Chapter Three Billie Hartley #2
Harper clapped once. “Great. Media training. Then public skate. Then sponsor call prep. Then team practice. Then we get a positive local media segment by Friday, sell out the dinner, gain sixteen thousand more followers, and restore national pride.”
Coach Alby grunted. “And hockey?”
Harper smiled brightly. “Optional, apparently.”
Theo said, “Don’t say that near Billie.”
Billie pointed at him. “You’re my favourite today.”
Nate slapped a hand to his chest. “I’ve never felt more betrayed.”
“You logged into the official account and made strangers bet on my mouth.”
“Allegedly,” Nate said again, weaker this time.
Evie appeared from the skate room carrying two pairs of rental skates by the laces and wearing the expression of a woman who had seen horrors.
She was Billie’s cousin, younger by three years, sharper by ten, and currently dressed in the Harbour Ice staff hoodie she had stolen from lost property and refused to return.
“Good news,” Evie said. “The birthday group has arrived early.”
Billie checked the clock. “They’re forty minutes early.”
“Yes.”
“That is not good news.”
“They brought cupcakes.”
“That’s suspicious news.”
“They also brought twenty-four children.”
Billie stared at her.
Evie nodded gravely. “The cupcakes were a distraction.”
Harper whispered, “Content.”
Billie said, “No.”
Mason said, “I can help.”
Everyone looked at him.
He lifted both hands. “What? I said put me to work.”
Billie did not like the way those words landed in her chest. Simple. Steady. Almost unguarded.
She shoved a stack of rental forms into his hands.
“Congratulations,” she said. “Your first community service task is foot sizing.”
Mason looked down at the forms, then at the skate room, where shrieking children had begun multiplying like glitter in an air vent. “I played in a playoff game with two cracked ribs.”
“Lovely. A six-year-old with sugar and rental socks will humble you faster.”
Evie leaned toward him. “They smell fear.”
Mason straightened. “I smell leadership.”
Billie led the way toward the skate counter. “You smell like airport and regret.”
“That’s my second cologne.”
Behind them, Harper whispered loudly, “Do you see why the internet is doing this?”
“I heard that,” Billie said.
“You were meant to.”
The skate room was chaos in its purest and stickiest form.
Twenty-four children crowded the benches.
Parents hovered with coats, water bottles, bags, and expressions ranging from hopeful to already defeated.
The birthday girl wore a pink helmet with unicorn stickers and demanded “fast skates.” Her younger brother had one sock on his hand.
Someone was crying because their rental skate did not “feel like a cheetah.” Someone else was licking icing off a napkin and looking at the sharpening machine with interest.
Billie stepped into the middle of it and clapped once.
The room quieted.
Not completely, because children were not miracles, but enough.
“Right,” she said. “Everyone who wants to keep all their fingers today, hands out of the skate bins. Everyone who wants to skate faster, listen the first time. Everyone who thinks hockey is not serious can take that up with Max, who is currently armed with a sign and too much confidence.”
A parent laughed.
The birthday girl raised her hand. “Are you the boss?”
“Yes.”
“Of him too?” She pointed at Mason.
Billie glanced over.
Mason had paused at the doorway like a man entering a dragon’s cave without armour.
“Especially him,” Billie said.
Mason’s eyes warmed. “True.”
The birthday girl studied him. “Are you the rude hockey man?”
Evie made a delighted noise.
Harper’s phone rose.
Billie gave Harper a death stare.
Harper lowered it half an inch. Not enough.
Mason walked forward slowly and crouched to the birthday girl’s height. “I was rude, yeah.”
The child considered that. “Mum says rude boys don’t get cupcakes.”
Mason nodded with appropriate gravity. “Your mum sounds wise.”
“She is. She has a whistle in her handbag.”
“Powerful woman.”
“Are you sorry?”
Billie felt the room shift. Parents listening. Kids watching. Harper filming discreetly enough that Billie could pretend not to know. Evie suddenly still behind the counter.
Mason looked at the child, then at the rink visible through the scratched plexiglass window. His hand rested lightly on one knee, thumb near the brace.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry. I said something careless about a sport people here love. I didn’t know enough, and I acted like not knowing was a joke. That wasn’t fair.”
The birthday girl blinked. “That was a lot of words.”
“It was.”
“You can have half a cupcake.”
Mason smiled. “I’ll earn the other half.”
Billie’s heart did not squeeze.
That would be ridiculous.
It was probably low blood sugar.
The room moved again, this time with easier noise. Parents smiled. Kids started thrusting feet in the air. Mason took sizes with surprising patience, only once looking panicked when a child announced he was “definitely a seven” and then produced a foot the size of a bread roll.
Evie leaned beside Billie at the counter. “Well, that was inconveniently decent.”
“Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say handsome.”
“You thought it loudly.”
“I’m a private citizen.”
“You’re wearing rink property.”
Evie shrugged. “Possession is nine-tenths of uniform law.”
Across the counter, Mason handed a pair of skates to a small boy. “Try these, mate.”
The boy frowned. “Are you allowed to say mate?”
Mason glanced at Billie.
Billie lifted one shoulder. “Risky.”
Mason turned back. “I’m in training.”
The boy nodded. “Say rubbish.”
“Rubbish.”
“Good.”
Harper whispered, “International diplomacy via rental skates.”
Billie said, “Still no kiss captions.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were absolutely going to.”
“I had three alternatives.”
“Delete them.”
Harper sighed and tapped her screen. “You’re suffocating art.”
“I’m protecting sponsorship.”
“Same thing in different fonts.”
Coach Alby appeared in the doorway, took one look at Mason surrounded by children, and backed away.
Billie called, “Media training in five.”
Alby grimaced. “This is better.”
Mason looked up. “Coach, are you abandoning me?”
“Yes,” Alby said. “Character building.”
Then he disappeared.
Mason muttered, “Strong leadership culture here.”
Billie walked past him with a stack of helmets. “You wanted serious hockey.”
“I did.”
“You found it.”
“In a room full of cupcakes?”
“Hockey starts in rooms like this.”
That shut him up.
Only for a moment, but Billie noticed.
He looked around the skate room. At the mismatched helmets, the scuffed benches, the parents kneeling to tie laces, the kids wobbling with enormous hope. His expression changed again, away from performance. Away from charm.
Something quieter moved through his face.
Respect, maybe.
Or grief.
Billie hated that she wondered which.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it does.”
She handed him a helmet.
He took it, their fingers brushing for half a second.
The contact was nothing. Bare skin, warm hand, quick spark.
Billie snatched her hand back as if the helmet had overheated.
Mason’s eyes dropped to her fingers.
Then rose.
Neither of them said anything.
Which was inconvenient, because the silence was louder than Nate with a microphone.
Evie leaned over the counter. “Did the helmet just flirt?”
Billie turned. “You’re on mop duty.”
“Worth it.”
The public skate session should have been a manageable disaster.
Instead, it became a very successful disaster.
Within twenty minutes, the birthday party was on the ice, six parents had asked Mason for photos, three teenagers had recreated his viral podcast quote in front of him and made him apologise again, and Harper had posted a clean, sweet clip of the birthday girl granting him “half a cupcake forgiveness.”
The caption read:
LOCAL RINK JUSTICE: Mason Reed begins his thirty-day apology tour at Harbour Ice Centre. First verdict: half a cupcake.
Billie approved it because it was funny, useful, and did not imply her mouth would be involved in campaign metrics.
The internet approved it because the internet was easily bribed by humility and dimples.
By 11:08, the Blades had gained another two thousand followers.
By 11:16, Mason was holding the hand of a tiny skater in a dinosaur jumper who had declared, “I’m not falling, the ice is rude.”
By 11:21, Billie found herself smiling.
Unfortunately, Harper saw.
“I have evidence,” Harper said.
Billie stopped smiling. “You have nothing.”
“I have a soul.”
“You have cloud storage.”
“Same thing.”
Mason moved slowly around the rink with the dinosaur child, bending awkwardly because he was too tall for the job.
His brace was hidden under track pants now, but Billie still saw the caution in his movement.
He kept his weight controlled. Protected the left side without making the kid feel like a burden.
When a teenager zipped too close, Mason angled himself between the child and the speed, easy as instinct.
Protective.
Careful.
Billie did not want careful from him.
Careful was more dangerous than charm.
Charm could be dismissed. Careful could sneak past locked doors.
Her phone buzzed.
MARK DELANEY: Sponsor call in forty. Need Mason polished. Need Billie calm. Need Harper less Harper.
HARPER: I can see that.
MARK DELANEY: This is not a group chat.
HARPER: It is now.
BILLIE: I hate everyone.
NATE CALLOW: Allegedly.
Billie looked around the rink.
Nate was on the bench, grinning at his phone.
She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then at him.
Nate waved.
Another buzz came through.
MARK DELANEY: Also, Graham Vale’s office says he wants proof this isn’t just jokes. He wants community impact, revenue potential, and “brand rehabilitation.”
HARPER: Has he considered joy?
MARK DELANEY: He has considered pulling money.
The smile left Billie’s face.
There it was.
The cold part under the fun.