staying clear of the table. “I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t.”
“You’re simplifying.”
“I’m clarifying.” My salad was long forgotten now, along with any appetite I might have had coming in here. “Because while you’re busy framing this as a personal grievance, Landon’s career is taking the hit.”
A muscle jumped along his cheek. “That’s not on me. That’s on the league. On the team. On how they choose to handle it.”
“You knew exactly how they would handle it.” I kept my smile tight, civil enough so I wouldn’t raise any alarm bells at the neighboring tables.
“Playoffs. Public image. Zero tolerance slogans plastered all over the arena. You didn’t just throw a punch into the void.
You threw it into a machine that punishes fast and absolutely. ”
James exhaled through his nose, and I caught the hint of a smirk. “I didn’t tell them to bench him.”
“You didn’t have to.” I dropped my hands into my lap, tight fists that were better off hidden. “You gave them an excuse they can’t ignore. Round one. Game one. He’s out, James. Do you understand what that means?”
His shoulders shifted, an almost-shrug. “I told you I’m not that into sports.”
“They’re a wild card team,” I said, quickly dialing back when the woman across from us looked over. “They don’t have the luxury of bleeding talent and pretending it’s nothing. And Landon doesn’t have room to miss playoff ice because you needed to win a fight you started.”
I watched my words register on his face. His eyes hardened, flashing like steel as he searched for a response that wouldn’t sound as bad as the truth.
“You’re making him a martyr,” he said then. “He made his own choices, same as you.”
“Oh, my God, are you kidding me?”
“Nicole—”
But I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. Not now. “After everything, you’re still fixated on these imaginary choices you think I made that put you second in our relationship, when it was always just your insecurity getting the better of you.”
“Third,” he said simply. Then he placed both his hands flat on the table and came closer so there’d be no mistaking anything.
“I hung around in the wings while you bent over backward for a hockey team and some juvenile rookie. I am— I was your boyfriend, Nicole. But you showed me you’d rather be at a stupid game than spend time with me. ”
“I asked you to come with me.”
“And I said no,” he snapped, pounding the table lightly. “You made it out like I was this huge asshole, but I was at the previous game with you. Remember that? All I wanted was a normal dinner with my girlfriend on the rare chance our schedules lined up.”
I fought the urge to jump down his throat, breathing slowly until I was sure my voice wouldn’t betray me.
“You knew who I was before you asked me out. I’ve missed two Surge games in the history of ever.
Two. That’s not some whimsical habit, or…
or a thing I do because there’s nothing else filling up my time. ”
“You’re obsessed.”
“I’m a fan,” I corrected. “And anyway, none of that matters because we’re here to talk about what you’ve done.”
James looked away, staring out the window, the street where people passed carrying coffee cups and shopping bags. “I didn’t do this to hurt you.”
“That’s the part you keep missing.” I lowered my voice further, each word placed as carefully as I could manage through my anger. “You didn’t do it to hurt me; you did it to protect yourself. And you were willing to take whatever collateral damage came with that.”
His gaze snapped back to mine. “That’s not fair.”
“I’m not here to be fair.” I held his stare. “I’m here to be clear. What you’re doing doesn’t stop at the courthouse. It follows him into every locker room conversation. Every contract discussion. Every headline that uses his name without context.”
The server stopped at the table to check on us. I shook my head with a sigh, and James ordered another water. When she left, the space between us felt tighter, more deliberate.
“You could help end this,” I said. “You could give up this agenda and just let him be.”
James laughed under his breath, the sound edged with bitterness. “You think it’s that simple now? Landon Cross isn’t the only name at stake here. My residency is part of it too. My name.”
“I think you’re pretending it isn’t simple.” I sat back, folding my hands in my lap to keep them steady. “And I think you like the leverage.”
His eyes dropped to the table. When he looked up again, his expression was careful. “You came here angry. I get that.”
“If you think angry is all I am, then you get nothing,” I said quietly.
“There is a way out of this.” His posture changed into something that felt rehearsed, and I found myself listening harder. “For both of us.”
I didn’t answer. I watched his fingers circle the rim of his glass. Water sloshed, then settled.
“I’ll drop the charges,” he continued. “I can talk to my lawyer today. Make it clean. No dragging it out.”
My pulse ticked once, hard enough that I felt it in my throat. I kept my expression still. “And?”
His mouth curved, cautious, as if testing ground that might give way. “You take me back.”
The café noise faded to a dull ringing in my ears. Plates moved past our table, a chair scraped somewhere behind me, but none of it connected.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
James shook his head. “Wasn’t trying to be.”
I searched his face for the punchline that never arrived. “You pressed charges that got him arrested in front of his entire team, and now you’re offering reconciliation to make it go away?”
“I don’t want this to ruin lives. Least of all yours.”
I let out a breath through my nose. “You don’t get to frame this as concern.”
He leaned closer. I stayed where I was. “Think about it. You take me back, I make the problem go away. Your little hockey star gets back on the ice. Everybody wins.”
My fingers curled under the table. “A simple trade where I’m the object sealing the deal.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you meant.” I held his gaze. “You’re dangling his career in front of me, knowing how I feel about it. About the team.”
James’s eyes sharpened, and it was the first time I glimpsed the depth of his self-interest. What people often mistook for charm was actually blatant calculation. “You’re the one who said this is about consequences.”
“You don’t get to decide who pays them.” I paused, wrestling the tremor in my voice into submission. “And you don’t get to use me as a bargaining chip.”
He lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “See? You’re still choosing him.”
“I’m choosing not to be manipulated.”
He exhaled, long and theatrical. “I was falling in love with you. I am in love with you, Nicole.”
The words landed cold. I didn’t reach for them.
“You love control,” I said. “This isn’t about us. We’d been dating a few weeks.”
“When the heart knows, it knows.”
“James, stop. Please.”
His eyes searched my face, hopeful now, reckless with it. “If you were done, you’d have walked out. Why are you still here, Nicole?”
Because Landon was tormenting himself, watching the games on mute. Because the bench spot stayed empty. Because the standings mattered more than pride, and I hated that those things shared space inside me.
“Dropping the charges fixes everything,” James said. “You know that.”
“It fixes one thing,” I replied. “And breaks another.”
He smiled then. Not the careful one from earlier. Something brighter. Younger. As if we were discussing weekend plans instead of a man’s future. “So take me back. We start fresh. We can even go public about it, attend some games together to show there’s no bad blood.”
My stomach turned. “You’re insane.”
“I’m offering a new start.”
“No, you’re demanding ownership.”
His smile faltered, then steadied with practised ease. “You don’t have to decide right now.”
I looked at the table. At the untouched food. At the phone still face down beside my plate. I thought of the arena. Of the banners, and the way the city showed up when the team needed it. Of Landon doing everything right, just a little too late.