Chapter 24
Baring It All
Jason
I flip the deadbolt like I’m sealing a locker room after a bad period—one hard click that says we keep what’s ours.
The curtain fights me; I drag it anyway until no light leaks at the edges.
The living room goes gray, then calmer. Rain needles the sill.
The fridge hums like white noise in a quiet rink.
I take Riley’s hand—cold, shaking despite the brave set of her mouth—and guide her into the kitchen where the under-cabinet light throws a warm stripe across the counter.
Small room. Small world. That’s what we need.
She perches on the stool like it might skate out from under her. I set a glass on the counter. Water, not whiskey. I’m done with choices that ask her to forget.
“Drink,” I say, soft. I’m not the guy who orders her around; I am the guy who steadies. She takes a sip and the tremor slows a notch. My pulse begins to believe it can do its job without punching holes in my ribs.
“Five minutes at a time,” I remind us both. “This five is just breathing.”
Riley nods, ponytail damp at the ends, eyes still storm-bright. I want to take the whole night apart with my hands and rebuild it into something that won’t cut her when she touches it. I settle for the things I can control: locks, light, the distance between her and the window.
“You good to sit?” I ask.
“I’m good to not run,” she says, and the honesty punches something tender and unguarded in me. She curls a hand over her midline like instinct, not performance. I watch that hand and know a new definition of the word vow.
I circle the island to stand close enough that if she falls, she falls into me. “They don’t get in,” I say. It’s not a line. It’s a fact I intend to enforce with my body if I have to.
She studies my face, cataloging tells I don’t bother hiding from her. “You look like you want to fight a building,” she says, voice small and wry.
“I want to fight everything that made you afraid in your own apartment,” I admit. “Short of that, I’m going to make this kitchen the safest place in the city.”
Her mouth twitches at the corner. The first crack in the ice. I put my palm on the counter, close enough to touch but not crowding. “Tell me if I’m too much.”
“You’re the right amount,” she says, and I have to breathe through the sting in my throat. The right amount. No one’s ever asked me to be that; they just asked for wins.
Streetlight slants across the sink and turns the drops on her hair into sparks. She looks at me like she’s deciding if I can carry this, if I’ll set it down when it gets heavy. I don’t look away.
“We start small,” I say. “Make the bubble. Then the plan.”
Her green eyes soften a shade. “The bubble,” she repeats, like she’s trying on the shape of safety.
“Yeah.” I reach past her to turn on the vent fan—more white noise, less of the world. “It’s just us in here. No league. No owner. No cameras. No one gets a vote but us.”
She exhales. It’s quieter than a goal horn and more important. “Okay.” She taps a finger against the counter, a beat finding itself. “Then for this five minutes, we don’t talk about them.”
“Deal,” I say, and lean my hip against the island, close enough for her knee to touch mine. Her shoulders drop a fraction. The room shrinks to breath and rain and the low thrum of a future I’m not letting anyone else write for us.
The bubble holds. Time starts to obey. I slide my phone onto the counter face down and nudge it away like a puck I don’t trust not to deflect wrong. “Okay,” I say. “Breathing’s working. Next five: logistics. We build the skeleton so the heart has somewhere to beat.”
Riley’s mouth quirks. “That’s a horrifying medical metaphor.”
“Then you do the metaphors. I’ll do the lists.” I pull a notepad from the junk drawer—goalie masks, spare batteries, a pen that still works—and click it open. The sound is stupidly satisfying. “Doctors first.”
She twists her water glass, watching the slice of lemon bump the side. “My GP can refer me to an OB. I want someone who isn’t connected to the team. I need privacy more than a fancy waiting room.”
“Independent clinic,” I repeat, writing it down. “We’ll get recommendations from Sophie, maybe Dr. Adams off the record.”
“Adams will keep it quiet,” she says, then hesitates. “I hate asking him to keep anything. It puts him in a spot.”
“I’ll ask.” She opens her mouth to argue; I shake my head. “I’m the one the league tries to bully. Let them try me. Not you.”
Her fingers stay on the glass, but her shoulders loosen. “Okay. Prenatal schedule—first appointment as soon as they can take me, basic labs. I want to read everything before I let anyone draw blood or order a scan I don’t understand.”
“Read everything,” I echo, and the idea that we’re studying for this together makes something warm take root behind my ribs. “We’ll block time on our calendars. I’ll move practice if I have to.”
“You can’t move practice,” she says automatically, trainer-brain kicking in even now. “But you can…tell me when you can be there, and I’ll schedule around it. We’ll pick appointments that don’t make us look like we’re hiding.” She grimaces. “God, I hate that sentence.”
“We’re not hiding.” I jot visibility on our terms. “We’re choosing.”
She nods, small, grateful. “HR policy.” The words taste bad enough that even I can hear it. “There’s a section on staff-player relationships. It’s vague. On purpose.”
“Julia can get the language; my lawyer can translate it into what they can and can’t actually do,” I say. “I want retaliation spelled out. I want a line between your job performance and your personal life that no one can pretend is blurry.”
Her eyes catch mine and hold. “You’re not afraid of what this costs you?”
“Terrified,” I say, because I promised her no more performance. “But the cost of not doing it is losing you. That’s not an option.”
Silence. Not empty—full. She reaches, slow like she’s testing ice, and hooks one finger in the belt loop of my jeans. It’s nothing. It’s everything. “Feelings now,” she says, voice barely above the hum of the vent. “You said skeleton. We should make sure the heart fits.”
I set the pen down.
“I’m scared,” I admit. “Of failing you. Of being the headline you have to survive. Of getting this wrong and you paying for it.” The words come easier than I expect, like they’ve been forming behind my teeth for years.
“I’m also…happy. In a way I don’t trust yet.
Like when you’re down two and you can feel the shift coming, and if you say it out loud you’ll jinx it. ”
Her smile is small and crooked and real. “I’m scared of disappearing into this,” she says. “Into you. I’m scared of people deciding what kind of woman I am because I fell for the guy who sells jerseys.” She swallows. “But I’m not scared of you.”
That lands in my chest like a clean pass. I grip the counter to keep from reaching for her too hard. “I won’t let you disappear,” I say. “If anything, I want the opposite. I want more of you everywhere. Your name in rooms that don’t start with a locker.”
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t look away. “Then the heart fits,” she says, a little wonder in it.
“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”
I tap the notepad. “Next five: calls. We loop in Julia and set terms.” The bubble thins at the edges; the kitchen feels smaller in a way I don’t like. “But we do it on speaker. Both of us or neither of us.”
Riley nods, steadying. “Both of us,” she says. “No more rooms you walk into alone.”
I flip my phone over and thumb open Julia’s contact. Riley watches my hands like they’re on a bomb. I hit speaker and set the phone on the island between us, equal distance like a neutral zone.
It rings once.
“Tell me you’re inside,” Julia answers, no hello, voice clipped, Manhattan at midnight. A keyboard clacks under her words. “And tell me you did not engage with the camera on your fire escape.”
“We’re inside,” I say. “No engagement.” I look at Riley; she nods, chin up. “You’re on speaker. Riley’s here.”
“Hi, Julia,” Riley says. Her voice is level, professional. It makes me want to stand up straighter.
There’s a beat—the half-second where Julia recalibrates.
“Riley. Okay. Good. Then let me be efficient.” Paper rustles.
“Headline number one is contained for the night, but chatter is accelerating. We need a thirty-six-hour plan. No statements. No comments. You both go dark, physically separate for optics. Jason stays in his building. Riley, you stay off team property until I’ve cleared language with HR.
We time any reveal for a Friday dump or a post-win high.
We control the visuals—no windows, no silhouettes, no—”
“No silhouettes?” I repeat, because if I don’t interrupt, I’m going to put my fist through the counter just to bleed off the pressure.
“It’s incredible what can be sold with a shadow, Jason.
” I can hear her pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Sponsors are skittish. One will pull creative if this escalates. I’ve got three journalists on ice who will stay there if you give them nothing.
That means distance. Silence. Controlled timing. ”
Riley’s fingers find that lemon slice again, rolling it against the glass. “You want me to not show up to work,” she says, steady.
“I want you to not give anyone an image they can use to make your life smaller,” Julia replies.
“Compliance is already sniffing around your device review. Let them come up empty. Meanwhile, I’ll draft two tracks: one if we get ahead of it, one if we bury it.
But the rule for both is the same—no public proximity. Not until we dictate terms.”
I stare at the phone like it can feel me glaring. “Dictate terms how?”