3. Riley
Riley
The air conditioner had been humming long enough for Riley to hate the sound.
It pushed refrigerated air across the hotel suite in an endless cycle, carrying the chemical bite of whatever cleaner housekeeping had used on the glass.
Riley stood in the middle of the room with her arms crossed, facing the entrance while the city burned in scattered reflections beyond the windows.
Graham had been due back from practice twenty minutes ago, and every extra minute had given her another chance to rehearse what she wanted to say.
None of the rehearsals survived the door opening.
Graham came through with the restless momentum he always carried after practice, his phone in one hand and his mind already somewhere beyond the suite. He left the door cracked behind him and headed toward the garment bag in the corner.
“Close the door.”
“Room service is still coming.” Graham tucked his phone into his pocket and reached for the bag. “Leave it cracked.”
“Then stop packing until it gets here.”
“I don’t have time to stop.”
Of course he didn’t.
Riley watched him unzip the bag and grab the ties he’d left draped over the chair that morning.
He folded one over his hand, stuffed it inside, then reached for the next without asking why she’d been standing there waiting for him.
Yesterday, she had followed him through an arena tunnel carrying his hydration bottle while handlers moved her out of the way like misplaced equipment.
Today, he couldn’t spare the time to look across a hotel room.
Five minutes. I am asking my husband for five minutes.
Graham shoved another tie into the bag.
“You’re walking around me again.”
He stopped pulling the zipper. “I’m trying to get this bag packed.”
“The bag can wait.”
“The dinner can’t.”
He kept pulling the zipper, and the rasp of it cut through the air conditioner’s hum.
Riley uncrossed her arms. The cracked doorway offered him a clean path to the corridor, the elevators, the sponsor dinner, and whatever came after that.
Another schedule. Another obligation. Another room where everyone else seemed to have a claim on him before she did.
Riley stepped into that path.
Graham looked up at last, though his eyes darted back to the bag almost at once. “Riley.”
“No.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means stop moving.”
He stared at her for a moment, then reached down for the zipper pull again.
Riley planted herself between him and the doorway. “Drop the bag, Graham. You’re not going anywhere until we dissect exactly what happened in the media pen yesterday.”
He kept his hand on the zipper pull. “I have to be downstairs for the mandatory sponsor dinner in twenty minutes, Riley. Can we just table this and run a weekend debrief tomorrow after the game?”
The corporate shorthand landed like a slap.
Weekend debrief.
Not an argument. Not humiliation. Not his wife being ordered to step back while another woman took her place for the cameras. A debrief, as if their marriage belonged on the same itinerary as practice footage and sponsor appearances.
Riley stared at the bag instead of his face. One tie protruded near the zipper where he’d caught it in his rush. A strip of expensive fabric trapped between metal teeth, and Graham still hadn’t noticed.
“This is our marriage, not a corporate weekend debrief, and I’m not waiting until tomorrow.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You said it.”
“I said we can talk tomorrow.”
“You said we can debrief tomorrow.”
Graham let go of the zipper and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re taking one word and turning it into something it isn’t.”
“Then give me a better word.”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out before the air conditioner kicked into another cycle.
Riley waited.
He reached toward the bag again.
That did it.
“Don’t.”
Graham stopped before touching the handle. “Riley, I’m standing right here.”
“No, you’re packing right here. There’s a difference.”
“I’ve got twenty minutes.”
“And yesterday I apparently wasn’t worth thirty seconds.”
He frowned slightly. Riley had once known every version of that expression—the one that meant he was confused, the one that meant he wanted to argue, the one that appeared when a skate edge wasn’t biting the way he expected.
Now she had to study him like a stranger and guess which man had walked into the room.
Graham glanced toward the open door.
Riley shifted farther into his path.
“Stop checking the hallway.”
“I’m checking for room service.”
“You haven’t looked at me for longer than a few seconds since you walked in.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Then prove me wrong.”
He looked back at her.
For one fragile moment, she almost softened.
Years ago, getting his full attention had required nothing more than saying his name across a freezing locker room.
He would abandon a skate, a roll of tape, a conversation with a teammate—anything—because Riley had spoken.
Somewhere between those concrete rooms and this hotel suite, five minutes with his wife had become an appointment he kept trying to reschedule.
The trapped tie still hung from the bag.
Riley pointed toward it. “You’re about to ruin that.”
Graham looked down, freed the fabric, then smoothed it once between his fingers. “Thank you.”
She nearly laughed at the absurd politeness.
Instead, she said, “Put the bag on the floor and look at me.”
“Riley—”
“Put it down.”
The air conditioner rattled near the window. Somewhere in the corridor, a service cart rolled past the cracked doorway, dishes chiming against one another before the sound faded toward the elevators.
Graham studied her face.
Whatever he found there finally made him stop. He dropped the bag beside his shoes.
There.
No zipper moving. No phone in his hand. No garment bag between them.
Riley had wanted this all day, but having his full attention finally offered her nothing. It only stripped away the last excuse. If he stood here and still couldn’t understand why yesterday mattered, she would have to face exactly how far apart they had drifted.
Graham straightened and faced her.
“Fine. I’m looking right at you.” His expression held the strained impatience of a man waiting for a meeting to begin. “What is the issue?”
Riley stared at him. After everything that had happened yesterday, the question almost sounded sincere, which somehow made it worse. Graham stood where she’d forced him to stop, the bag on the floor between them, waiting as though she were about to brief him on a scheduling problem.
“You really need me to explain it?”
“If we’re doing this now, then say it while I finish getting ready.”
He glanced past her toward the glass desk near the windows.
“No.” Riley shifted to block his line of sight. “You asked. Stand there and listen.”
Graham stopped, but only long enough to give her a look that warned the clock was still running somewhere inside his head.
Riley refused to rush.
“You let the PR team treat me like a ghost while she stared into a lens on live television and claimed she understands you best, Graham.”
His expression didn’t change. He stepped around her and crossed to the desk.
Riley turned after him. “Where are you going?”
“My watch is on the desk.”
“Of course that’s urgent.”
“I’m getting dressed for a dinner I can’t miss.”
The Rolex sat beside a stack of hotel stationery. Graham picked it up, slipped it onto his wrist, and worked the clasp while Riley stood behind him. The glass caught his reflection: his head bent, his attention fixed on that tiny piece of metal.
Years ago, he had watched her hands sharpen his skates as though every adjustment mattered. She still remembered him leaning over the workbench, asking whether she’d changed the hollow by a hair because he trusted her work enough to feel the difference.
Now he was giving his watch more attention than his wife.
Look at me.
The clasp snapped shut.
Graham raised his head, but he kept his eyes on the reflection in the glass. “Stop overthinking this, Riley. We need to lock down those bonuses, which means playing a specific game for the sponsors. I expect you to trust me.”
Riley stared at his back.
Trust.
He had taken one of the few words that should have belonged to them and turned it into another instruction.
Trust him while handlers shoved her behind a barrier.
Trust him while Nicolle wrapped herself around his arm.
Trust him while the cameras recorded another woman announcing that she understood Riley’s husband better than anyone alive.
“You don’t get to use trust like that.”
Graham turned his wrist once, checking his watch. “Use it like what?”
“Like it’s something I owe you no matter what you do.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you’re asking.”
He finally glanced at her reflection in the glass.
Riley stepped closer to the desk so there was no chance he could pretend she wasn’t there. “Letting your PR co-star publicly erase me from this marriage isn’t a game. The cameras were rolling, and you stood there in dead silence instead of correcting her.”
Graham adjusted his shirt cuff.
Riley waited for him to answer.
He kept working at the fabric.
“You heard her,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And you let it stand.”
He dropped his hand from the cuff. “Riley.”
“No. Don’t give me that tone like I’m making a scene over nothing. She stood beside my husband and told the world she was the one person who understood him, and you rewarded her by validating the whole performance.”
“It was an interview.”
“It was our marriage.”
“It was a marketing segment.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive just because the sponsors handed you talking points.”
The air conditioner hummed behind them. Graham turned away from the window at last, looking tired of the argument before they’d even reached the part that had kept Riley awake most of the night.
She folded her arms again. “All you had to do was correct her.”
“And create what, exactly?”
“The truth.”
“We know the truth.”
“Then why were you afraid to say it?”