Chapter 5
Strictly Business
Riley
Midnight rain needles the windshield like it has a grudge. The wipers thud a two-beat that sounds like a warning—don’t. Headlights smear into white snakes on blacktop, and my knuckles go bone-pale where they choke the wheel.
“Repeat it back,” I say, because if I let silence grow, memory will crawl into it. “Protocol on road days.”
In the passenger seat, Jason slouches like a billboard for bad decisions, wrist neatly wrapped in the tape I trust more than I trust him.
He skims a look at me, then the glass. Water sluices in sheets.
“No extra bag skates. No heroics. Ice after games, stim before practice, mobility twice a day, and you get to boss me around even when I’m already doing the right thing. ”
“You’re never already doing the right thing,” I say. The heater coughs lukewarm air; my damp cuffs drink it without gratitude. “Finish the list.”
He tips his head, mouth curving. “Hydrate, sleep, no ‘recreational’ bar fights.”
“Remove the air quotes unless you want me to staple them to your face.” I signal and slide around a truck throwing a wall of spray. The tires hiss. The car shivers. “And you text me if the wrist changes—tingling, numbness, sharp pain, loss of grip. Any of it.”
“Yes, Coach,” he says, and the word lands softer than it should, like he means Riley and doesn’t want to hand me that weapon.
I keep my eyes on the road. “You’ll wear the extra padding. You’ll tape between periods if I say so. You won’t argue in front of Coach, PR, or anyone with a badge that unlocks the press room.”
“Am I allowed to argue in front of the vending machine?” he asks. “It knows my secrets.”
My mouth twitches before I can stop it. I iron it flat. “No arguing with appliances. Or me.”
The rain thickens, a gray curtain dragging across the world.
The dash paints his profile blue-white: strong nose, stubborn mouth, eyes that flatten to dangerous when he’s dared.
I told myself I could do this—be near him and not let the past pick locks.
I can. I am. It just takes both hands on the wheel and every rule I wrote for myself shoved between us.
He watches the wipers, then says, quiet enough to lose under the noise, “You always did like a plan.”
“Plans keep people employed,” I say. “And alive.”
“Dramatic.”
“Accurate.” I catch an exit glow through rain. Ten minutes to the hotel if the roads behave. They won’t. Roads are people. They do what they want.
He shifts, the leather a small thunder. “For the record, I’m not trying to make your life hard.”
I snort. “You don’t have to try.” It comes out sharper than I mean, serrated with fatigue and the way his voice does something low in my chest. I soften my grip, one finger at a time, like a hand-rehab exercise. “Look—we keep this clean, we both keep our jobs. That’s the assignment.”
“Clean,” he echoes. The word hangs ridiculous in a car that smells like wet wool and him. “Copy that.”
The wipers knock. The engine gives a little cough—like a laugh if cars laughed—and I ignore it, because of course I do. Tonight I am ignoring all kinds of things I should pull over and examine.
The engine coughs again, longer this time, a wet throat-clearing sound that lifts the hair at my nape. I nurse the gas. We lurch. Dash lights stutter like a heart that forgot the choreography.
“Don’t you dare,” I tell twelve bolts and a prayer.
The car dares. Power drops. Headlights dim. The wheel goes lead-heavy in my hands.
Jason straightens. “You losing—”
“Everything,” I say, already signaling, already calculating angles: shoulder distance, trucks, hydroplaning risk.
The wipers drag then die mid-swipe, frozen at a useless diagonal.
Rain smears the windshield until the world is a suggestion.
I muscle us toward the barrier, coasting on hope and bad language. The engine shudders once, twice—quits.
We stop. The rain does not.
“Hazards,” Jason says, reaching. His knuckles brush mine. Heat and cold confuse my skin. The blinkers strobe weak orange, tiny lighthouses in a storm that doesn’t care.
I exhale through my nose, a slow leak to keep from hissing. “Okay. We push. Passenger side to the barrier.”
He’s already unbuckling. “I’ve got it.”
“It’s a two-person job,” I clip, keeping the shake out of my voice.
I kill the ignition, shove my door open against water that hits like a wall, and step into a cold that finds bone through denim in a second.
The shoulder is a skinny, mean slice of safety.
Traffic throws up rooster tails that slap my calves.
Jason rounds the hood, hair plastered, T-shirt turning transparent—cautionary poster for choices I don’t make anymore. He plants his hands on the fender. I take the driver’s side and we heave. The car rolls grudgingly, tires hissing on flooded grit. My shoes flood. My ponytail becomes a rope.
A horn screams as a semi ghosts past too close, wind-punch shoving me sideways. Jason’s hand clamps my elbow, yanks me back to the car with a force that will bruise. “Riley,” he bites out—not a question.
“I’m fine,” I snap, not looking at him because if I see his face I’ll see fear and I don’t have time for either of ours. “Push.”
We do. Three counts, then four, our breaths syncing whether I want them to or not. We angle the car tight to the barrier until the tires bump concrete. Safe enough.
I brace a palm on the hood and let my head drop for one beat. Rain needles the back of my neck. When I look up, he’s watching me like he can’t decide whether to shake me or wrap me up.
“Don’t,” I say, sharper than the rain. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m yours to worry about.” The words get out before discretion can catch them. My chest tightens at how true they sound.
He flinches—flicker fast—then masks it like the pro he is. “Call a tow.”
I already have my phone out. The screen is a wet fish, slick and uncooperative. I get the ride-share app open and stab at options with fingers that won’t stop shaking. Cold, not feelings. “Nearest taxi,” I say. “Hotel pinned.”
“Good,” he says, stepping closer to shield the screen from the rain, his body a wall I refuse to lean on. We share the square of light like a secret.
While it pings drivers, I turn on him because offense is easier than the way adrenaline makes me soft at the edges.
“New rule,” I tell him over the roar. “No heroics, including in traffic. No grabbing me, no playing shield, no—” I gesture at the shape of him, big and furious and exactly the kind of shelter I don’t take anymore. “—whatever that just was.”
His mouth hardens. “You’d rather get flattened?”
“I’d rather keep this professional.” The word lands between us like a barrier I can hide behind if I say it enough. “We are not… anything. We are a player and a trainer trying not to end up as roadkill or a press release.”
For a second, I think he’ll argue. He doesn’t. He nods once, rain tracking down his cheekbones like he’s carved out of weather. “Got it.” He takes a step back—space without distance. It helps. It doesn’t.
The app chirps: Driver two minutes away. Red taillights fan by, turning the rain into moving rubies. I tuck my phone into my jacket, shiver hard enough my teeth knock, and decide anger is a better coat than anything in my bag.
“Taxi’s almost here,” I say, brisk, business, bones wrapped in tape. “We regroup at the hotel. We stick to the plan.”
“Your plan,” he says, not pushing.
“Our plan,” I correct, because I need the reminder as much as he does.
The taxi arrives an inch from hydroplaning, headlights carving the rain into ribbons. The driver leans across to pop the lock. “You two need a ride or a canoe?” he shouts.
“Ride,” I answer, teeth chattering on the r. Jason opens the back door and the car takes a gulp of weather. We tumble in, dragging cold with us.
The backseat is a humid shoebox. Vinyl sticks to my thighs; wet clothes cling, wicking chill straight into my spine. The heater blasts and fogs the windows, turning the world into smeared halos of red and white. The radio mutters traffic updates under a bass line that vibrates the floorboards.
Jason’s shoulder eats half the seat even when he tries to make himself small. He fails. Heat rolls off him like he manufactures it. Our knees bump when the cab lurches; I pretend it doesn’t trip a switch in my belly.
“Hotel Blackwood,” I tell the driver. He nods, flips the wipers to frantic, and merges with a confidence I don’t share.
“Here,” Jason says, shrugging out of his jacket. It’s soaked but somehow warmer than mine. He moves to sling it around me and checks himself mid-motion, fingers closing on air. He redirects, drops it in my lap like a peace offering. “For the tape. Wouldn’t want your hands to freeze.”
“My hands are fine,” I lie, tucking the jacket around my thighs anyway because pride is stupid when hypothermia is auditioning.
My fingers burn as feeling returns. I flex them and glance at his wrist. The wrap is dark where the rain got it; the padding holds.
“You’ll change it the second we’re back. ”
“Bossy,” he says, softer now, worn at the edges like something you keep in your pocket for luck. He braces a palm on the seatback as the driver fishtails and corrects. His other hand is a fist on his knee, tendons standing out. He’s not afraid of weather. He’s afraid of not controlling it.
The cab hits a pothole the size of a small lake. We jolt. I land a palm flat on his chest to catch myself. Heat and muscle and the thud of his heart slam into my hand like an answer to a question I’m not supposed to ask.
“Sorry,” I say, snatching back like I grabbed the wrong wire.
“Don’t be,” he says, voice lower, and for a second the only thing in the car is humidity and the memory of my palm on his sternum. The driver whistles at someone who cuts him off. The spell cracks; I rebuild.
“New rule,” I say, light as I can make it. “No conversations that start with remember when or end with what if.”