2. Chapter 2 #2
“She makes content,” Tinnie says. “Social media, mostly. Sewing, fashion, upcycling. She partners with shelters and nonprofits to raise awareness through fashion, does campaigns for women’s organizations. There was a collab with a domestic abuse nonprofit that went viral last year.”
“Good for her.” I mean it. I admire anyone selfless enough to go out of their way to help. I just don’t know how I feel about it being filmed. It makes it seem…disingenuous.
“She’s well respected in the fashion community online. Young, philanthropic...”
“Hot,” the guy mutters under his breath, earning a look from Tinnie.
I keep my face still, but something shifts in my chest.
“Sounds like you’ve got a crush.” I tilt my head at him. “So, she’s got followers,” I say evenly, turning back to Tinnie. “Again, good for her. What do I have to do with it?”
“You touched her,” Tinnie says simply.
“I saw a woman who needed an out and used me to get it. I let her. That was it.”
“And now the internet has decided you’re in love. ”
“That sounds like a them problem, Tinnie.”
“It becomes our problem when ESPN, E! News, and half of TikTok are tagging you in love story edits.”
The younger assistant flips her tablet around again, showing me a screen full of fan edits—me looking down at Jessica in slow motion, the rose, the pull, her face, my hand, all soundtracked to indie pop shit that makes it look like we’ve been dating since high school.
“Over five million views overnight,” she says. “And climbing. You’ve never looked better in the media,” she says smoothly.
“Her views have skyrocketed as well.” The younger PR guy taps the tablet again and spins it toward me.
A video rolls of the girl at a sewing machine, dark-blonde hair tied back, a bright grin on her face while she talks to the camera, hands moving fast as she stitches fabric.
Another clip shows her twirling in a dress she apparently made herself, sequins catching the light.
I keep my face blank even though inside, my stomach twists.
It takes me a few seconds to realize what I’m feeling.
I don’t like this .
The thought of her being accessible to millions of strangers makes my jaw tighten. Every asshole with Wi-Fi can hit play and watch her laugh, watch her move, watch her mouth form words. Over and over. As long as they want. Whenever they want. The idea grates like broken glass.
“Why am I here, Tinnie?” I ask, even though I already have my guesses.
“To understand why this matters.”
“Enlighten me. Because right now, all I see is a girl who knows how to hold a needle.” And make me ditch my own rules with a single look.
“Because she makes you look good. The media isn’t running clips of you playing or smashing a guy into the glass. They’re running this.” She gestures at the frozen frame on the screen—me with my arm around Jessica, her smiling up at me like I hung the moon.
I keep my face still. Inside, heat crawls down my spine.
“People love her,” Tinnie continues. “She’s wholesome. Approachable. She’s exactly the image we need to counterbalance yours. ”
“Counterbalance?” My eyebrows shoot up. “You make it sound like I’m a fucking liability.”
Her look says exactly that.
“And this helps us how?” I ask, sharp.
“This helps you, Dom. Playoffs are around the corner. Every headline matters. Every audience matters. And right now, Jessica Brooks is the gateway to an audience you’ve never touched. She opens doors. She makes sponsors comfortable. She makes you look more approachable.”
“I’m not trying to be approachable.”
“And that’s the problem,” one of her assistants blurts.
I turn my head slowly.
Tinnie steps in before I can speak. “What he means is, you’re intimidating. On the ice, that works. But off the ice? It makes you hard to market.”
“You’re saying people don’t like me.”
“I’m saying people don’t know you.”
“They know I win games.”
“You’ve always been associated with your game, and this?” She waves a hand to the screen again. “It makes people see you in a more personal light. ”
“So let me get this straight.” My voice cuts through the room.
I already know what they’re about to suggest. “You want me to parade a stranger around because you think I look like the fucking boogeyman?” I huff a laugh.
“Have you seen Zed? People look at him and cross the street. His image makes mine look like a Boy Scout.”
That’s true. Our goalie looks like he eats souls and drinks battery acid. Next to him, I look like a pink butterfly perched on a wildflower.
“Zed’s image works because he doesn’t speak.
He’s a mystery. People are happy to get even a little glimpse of him.
You? You lead. You talk. You carry this team.
Zed isn’t the one wearing the C on his jersey.
You are. This isn’t about who’s scarier in a fight, Dom.
This is about the face of the franchise.
And right now, that face is yours. When fans can’t relate to their captain, it creates distance. ”
“And now you want to close the gap.”
“Exactly.”
I exhale through my nose and stare down at the paused frame on the screen. Jessica, holding a dress up to the camera, grinning. Stunning .
“This isn’t going away,” Tinnie says softly. “But if we use it right... it could work for both of you.”
I drag my tongue across my teeth, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at the little flutter in my chest each time I see her face on the screen in front of me.
“That’s your job. Optics.”
“This isn’t just about playoffs.” Tinnie’s voice drops, controlled and deliberate. “You want that academy, don’t you, Dom?”
My eyes lock on hers, and I finally see the whole picture. My face must have changed because Tinnie’s gaze softens with understanding.
The Blazer Youth Academy. My project. My idea.
My shot at leaving something that matters after I hang up the skates.
A facility for kids who’d never get a chance otherwise—scholarships, equipment, ice time, clinics.
Miami isn’t built for hockey. Too hot and too expensive.
Kids with talent never even lace up because they can’t afford it.
The academy would change that. It could give them ice time, the coaching, the equipment.
We could grow the next generation. Our legacy. Something bigger than my name .
And it’s been sitting in committee hell. The board likes the idea in theory but hates the cost, hates the optics. Sponsors hesitate. Parents whisper. I’m not the poster boy they want smiling in front of them.
“You want the board to sign off on the foundation?” Tinnie presses. “She’ll help.”
I’ve bled for that project. Meetings that went nowhere, presentations that turned into arguments, sponsors nodding politely before passing on the risk.
I’ve sat in boardrooms and laid out every number, every benefit, every goddamn angle to prove it matters.
I’ve fought tooth and nail to make them see .
And now? A girl I met for five minutes in a club apparently holds the key in her little hands.
I can feel my jaw clench, the pulse in my temple. I hate not being the one holding the reins. I hate that something this important could rest on anyone but me. And I fucking hate that they’re right.
Tinnie doesn’t give me time to think it through.
“If she posts about it, if she lends her voice, we’re talking millions of eyes, Dom. A completely different demographic. Parents. Kids. People outside the usual hockey bubble. She makes them care. She makes them want it. And the board will see that.”
Tinnie watches me for a second, like she can see the fight winding up behind my eyes.
Her assistant, too young to read the room, speaks up. “To be clear, Mr. Moreal, you’re still the bigger name. Way bigger. She’s not eclipsing you in any way. She just has a different audience.”
“An audience you’ll reach through her,” Tinnie says, seizing the moment.
They want me to play boyfriend.
I can feel the old weight pressing down on my chest again. A phantom pressure from a different life. One I buried years ago.
My chair scrapes against the floor as I stand, slow enough to make them all sit up straighter. I smooth my shirt and force my mouth into something that isn’t a snarl.
“Send her my regards,” I say flatly. “Wish her the best with her sewing videos.”
A couple of them blink, confused. Tinnie doesn’t. She watches me with disappointment. I turn on my heel before they can try another angle .
I’m angry. Angry that she hasn’t left my head since last night.
Angry that somehow this girl, this stranger, is now sitting at the heart of everything I’ve fought for.
Angry that she’s out there smiling for strangers on a screen, accessible whenever anyone wants.
Angry I can’t get the ghost of her touch off my skin.
Control is my oxygen. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I don’t have it.
I push through the door with heat crawling under my skin. The fluorescent buzz in the corridor drills straight into my skull. I’m halfway back to the locker room when my phone lights up. I look down and almost snort out loud.
Clarissa Moreal.
Against my better judgment, I swipe green.
“Dominic.” Her voice is all sharp edges and ice.
“Clarissa,” I say flatly.
Not Mom. Never Mom. She lost that title a long time ago. Growing up, she and my father micromanaged every breath I took—what I ate, who I saw, where I went. And girls who weren’t approved by them? Outright forbidden.
No girl will ever take care of you like I do .
My father always nodded along like a second head of the same beast. A hydra, snapping from both sides.
“How could you do this while your father is running for senator?” she spits. “You with a nobody. A girl with no pedigree, no family name, no standing.”
“Good morning to you too.” I keep walking.
“Don’t you dare mock me.” Her pitch rises, venom dripping through the line. “Do you realize what you’ve done? Melody’s already lost her mind with that teammate of yours, and now you too? You parade some cheap little girl in front of cameras to humiliate us?”
I let her rant. Feigned boredom is the only shield I have left with them. This is exactly why I keep my private life private. I don’t give a shit what the world thinks. But they are the last people I want seeing what I do.
“Your father—”
“Your other head,” I correct her. “Tell him I said hello.”
For a second, I imagine the vein in her forehead pulsing, my father pacing behind her like the other jaw of the beast .
This is why I don’t let anyone see in. Why I don’t let cameras catch me with women. Because when they do, my parents crawl out of whatever political hole they’re hiding in to remind me why I packed my bags and left.
And for the first time in years, someone slipped through the cracks. A stranger with a smile that refuses to leave my head.
“If you’re ready to settle down, Dominic, then come home. We have women lined up for you. Women with names. Daughters of men who actually matter. Not this…this seamstress.” She spits the word like it’s dirt.
“You’ve done your research,” I say mildly, but my hand tightens around the phone.
A seamstress. That’s what they’ve reduced her to.
“Don’t you joke right now!” she snaps, voice cracking.
“Melody with that…brute Jace is bad enough.
But you, Dominic, you will carry on our name.
“Whoever this girl is, you need to break it off. At least until your father becomes senator. After that, you can parade around whichever cheap whore you want, but not now. ”
I wince at her words, rage boiling up my throat, hot and metallic.
And then it clicks. If a few photos from a five-minute interaction make them this angry… what would an actual relationship do to their nervous systems? Even if it’s fake? The thought sparks, clean and bright—spitting in their faces without ever raising my voice. I almost laugh.
“Don’t worry, Clarissa. She’ll sew us all real cute Christmas sweaters.” I keep my tone calm and polite.
“Dominic, don’t you dare hang—”
The phone’s back in my pocket, and my mind’s already spinning.
The academy. The press. My parents’ hydra heads snapping over nothing.
One girl. Five minutes. And they’re losing their goddamn minds.
I turn on my heel and stalk back down the corridor. The PR office is still buzzing when I shove the door open. Tinnie’s team jumps like they’ve been caught stealing, mid-sentence about how to convince me. Papers shuffle, tablets snap closed, throats clear in panic .
Only Tinnie doesn’t flinch. Her eyes cut to mine, knowing.
I plant both fists on the desk, leaning until the wood groans beneath my weight.
“Find her.”
“What?” One of the suits blinks, stammering.
“Track her down,” I bite out. “See if the little IT girl agrees to this shitshow.”
If she’s the match that makes all of this ignite, then I’ll strike it myself.