Chapter 19
Gio
I’m halfway through my ritual when everything tilts.
Left skate laced. Right skate open. Tape wrapped clean over my knuckles, white bands over bruised skin. Headphones on, no music playing—just the muffled roar of the away rink bleeding through the foam, a low ocean of noise on the other side of the concrete wall.
Breathe.
Cross, pull, cinch.
The away locker room is smaller than ours. Lower ceiling. Harsher light. It smells like someone tried to bleach the failure out of it and didn’t quite manage. The boys are loud—half-dressed, chirping, stick blades knocking the floor. My stall is the eye of it; everything else just swirls around.
I keep my head down and focus on the pattern.
Left pad. Right pad. Velcro tight.
Glove on the bench. Blocker beside it.My phone buzzes before I’m fully awake. A stutter of vibrations, like the world can’t wait for me to put my feet on the floor.
I leave them unopened. If it’s real, it survives the morning.
The drive to the rink is gray and silent, the kind of weather that makes the city feel like it’s holding its breath. I expect the usual—attention that sharpens, jokes that cut, someone trying to see if last night left a bruise.
Instead, the front desk girl glances up and then… re-centers. A smile that’s too normal. Too careful.
“Morning, Rossi,” she says.
“Yeah,” I answer, keycard flashing green. “What’s the headline?”
Her mouth opens, then closes like she remembers she has bills. “Nothing. Just—good game.”
Behind her, Jared from equipment pretends he’s busy with a crate he’s been staring at for thirty seconds.
“You need something?” I ask him.
“Nope,” Jared says too fast. “All set.”
Still, I stop anyway, because the silence is a lie with manners.
“Spit it out.”
Jared glances at my phone. “People are saying you and… you know.”
“I don’t,” I say.
He clears his throat. “Zoe Barnes.”
There it is. Not the name—the way the air changes around it. Like the building itself just adjusted its stance.
“She’s got an ID on file?” I ask, already feeling the answer in my teeth.
Jared blinks. “Uh. Yeah. Coach had us—”
“Had you what?” My voice stays level. That’s the worst part.
He swallows. “Add her to the authorized list.”
Something tightens under my ribs. Surprise never shows. Irritation steps in like it belongs there. Because it worked. Because it’s working without me even having to push.
“And Jared?” I say, stepping past him.
“Yeah?”
“If anybody asks you a question about her,” I tell him, low, “you forgot how to fucking speak.”
His nod is immediate. “Got it.”
Then I keep walking.
The hall is the same. The building is the same. The way it treats me isn’t.
It smells like coffee and disinfectant, sharp enough to wake a dead man. We file in like we always do—helmets on the table, sticks leaned where they’ll get knocked over anyway. Coach stands at the board, arms folded, posture surgical.
I brace for the hit. For a joke. For someone to test the fence.
It doesn’t come.
Adrian drops into the chair beside mine, quiet as a knife sliding home. He doesn’t look at me. That’s new.
Declan takes the opposite side, ritual precise, expression forward.
Dante leans back with his arms crossed, gaze unreadable.
Cole’s the only one who looks like he wants to say something and is actively deciding to stay silent.
Coach clears his throat. “Media tone’s cooled,” he says, like he’s reading weather. “Practice focus stays internal. No comments. No corrections.”
No lecture. No warning. My name doesn’t even enter the room.
That lands wrong.
Cole finally cracks. “So… we’re good?”
He glances at me, then away, like he’s stepping around a live wire.
“We’re disciplined,” Coach says. “That’s all.”
Adrian’s mouth twitches. He still doesn’t look at me. “Good game last night,” he says, careful. Clean.
“Yeah,” I answer. “It was.”
Dante tips his head. “Facilities asked if your guest needs parking validation.”
Guest. Not girl. Not problem. A sanctioned category.
I feel the change click into place.
Declan finally turns, stare steady. “You bringing her by after practice, or—”
“—or what?” I cut in, sharper than I mean to.
He stops mid-sentence, holds my gaze. “Or not,” he says.
No offense. Just adjustment.
Coach taps the board. “Focus.”
The room obeys. Immediately.
I sit there and realize the worst part: nobody’s trying to manage me. They’re managing the space around me. Around us. The jokes died because they already did the math and decided they were obsolete.
Zoe didn’t just absorb attention.
She changed how it moves.
I don’t like how effective that is. I like even less that part of me wants to protect it.
Coach waits until the room empties. Not theatrically. He just doesn’t rush, and everyone else suddenly does.
Chairs scrape. Laughter spikes and fades. Adrian leaves without looking back. Dante nods once. Cole hesitates, then follows. Declan’s the last out, gaze steady on me like he’s filing the moment away for later.
The door shuts.
The silence after a team clears is always heavier than the one before they arrive. Like the walls remember too much.
Coach Addison taps the whiteboard with the marker once. Twice. Sets it down without turning around.
I brace anyway. Old habit. Shoulders squared. Jaw locked. Waiting for the reframing. The warning dressed up as advice.
Coach gives me none of it.
“Media cycle cooled overnight,” he says instead, voice even. “You saw that.”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I did.”
“They’re treating you like a solved variable,” he continues. “Which means they stop asking questions until you give them a reason to start again.”
I don’t speak. Silence is safer here. Always has been.
Coach turns then, focus sharp, assessing. Not angry. Not pleased. Just exact.
“Practice stays clean. No late nights on record. No statements. You don’t correct rumors.”
I frown. “You want me to let it—”
“—breathe,” he cuts in, calm. “Yes.”
That lands sideways.
“That’s not usually your call.”
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
The pause stretches. He lets it. That’s the part that gets under my skin.
“You didn’t break any rules,” he says finally. “You didn’t embarrass the program. You didn’t lose control.”
I almost laugh. Almost. “That’s a low bar.”
“It’s a necessary one.” He holds my gaze. “What you did worked. For now, at least.”
I shift my weight. “So what’s the catch?”
“There is no catch,” he says.
Then, quieter, “That’s the point.”
Something tightens behind my ribs. Relief never shows. Exposure takes its place.
Coach folds his arms. “I’m not stepping in because I don’t need to. The optics are managing themselves.”
“And if they stop?” I ask.
His mouth curves—not a smile. “Then I will.”
That’s the warning. Clean. Undeniable.
One hand goes to the door, then pauses. “One more thing.”
I wait.
“You’re accountable for the people you bring into my building,” he says. A fact. “They’re judged by proximity. Whether they ask for it or not.”
There it is. The pressure I can’t reroute.
“I know,” I say.
Coach studies me for a beat longer than necessary. “Good enough. Because if this keeps working, the institution will remember how.”
The door opens. Light floods in. The normal noise of the rink rushes back.
Coach steps out without another word.
I stand there alone and realize the worst part isn’t that I wasn’t corrected.
It’s that I was trusted.
And trust comes with weight I didn’t consent to—and will still be expected to carry.
It’s eight at night. Elena Moretti’s building doesn’t have a sign.
It doesn’t need one. The lobby is marble and money and silence that costs more than my tuition ever did.
The guard at the front desk looks up, clocks me, clocks her, then recalibrates in real time—like the last name changes the rules and the woman beside it changes the temperature.
Zoe stands next to me with a portfolio case strapped across her shoulder like a weapon she’s earned the right to carry.
No flinch. No smallness. She’s dressed like she took my “optics” note and turned it into a threat—sharp lines, clean color, hair controlled.
Not trying to be rich. Refusing to be dismissed.
My phone buzzes again. I leave it alone.
A receptionist behind glass lifts her chin. “Mr. Rossi.”
Not Gio. Not sir. Mr. Rossi. Formal enough to create distance. Familiar enough to open a door.
“Evening,” I say.
Her smile is professional, but her eyes flick to Zoe. “And this is…?”
“Zoe Barnes,” I answer. I don’t introduce her like an accessory. I don’t soften it. “She’s here for Ms. Moretti.”
Zoe doesn’t say hi. She doesn’t fill the air. She stands there like she’s already been invited.
The receptionist’s gaze shifts back to me. “Ms. Moretti is very busy.”
“I know,” I say.
A beat.
She picks up the phone anyway.
I watch the second the name does its job. The way her posture changes—less skeptical, more careful. The world giving me what it gives me.
I hate it. I hate that I’m using it.
Zoe’s shoulder brushes mine—accidental, barely there—and my body clocks it like contact is information. Grounding. The kind of stupid detail I would’ve mocked yesterday.
She hangs up. “She’ll see you. Ten minutes.”
“That’s generous,” Zoe says, voice flat.
The receptionist blinks like she wasn’t expecting her to speak. “This way.”
We ride up in an elevator that doesn’t mirror. Even the walls are private. I can feel the building watching without being seen, like this place trained everyone inside it to keep their mouths shut after hours.
Zoe stares straight ahead.
“You good?” I ask, low.
She doesn’t look at me. “I’m steady.”
“I didn’t ask that.”
Her eyes flick to mine for half a second. A warning. An anchor. “Don’t start trying to read me, Rossi.”
“I planned to keep my eyes to myself,” I lie.
The elevator dings. The doors open to a corridor that smells like leather and perfume and something sterile underneath it—control.