Chapter 6
Carter
I consider ignoring it, but Richard Lynch doesn't accept being ignored.
I show up at the Thornhill Grand Hotel at seven exactly. He's waiting in the lobby bar, looking every inch the former NHL star, tall, broad, graying but still imposing.
"Carter." He doesn't stand, doesn't smile. Just gestures to the chair across from him. "Sit."
I sit, pissed off that he thinks I’m a dog he can talk to me like this. I’m not in the mood to fight with him.
"Scotch?" He signals the bartender without waiting for my answer. "You look tired."
"It's been a long week."
"I imagine. Between that journalist's hit piece and the upcoming tournament, you must be under considerable pressure." The drinks arrive. "Tell me you're handling it."
"I'm handling it."
"How? By cooperating with her interview series? By giving her access to practices?" He takes a drink. "That's not handling it. That's rolling over."
"I'm showing her the truth, that we're not what she wrote about."
"The truth is irrelevant. Perception is what matters and right now, the perception is that my son is leading a toxic program." He leans forward. "Do you understand what that does to my reputation? To our family name?"
"This isn't about you—"
"Everything you do reflects on me. That's how legacies work." His voice hardens. "You need to discredit her. Find holes in her reporting. Force a retraction."
"I'm not doing that."
"Why not? She attacked you publicly. You have every right to defend yourself."
"Because some of what she wrote was true and because attacking her would prove her point about toxic masculinity in athletics." I look around as my voice is louder than it should be.
He stares at me like I'm speaking another language. "You're defending her?"
"I'm being honest. Something you've never been comfortable with."
"Watch your tone—"
"No. I'm done watching my tone. Done pretending.
Done being the perfect son who never questions anything.
" I set down my drink. "You want to know why I'm cooperating with Lennox?
Because she's asking the same questions I am.
About how we treat people. About what it means to be a leader.
About breaking cycles instead of perpetuating them. "
"This is that psychology nonsense talking—"
"It's not nonsense. It's me trying to be better than you."
The words hang in the air, and my father's expression goes cold. "Better than me."
"Yeah. Better than the guy who told his daughter to 'toughen up' when she was suicidal. Better than the guy who thinks vulnerability is weakness. Better than the guy who values reputation over actual people."
"I did what was necessary—"
"You did what was easy. You avoided dealing with real problems by pretending they didn't exist. And you're still doing it." I stand. "I'm not you. I'm never going to be you and if that disappoints you, I don't care anymore."
I walk out before he can respond. My hands are shaking. I've never talked to my father like that. Never openly defied him. It feels terrifying and liberating in equal measure.
I still can’t believe I did that.
I'm halfway across campus when my phone rings. Maya.
"Please tell me you didn't meet with Dad." Her voice sounds worried.
"I met with him. It went badly."
"How badly?"
"I told him I'm trying to be better than him. Then I walked out."
She's quiet for a moment. "Holy shit, Carter."
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know. Ask me tomorrow." I stop walking. "He's going to call you. Try to manipulate you into taking his side. Don't answer."
"I never do. You know that." She pauses. "I'm proud of you. For standing up to him."
"Thanks. I think I'm going to throw up now."
"That's a normal response to confronting generational trauma." She's trying to be funny, but I can hear the worry. "Want me to drive up? I can be there in a few hours."
"No. You have school. I'm fine."
"Liar. But I respect your right to process alone." Another pause. "Have you talked to Lennox about this?"
"Why would I talk to Lennox about this?"
"Because she's involved. Because whatever you're feeling right now is connected to her. Because you trust her even though you're scared to admit it."
"I barely know her—"
"You know her enough and she knows you. I saw it at dinner." Maya's voice softens. "It's okay to need people, Carter. It's okay to be vulnerable with someone you care about."
After we hang up, I find myself walking not back to my apartment, but toward Lennox's dorm.
I shouldn't. It's late, she's probably working or studying, and I have no reason to be here except that Maya's right, I need to talk to someone.
And somehow, that someone is Lennox Hayes.
I text before I can overthink it.
Me: Are you around? I know it's late but I could use someone to talk to.
Three dots appear immediately.
Lennox: I'm at the library. Third floor, back corner. Come find me.
The library is quiet this time of night. Just a few students scattered around, heads down in books or laptops.
I find Lennox exactly where she said, third floor, back corner, surrounded by papers and energy drink cans.
She looks up when I approach, and her expression shifts from focus to concern.
"Hey. You okay?"
"Can we talk? Somewhere private?"
She gathers her stuff quickly, and we head to one of the small study rooms, and I take her bag from her, because it looks heavy. She closes the door behind us.
"What happened?"
I tell her everything. The meeting with my father. The confrontation. The words I can't take back.
She listens without interrupting, and when I finish, she's quiet for a moment.
"That took a lot of courage."
"It felt more like stupidity." I tell her, I know she doesn’t know my father, only what's written about him.
"No. Courage and stupidity look similar, but there's a difference.
Courage is doing the scary thing because it's right.
Stupidity is doing it without thinking." She sits on the edge of the desk.
"You thought about it. Probably been thinking about it for years.
Tonight you just finally said it out loud. "
"And now everything's broken." I shake my head, still not believing what I’ve done.
"No. Now everything's honest. That's different." She looks at me carefully. "What are you most afraid of?"
"That he's right. That I'm not actually changing anything. That I'm just performing growth while secretly being exactly what you wrote in your article."
"Do you believe that?"
"Sometimes. When I'm pushing my team too hard, or when I catch myself using my father's phrases, or when I..." I stop.
"When you what?"
"When I remember that I knew about Trevor. Saw him being hazed and did nothing. Doesn't matter how much I change now. That happened."
Lennox stands and moves closer. "Carter, listen to me. You can't undo the past, but you can learn from it. That's what accountability means. Not perfection. Just consistently trying to be better."
"What if trying isn't enough?"
"It's all any of us have." She reaches out, hesitates, then puts her hand on my arm.
"You're not your father. I've seen enough to know that.
The way you lead your team, the way you care about your sister, the way you're actually grappling with these questions instead of dismissing them, that's not performance. That's real."
I look at her hand on my arm. At her face, serious and certain. At the way, she's looking at me like she sees something worth defending.
"Why are you being nice to me? After everything, the article, the difficult interviews, me making your job harder, why are you here?"
"Because somewhere in the past few weeks, you stopped being just a source and started being a person I care about." She says it simply, like it's obvious. "And people I care about don't face their asshole fathers alone."
"Lennox—"
"I know this complicates things. The article, the professional boundaries, all of it. But I can't pretend anymore that this is just journalism." She steps closer. "Can you?"
"No." The word comes out rough. "I can't pretend either."
We're standing so close now. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. Close enough to notice she's been biting her lip. Close enough that if I just leaned forward—
"This is a bad idea," she whispers.
"Terrible idea," I agree.
"We should maintain professional distance."
"Absolutely should."
Neither of us moves away.
"Carter—"
I kiss her.
It's not gentle or tentative. It's everything I've been holding back for weeks, frustration, attraction and the desperate need to feel something other than the fear that's been eating at me since my father walked into that hotel.
She kisses me back just as fiercely. Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer. My hands find her waist, her hair, trying to memorize the feeling of her against me.
We break apart, breathing hard.
"Fuck," Lennox says eloquently.
"Yeah."
"We can't do this. I'm writing about you. There are ethics violations, conflict of interest—"
"I know."
"And your father is going to be at the game tomorrow and I have an article due Monday. And this is the worst possible timing—"
"I know." I rest my forehead against hers. "But I don't care. Do you?"
She's quiet for a long moment. Then: "No. I don't care either."
"So what do we do?"
"I have no idea. But we should probably figure it out somewhere that's not a public library study room."
"My apartment?"
"Your apartment." Her voice squeaks which makes me smile.
We gather her stuff and head out, and I'm acutely aware that everything just changed. That whatever line we were walking, we just crossed it and there's no going back.