Chapter Two Mason Reed #2
“I’m trying to repair national relations.”
“With Billie?”
“With the team.”
“Sure.”
Mason pushed faster.
Theo kept up easily, which was annoying.
Near the boards, Harper lifted her phone and filmed.
Mason slowed. “Is she always recording?”
“Yes.”
“How do you live like this?”
“We stopped having secrets.”
Nate coasted past. “Speak for yourself. I have layers.”
Billie blew the whistle.
Everyone stopped.
Even Nate.
Interesting.
Billie stepped onto the ice in white skates, no helmet, tablet tucked under her arm. She moved easily. Too easily. Not like someone who used to skate a little. Like someone whose body still remembered old music.
Mason watched before he could stop himself.
She crossed the ice toward the under-twelves, ponytail swinging, posture brisk and confident. The kids straightened when she arrived. The Blades players did too, which told Mason more than any job title could have.
Billie Hartley might manage the rink.
She also ran the room.
Even when the room was frozen.
“Gather up,” she called.
The team circled.
Mason glided in last, because he had the survival instinct not to stand too close while she held a whistle.
Billie looked at the kids. “As you know, Mr. Reed said something foolish.”
A small girl with pink skate guards raised her hand.
Billie nodded. “Yes, Isla?”
“Was it foolish because he was wrong or because he got caught?”
The Blades players lost it.
Mason closed his eyes.
Billie, to her credit, only blinked once.
“Both,” she said.
“Good answer,” Isla said.
Billie turned to Mason. “Mr. Reed?”
He looked at the line of kids.
Max still held the sign.
Mason had apologised in front of cameras before. To reporters. Coaches. Fans. A general manager who had told him disappointment was part of the business while sliding a contract termination across a desk.
This should have been easier.
It was not.
Maybe because the kids were looking at him like hockey still meant something simple.
Maybe because Billie stood beside them like a guard dog in a pleated skirt.
Maybe because he was tired of hearing his own voice say polished things that did not cost him enough.
He took off his gloves.
A few of the kids noticed.
So did Billie.
“I was wrong,” Mason said.
The rink went quiet.
Not silent. Rinks were never silent. There was always the hum of refrigeration, the scrape of a blade, the distant clatter of someone dropping something they would pretend was already broken.
But the circle quieted.
“I made a joke before I knew what I was talking about,” Mason said. “That was lazy. Worse, it was disrespectful. I’m new here, and instead of showing up ready to learn, I showed up thinking I already knew enough to be funny.”
Max lowered the sign a fraction.
Mason kept going.
“I’ve played in a lot of places. Big arenas. Small barns. Places with sold-out crowds and places where you can hear one guy yelling at the ref from the car park. But hockey is serious wherever people love it enough to keep showing up. From what I’ve seen this morning, you all show up.”
Billie’s face changed.
Only a little.
But he saw it.
“I owe the Blades an apology,” Mason said. “I owe this rink one. And I owe Australian hockey the respect of learning before I run my mouth again.”
Nate whispered, “Growth.”
Theo elbowed him.
Mason looked at Max. “How was that?”
Max considered. “Medium.”
“Medium?”
“You didn’t mention the kangaroo.”
“I should have mentioned the kangaroo.”
“Obviously.”
Mason nodded solemnly. “I apologise to the kangaroo.”
Max lifted the sign again. “Accepted on probation.”
A laugh broke through the group.
This time, Billie laughed too.
Not much.
Not loudly.
But enough that Mason’s chest did something ridiculous.
He told the ridiculous thing to calm down.
It did not.
Harper filmed the whole thing.
Of course she did.
Welcome skate turned into a skills clinic because Billie apparently believed no public embarrassment was complete without edgework.
Mason had expected to coast through it.
That was his first mistake.
His second mistake was assuming children with Australian accents were less ruthless than Canadian ones.
They were not.
“Your left turn is dodgy,” Isla told him after ten minutes.
Mason looked down at her. “My left turn is what?”
“Dodgy.”
“It’s recovering from a knee injury.”
“It should recover faster.”
“Isla,” Billie said from behind them.
“What? You said honesty builds athletes.”
Billie pressed her lips together.
Mason pointed at the child. “She’s right. It is dodgy.”
Isla nodded. “I know.”
By the time the clinic ended, Mason was sweating through his shirt, his knee was irritated, and six children had told him his stickhandling was “pretty good for a podcast guy.”
Billie made notes the entire time.
When the kids left the ice, she skated over and stopped in front of him with a spray of shaved ice sharp enough to hit his skates.
“Show-off,” he said.
“Accurate stopper,” she corrected.
“You used to compete.”
Her expression shuttered.
Not completely.
But enough.
“Used to,” she said.
There was a boundary there.
Mason saw it.
More importantly, he did not step on it.
“Good edges,” he said instead.
Her eyes narrowed, but differently this time. Less defensive. More curious.
“Careful, Reed. That almost sounded like respect.”
“I’m told I need some.”
“You need a lot.”
“I have thirty days.”
“Twenty-nine and a half.”
“Ruthless.”
“Efficient.”
A puck slid between them.
Neither moved.
Mason looked down at it. “Is this a test?”
“Everything is a test.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“You get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
Billie’s gaze flicked up.
For a moment, the banter slipped, and something quieter stood between them on the ice.
He had not meant to say it like that.
Or maybe he had.
Maybe the flight, the clip, the kids, the knee, the rink, the woman watching him like she could see through every practiced version of him had knocked something loose.
Billie looked at him for a second too long.
Then she tapped the puck with her stick.
“Three shots,” she said.
“At what?”
She pointed to the far net.
A row of training targets hung across it, small round circles clipped to the corners.
“You hit two, I upgrade your apology from medium to acceptable.”
“And if I miss?”
“Max gets to run your next interview.”
Mason glanced toward the lobby, where Max was pressing the kangaroo sign against the glass.
Max waved.
Mason looked back at Billie. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“I run a rink in Sydney. Bargains are how we stay alive.”
There it was again.
The flash under the joke.
The pressure. The fatigue. The love.
He understood pressure. He understood dragging a body through a day because too many people were watching to let it fail.
He took the puck.
“Two out of three?”
“Unless Australian hockey is too serious for you.”
Mason smiled.
Hers answered before she could stop it.
There.
Third almost-smile.
Maybe half a real one.
He skated back, lined up, and took the first shot.
Top left.
Ping.
Target dropped.
The kids outside the glass yelled.
Billie’s eyebrows lifted.
“Lucky,” she said.
“Obviously.”
Second shot.
His knee pinched on the weight transfer.
The puck went wide.
Billie saw the hitch.
Again.
She did not comment.
Again.
He appreciated that.
Again.
Third shot.
He adjusted. Less power. Cleaner release. No show. Just the shot.
Bottom right.
Ping.
The target snapped loose and hit the ice.
The kids erupted.
Nate banged his stick against the boards. “Podcast guy lives!”
Mason turned back to Billie.
She skated toward him, expression unreadable.
“Acceptable?” he asked.
“Barely.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You’ll have to do better.”
“I usually do.”
“That confidence is exactly why people want you humbled.”
Mason leaned lightly on his stick. “And you?”
Billie tilted her head. “What about me?”
“Do you want me humbled?”
The rink noise seemed to thin around them.
Bad question.
Good question.
The kind of question that stepped closer than it should and waited to see if she moved back.
Billie did not move back.
She lifted her chin.
“I want you useful.”
He laughed softly. “That’s cold.”
“No. Cold is what happens when the compressor finally dies because everyone is too busy filming your apology arc to help me keep this place standing.”
His smile faded.
There it was.
The real problem under the viral problem.
Mason looked at the ice. The kids. The boards. The Blades logo. The woman who had turned his mistake into a bet because she needed eyes, sponsors, bodies in seats, people caring enough to show up.
“You need money,” he said.
Billie’s expression went still. “Everyone needs money.”
“No. This place needs money.”
She looked away.
Just once.
It was enough.
Mason knew a bad knee. Knew a bad contract. Knew the exact kind of silence that happened when people were trying to decide whether love was enough to keep a thing alive.
“Billie.”
“We’re done here.”
He let her turn.
For about three seconds.
Then he said, “Put me to work.”
She stopped.
Slowly, she looked back over her shoulder. “That was already the plan.”
“No. Really. Not just Harper’s content circus. Not just apology videos. Whatever needs doing.”
“You don’t know what you’re offering.”
“I know.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“I’m serious.”
Her eyes searched his face like she expected to find the joke hiding there.
For once, there wasn’t one.
Mason swallowed.
He hated the next sentence before he said it, which usually meant it was honest.
“I know what it’s like to need people to believe something still has a future.”
Billie’s face changed.
Not soft.
Never soft.
But the sharpness shifted.
Less blade.
More attention.
Before she could answer, the main doors opened and Mark Delaney strode in with a man in a pale linen jacket, a camera crew, and the expression of someone who had brought trouble wrapped in opportunity.