Chapter 32 #2
“I mean the circus that married me,” I return, and let myself grin back. “We’re not comping them tickets anymore.”
He exhales through his nose, the closest he gets to a laugh when he’s not in a bar. “Fine. First bird home, cap the scrum, Thursday at four you’re off the grid. But if you’re on the sheet, you’re on the sheet. No half-measures.”
“Full measures,” I say. “Then I go home.”
He slaps the board once, decision sealed. “Tell the room you’re buying the rookie dinner on the road,” he adds, already halfway to the door. “If you’re going to be a leader, be a generous one.”
“Copy,” I say, and he’s gone.
I stand there a second with the dryers roaring and the pen mark rectangle staring at me like a map I get to redraw. It isn’t rebellion. It’s a route. I text Julia CAP SCRUM 10 MIN. NO EXCLUSIVES. THU 4P HARD OUT, then Riley Coach signed off on boundaries. I’ll be there for the appointment.
Her typing bubble appears before I pocket the phone. Knew you would. Proud of you. A photo follows—our kid asleep with one hand flung over their head like a tiny goalie who just made a save.
I let the picture hit and do its work. Lines on the calendar. Lines on the ice. I skate both.
The email lands before I’m out of the parking lot—a PDF that smells like lawyers even through glass. SUBJECT: Draft—Staff/Player Relationship Protections (Rev 3). I forward it to Julia with Call me. She does before the whoosh finishes.
“Reading,” she says, keys clacking in the background like rain. “Initial take: it’s pretty, it’s vague, it’s useless unless you’re a plaque on a wall. Where are you?”
“Truck,” I say, heater on, sweat still drying cold along my spine. “Hit me.”
She exhales. “They’ve got ‘protections’ but no enforcement. Reporting process is a suggestion, not a pipeline. Retaliation language is soft enough to sleep on. We need deadlines, consequences, and a human being who isn’t on the owner’s payroll collecting complaints.”
“Let’s write it,” I say, and we do, talking in bullets like a pair of people who’ve learned the hard way that clarity is mercy.
Section 1—Scope. Julia: “Define relationships broadly so no one gets cute with labels.” Me: “Include dating, engagement, cohabitation, pregnancy, parenting. If it’s real life, it’s covered.”
Section 2—Reporting. Julia: “Two lanes: confidential hotline to a third-party firm and a direct line to league compliance. Both timestamped, both tracked.” Me: “Allow anonymous reports, but give an option for named with anti-retaliation guarantees.”
Section 3—Anti-Retaliation. Julia: “Teeth. Automatic review if a staffer’s duties or schedule shift within thirty days of a report.
Burden on the team to prove legitimate business need.
” Me: “List examples: schedule changes, credential pulls, demotions, social media gag orders masquerading as policy.”
Section 4—Investigations. Julia: “Thirty days max from report to findings unless extended by mutual agreement. Interim measures that don’t punish the reporter.” Me: “Written outcomes. Action items. Not just ‘thanks for your bravery.’”
Section 5—Penalties. Julia: “Fines to the organization if retaliation is substantiated. Mandatory training that isn’t a slideshow. Repeat offenders lose draft considerations.” I grin into my steering wheel. “You came armed.”
“Always,” she says. “Section 6—Transparency.”
I nod even though she can’t see it. “Aggregate reports published quarterly—numbers only, no names, so everyone knows the system exists and isn’t a black hole.”
Section 7—Boundaries. We keep it simple: disclosure is optional, not required; no blanket bans on staff/player relationships; case-by-case conflict-of-interest plans written with the staffer’s consent. “No moral policing,” Julia says, and I feel my jaw unclench.
She sends our redlines back with a subject line that would make Nolan’s counsel sigh: REV 3 WITH ACTUAL TEETH.
We don’t have to wait long. My phone buzzes with a conference call request. I accept.
Julia’s already on, cheerful like a person who enjoys a polite duel. Counsel joins with a throat-clear.
“Appreciate the passion,” he says, which is lawyer for you’re difficult. “Some of these provisions are…robust.”
“Robust is good,” Julia says pleasantly. “Fragile gets people harmed.”
“We can agree to third-party intake,” he offers. “But fines are excessive.”
“Excessive is a sponsor pulling a campaign because a staffer was hung out to dry,” I say. “This is insurance.”
A pause crackles. “Draft considerations are off the table.”
“Then bump fines and make training real,” Julia counters. “Live sessions, attendance tracked, leaders present. Add a non-disparagement clause that runs both ways.”
I slide my thumb over the wheel seam, thinking about Riley’s face when the badge light flashed red. “And enforcement,” I add. “If someone’s credentials get yanked, a compliance officer signs the form with a sentence stating why. Paper trail, not whispers.”
Counsel sighs the sigh of a man with a calendar. “Send the revised language. I’ll take it upstairs.”
“It’s in your inbox,” Julia says, already ten steps ahead. The call clicks off.
Silence. Then my phone dings—a one-line reply from Nolan himself: If Maddox is signing this, it had better hold. Get it done.
I forward the chain to Riley with Working the teeth in. Home soon. She sends back a photo of Oliver asleep, fist to cheek, and three words that hit harder than any endorsement: Proud of us.
I put the truck in drive. Paper won’t save us, but good paper stops some knives. We’re making this one thick.
Home smells like coffee gone warm and the citrus cleaner Riley pretends isn’t industrial strength.
She’s at the kitchen island in a milk-stained tee and pajama shorts, laptop open to a board email that would make most people cry.
Her posture is all boardroom spine, her smile is sleep-soft.
Oliver is draped across her forearm like an elegant loaf of bread, cheek stuck to her skin in a way that redefines adhesive.
“Hey,” she says without looking up, fingers flying. “Remind me to tell the foundation chair that ‘synergy’ is not a plan.” She hits send, closes the laptop, and finally gives me the kind of once-over that checks for both bruises and bullshit. “How were legs?”
“Heavy. Head clear,” I report, dropping my bag. I pull the pack of wipes from the diaper caddy like I’m about to perform a magic trick and realize the top feels…light. I check the drawer. Empty. The shelf. Empty. My stomach does the kind of slow roll usually reserved for late penalties.
“Say it,” Riley prompts, already amused.
“I forgot diapers,” I confess, hands up. “I got pucks on net and failed the only metric that matters.”
She snorts, delighted, not cruel. “You are a menace to logistics.” Oliver hiccups like he agrees.
Riley pats their back with two fingers and an efficiency that belongs in textbooks.
“It’s fine. Sophie dropped a pack in the hall closet last night.
Front left behind the toolbox you swear you’ll mount. ”
I jog to the closet, retrieve salvation, and return humble. “I like to keep the toolbox low to symbolize accessibility,” I say, ripping the diaper pack open with my teeth like a barbarian. “I apologize to the wall for not respecting its potential.”
Riley shakes her head, half fond, half please don’t eat Oliver’s supplies. “You can mount it after you nap.” She slides Oliver into my arms with a handoff we’re both getting beautiful at, and my chest does that unclench it only does for eight pounds and change.
“Hi,” I tell the tiny supervisor. “Your dad made a tactical error in procurement.” Oliver blinks at me with the unimpressed grace of a monarch. I am appropriately chastened.
Riley leans against the island, watching us like we’re a show she doesn’t want to binge because savoring exists. “Thank you for saying it out loud,” she says. “Helps me not keep a tally.”
“I’m retiring from the league of unspoken resentments,” I say. “Effective immediately.” I look at her. “I’m sorry. I should’ve checked the stash.”
She waves it off with a small, precise flick.
“You skated hard, you brought back a sharper policy and a clean pass to Moose, and you remembered your stick on the second try. We’re ahead.
” She pushes the hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “I forgot to eat lunch and answered an email that could’ve waited. We start over now.”
“Reset,” I echo. The word feels like stepping back over the blue line on purpose. I tuck Oliver into the crook of one arm, wipe their chin with the other, and reach for Riley. She steps in, hip to hip, head under my chin, one hand flattening at my spine in a way that makes my brain go quiet.
“No scorekeeping,” she says into my hoodie.
“Just hockey,” I say, and she huffs a laugh into my chest.
We stand there for a minute, the three of us in the triangle of island, sink, and human, breathing like it’s a sport we trained for. Then practical life taps our shoulder.
“Sign it?” she asks, nodding at the printout Julia sent of the revised protections, now thick with redlines and signatures. “If you still mean it.”
“I mean it,” I say. I lay the baby in the bassinet, kiss Riley’s temple—always—and pick up the pen. Ink on paper. Not romance, just reinforcement.
When I’m done, we look at each other and then at Oliver and then at the stupidly domestic disaster of our counter. It’s not pretty. It’s partnership. I’ll take it.
The pen scratches my name across the last line with a sound that feels like closing a door gently but firmly. I slide the packet back to Riley; she adds her initials where counsel asked for acknowledgment, because she’s not just the reason this exists, she’s a partner in how it works.
“Julia wants a photo of the signature page for the file,” I say, holding it up. “No socials.”
“No socials,” she echoes. “And while we’re here—comments?”