Chapter 22
Miscalculations
Jason
Edges bite, lungs burn. I skate until the rink blurs at the corners, as if speed could outrun the noise.
Ducks has us running punishment laps disguised as conditioning—goal line to blue, back to red, turn, again.
The boys grumble in a chorus; I keep quiet and push harder. Noise can’t catch a man who won’t stop.
Every pivot throws her silence back at me. Corner—Riley not answering. Straightaway—her later thinning to a thread. Turn—her voice last night in the dark, steady and small, it’s nothing, like a dam about to crack.
My wrist complains under the tape, scar tissue grinding like sand. I let it. Pain is a fence; I know how to skate the boards.
“Full stop!” Ducks’ whistle splits the cold. We line at the red, chests heaving steam. The rink smells like snow and new shavings, that clean metallic promise you only get from ice that’s been cut and made whole again.
Kitson leans on his stick, still catching breath. “You done being a headline?” he pants.
“Work in progress,” I say, pretending my lungs aren’t on fire.
Ducks chews the cigar he never lights. “Systems reset in ten,” he barks. “Special teams after. Heads on hockey—nothing else. Anyone who wants to be famous can buy a billboard.” The boys laugh because laughing is easier than bleeding.
We break to corners for drills. I run cycles with the second unit until my hands remember what they’re good for—receive, fake, dish.
Hunt, recover, rim. Yesterday, rhythm dulled the chatter.
Today the chatter finds cracks. She said we’d talk tonight.
Tonight is a continent away, and I’ve never been patient on long flights.
Whistle. Ducks corrals us mid-ice, scribbling a diagram that squeaks across the glass. “Last rep,” he says, eyes locking on me like a target. “Then showers. Then pretend we’re monks until puck drop.”
We run it clean. The puck kisses tape; the shot pings bar-in, that perfect metallic note that sounds like relief.
The horn blats for no reason, but the building feels like being loud.
I coast to the bench, palms on the boards, wrist throbbing in time with the scoreboard clock that’s still half a second slow. Breathing eases. The noise doesn’t.
I’m not outrunning anything. Just skating circles around something that won’t move.
The hallway outside the room is a wind tunnel of damp gear and muttered curses. I’ve got one glove off and a helmet line on my forehead when Julia intercepts like a veteran defenseman—angled body, tablet in hand, eyes sharp.
“Walk,” she orders. I follow; fighting her in public is a luxury we can’t afford.
She pulls me into the video room. The projector hums to life—TIMELINE — SOURCED MATERIAL—a wall of thumbnails: me in tunnels, hotel lobbies, shadows. Riley’s ponytail caught like evidence.
“They’ve got a deck,” Julia says flatly. “Bench-side clip, your hand near her elbow. Elevator still, timestamped too close. Same night, lobby shot. They’re packaging rumor like proof.”
Next slide. A red bar snakes across a calendar. “They grafted the old training-room photo—year one—onto this. You, taped wrist. Her laughing. They’re calling it years-long entanglement.”
I taste metal. “Sounds like a bad album.”
“They’re not selling records. They’re selling doubt.” She flicks again: sponsor logos, bullet points, numbers that look like blood pressure. “Fines up to two-fifty. Morals clauses. Clawbacks. League watching. Nolan calculating.”
Julia exhales through her nose. “Abstract just went lethal. I’ve got counsel drafting a protocol memo thick enough to stop a bullet, but if they get one cleaner shot—”
“They don’t have one.”
“They don’t need one. Just enough blur to fill a chyron.” She kills the projector; the room exhales. “Tell me you’re not going to hand them something because your chest hurts.”
I rub my taped wrist until the ache steadies. “I’m not giving them anything,” I say. “But I’m done letting other people write the story.”
She looks half proud, half terrified. “Coach called a media blackout. No quotes until after morning skate.”
“I’ll honor hockey,” I answer. “But I’m not letting them turn competence into scandal.”
Julia’s smile is quick and pained. “Fine. We’ll keep saying her name next to competence until the algorithm gets bored.” Her phone vibrates. “Coach wants you in the room. And, Jason—no heroics.”
Ducks’ voice hits the hall before I do. “Phones down, mouths shut. Media blackout. If I see a camera light and your lips moving, you’re bag-skating in the lot.”
The room erupts in nervous laughter. Helmets thunk. The air smells like sweat and detergent and something that could break.
“Especially you, Maddox,” Ducks growls. “You’ve said enough.”
“Copy.” My phone burns in my pocket like a grenade. I lace, unlace, re-lace. Julia sidles close, whispering, “Say blackout back to me.”
“Blackout,” I echo. Then, quieter, “for now.”
Her brow lifts. “Define for now so I can plan my heart attack.”
“I’ll wear the boring hoodie, use your paper, say your words. But I’m not staying silent forever.”
She sighs. “Just pick your moments.”
“Tonight’s mine,” I tell her, and the certainty calms me. “I’m going to her.”
Julia exhales. “Then go quiet till you’re at her door. Side exit. Hood up. If a lens finds you, it’s because it learned to climb.”
The blackout lasts twenty-three minutes.
I make it through a shower, a chalky protein shake, and one shoe before my phone buzzes through Do Not Disturb.
DM (requests): Riley’s hiding something. Urgent.
No handle, no avatar—just a gray egg. I don’t open it, but the seed of doubt still finds a crack. I delete it before it roots. Trust isn’t blind; it’s a decision I’ll keep making until it’s muscle memory.
Side exit. Hood up. Julia’s voice echoes in my head: eyes down, don’t be interesting. The alley smells like wet cardboard. A click-whirr bites the air—a camera. I don’t look up. Rain becomes my curtain.
By the time I hit the street, traffic is a low growl. I grip the wheel too tight, breathing to the wipers’ rhythm. I saw something I shouldn’t have seen isn’t the opener I want. Are you okay? is the only one that matters.
A sedan lingers two cars back, bumper dent familiar from practice lots. Maybe nothing. Maybe a freelancer with rent due. I change lanes; it hesitates, peels off. The knot in my chest stays.
Riley’s block rises out of the gray. I park a street over—hood up, hands deep, anonymity my best defense. If a lens catches me, fine. They don’t get her.
The building’s awning sighs under rain. I take the stairs—never the elevator when I need control. Second flight, third. My breath evens. My pulse doesn’t.
At her floor, I slow. Low voices echo down the stairwell—too smooth, too patient. Then I see the telltale foam of a boom mic dip low.
My phone buzzes. UNKNOWN: We’re live in 5.
I keep walking.
The corridor outside her door smells like damp carpet and somebody’s over-zealous diffuser. Light spills under the door, a narrow line like a heartbeat. I raise my hand, pause. Once I knock, I can’t take it back.
A shadow shifts at the far end of the hall—sneakers, a boom mic’s tail. They’re tucked by the stairwell, waiting to sell our next breath to people who don’t know us.
My phone buzzes again: UNKNOWN: We’re live in 5. Same outlet, same vulture rhythm.
I don’t retreat. I turn my shoulders, blocking the lens’s line of sight. If they want a picture, they get me, not her.
I knock.
The sound carries farther than it should, looping down the hall. I imagine it hitting the boom like a cue.
“Riley,” I say, low enough that only the door can hear. “It’s me.”
Nothing. Then the mic dips lower. The air waits. I knock again, softer. “We can tell them to leave,” I add. “Or wait them out. Or I’ll go. Just—answer, and you decide.”
The knob doesn’t move. The light stays steady. The shadow at the stairs shifts, hungry.
My phone buzzes once more: UNKNOWN: We’re live in 3. Comment or we run what we have. I plant my feet on the carpet that smells like lemon and rain and make myself into a wall.