Chapter Four Mason Reed #2
Billie’s face stayed cool. “The Blades run sessions for women and girls who want more ice time, coaching, and pathways. You’re attending, listening, helping where asked, and not making yourself the centre of it.”
Mason nodded once. “Good.”
She looked surprised.
He hated that she looked surprised.
“I mean it,” he said. “Good. I’d like to help.”
Her expression shifted again, that small guarded movement he was starting to recognise. Billie expected people to resist work that did not spotlight them. Or maybe men like him had taught her to expect it.
Mason had been a lot of things.
He did not want to be another reason she braced.
“Also,” she said, flipping to the next page, “media training.”
He winced. “Is that mandatory?”
Harper said, “You compared your apology to a cologne ad earlier, so yes.”
“I did not.”
Billie lifted one brow.
“I implied,” Mason corrected.
Alby grunted. “Close enough.”
Billie handed him another sheet.
This one had two columns.
SAFE ANSWERS.
DANGEROUS ANSWERS.
Mason scanned the dangerous side.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “I wouldn’t say half of these.”
Billie folded her arms. “You said the one sentence that got us here.”
“That’s fair.”
Nate leaned over. “‘At least it’s not real winter hockey.’ Mason, mate, never say that unless you want an entire rink to fight you with rental skates.”
Mason looked at him. “Why would I say that?”
“You have the face of a man who might.”
Evie offered Mason a cupcake. “This is from the half you earned.”
Mason took it carefully. “Thank you.”
“It may have been licked by a child.”
He froze.
Evie’s mouth twitched. “Kidding.”
Billie said, “She’s probably kidding.”
Mason looked at the cupcake, then ate it anyway.
Nate applauded. “Bravery.”
Theo shook his head. “Desperation.”
Mason swallowed. “Worth it.”
For a second, everyone laughed.
Even Billie.
Not much. Just a quick, unwilling break in the armour.
But Mason saw it.
He felt it.
And he was in trouble.
Not internet trouble. Not career trouble. Not sponsor-call trouble.
Something quieter. More dangerous. The kind where a man told himself he admired a woman’s competence, and then somehow found himself memorising the exact sound she made when she tried not to laugh.
Billie clapped the marker cap back on. “Practice in fifteen. Mason, Sophie first.”
He saluted with the cupcake. “Yes, boss.”
Her gaze dropped to the cupcake. “Do not get icing on the training room table.”
“I’m a professional athlete.”
“You are holding evidence against that claim.”
She turned to leave.
Mason followed before he could think better of it.
Which was apparently becoming a theme.
The hallway outside the locker room was narrow, colder than the skate room, and lined with old team photos.
Mason caught glimpses as he walked behind Billie.
Youth teams from years back. Women’s sessions.
Blades rosters. Fundraiser nights. Kids with gap-toothed smiles and oversized jerseys.
A younger Billie stood in one photo near the rink boards wearing figure skates and a blue competition jacket, hair pulled back, chin lifted.
He slowed.
Billie noticed immediately.
Of course she did.
“Do not,” she said without turning.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You looked.”
“I have eyes.”
“Use them elsewhere.”
He looked again anyway.
She was younger in the photo. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. Focused. Fierce. The kind of girl who looked like she would land the jump or break the ice trying.
“You competed seriously,” he said.
Billie stopped walking.
Mason knew instantly he had stepped wrong.
The hallway seemed to tighten around them. Noise from the rink faded behind the glass door. Billie’s shoulders stayed squared, but he saw the tension climb up her neck.
“I used to skate,” she said.
“That’s not the same answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
He should have left it there.
He almost did.
But the photo had caught him somewhere sore. The look on her face. The past tense. The way she stood now as if every soft thing had been packed away in labelled boxes and shoved onto a high shelf.
He understood that too well.
“I get it,” he said. “Some things hurt to talk about.”
She turned then.
Her eyes were sharp enough to cut through bone. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
For once, he did not smile.
Billie studied him.
He let her.
He had spent so long managing what people saw. Flash enough charm, and nobody asked about fear. Give a clean answer, and nobody pressed the bruise. Say you were fine enough times, and sometimes even you believed it for five seconds.
Billie looked like she knew the game.
She also looked like she hated him for knowing it too.
“What happened to your knee?” she asked.
There it was.
Not gentle.
Not prying exactly.
A trade.
A blade laid flat on the table.
Mason glanced toward the training room door. “Hit. Bad angle. Worse recovery. Then I came back too early because I thought relevance had an expiration date.”
Her expression changed.
Not pity.
Thank God.
Understanding, maybe.
“That why you’re here?”
“Partly.”
“And the other part?”
He looked at the old photo again. Young Billie, all fire and edges.
“The other part is that Sydney was supposed to be a place nobody cared enough to watch me fail.”
Billie went very still.
The confession sat between them, ugly and honest.
Mason wished he could pull it back, dress it up, make it sound less pathetic. He had meant to say something cooler. Something controlled. Something about opportunity, team culture, global hockey, fresh starts.
Instead, the truth had slipped out in a rink hallway to a woman who noticed everything.
Billie’s voice softened by a millimetre. “Bad plan.”
He laughed once, without much humour. “Clearly.”
“Australians love an underdog, but we love heckling a cocky man more.”
“I’m learning.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are.”
The words felt like approval.
Not much. But enough to make him stupid.
He looked at her. “What happened to skating?”
Her eyes shuttered.
So fast.
Too fast.
“Training room,” she said.
“Billie.”
“Do not spend your second day in the country trying to open doors that are locked for a reason.”
Second day.
He nearly corrected her and said first, technically.
Some deep survival instinct stopped him.
Instead, he nodded. “Okay.”
She seemed surprised by that too.
Maybe everyone pushed her.
Maybe everyone thought if Billie could carry hard things, she owed them the story of why.
Mason knew better.
He followed her to the training room in silence.
Sophie Chen was waiting inside with a tablet, a roll of athletic tape, and the kind of calm expression that suggested she had already decided everyone in the building was lying about pain levels.
“Sit,” she told Mason.
He sat.
Sophie looked at Billie. “You hovering?”
Billie’s eyebrows rose. “I do not hover.”
Sophie gave her a look.
Billie held up both hands. “Fine. I’m standing nearby with operational concern.”
“Hovering,” Sophie said.
Mason bit back a smile.
Billie pointed at him. “You don’t get to enjoy this.”
“I’m in pain.”
“Convenient.”
Sophie crouched in front of him and began checking range of motion. Mason kept his face neutral because old habits were stupidly loyal.
Sophie noticed anyway.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Pretend it doesn’t hurt. I’m not a journalist.”
Billie made a small sound of agreement from the doorway.
Mason looked between them. “Is this a team-wide personality trait? Seeing through me?”
Sophie adjusted his knee gently. “You’re not that opaque.”
Billie said, “You’re practically glass with hair product.”
“I used very little today.”
“Your restraint inspires us all.”
Sophie pressed along the side of his knee.
Pain flashed white.
Mason’s hand gripped the edge of the table.
Billie moved one step before stopping herself.
He saw it.
She saw that he saw it.
Her jaw tightened.
Sophie glanced up, missing nothing. “Practice is modified. No full contact. No hard pivots on the left. No hero skating.”
Mason exhaled. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Sophie leaned back. “Mason.”
He met her gaze.
“If you want a long career, stop treating today like proof you still have one.”
The room went too quiet.
Billie looked away first.
Mason stared at the floor.
There were a lot of things a man could joke his way around.
That was not one of them.
“I hear you,” he said.
Sophie nodded. “Good. I’ll tape it.”
Billie’s phone buzzed. She checked it, then muttered something under her breath that sounded like a very Australian prayer for patience.
“What now?” Mason asked.
She looked at him. “Your agent called Mark.”
Mason closed his eyes. “Of course he did.”
“He wants you out of the shootout.”
Mason’s eyes opened.
Billie’s expression was careful now. Too careful.
“He says it risks your knee, your contract position, and your North American return prospects.”
Return prospects.
The words hit harder than they should have.
Because that was the point, wasn’t it? Sydney was supposed to be temporary. A bridge. A soft landing. A place to rebuild the highlight reel before going back where hockey was serious, as he had so brilliantly implied to the entire internet.
He looked toward the hallway.
Through the open door, he could see the rink. Kids clearing off public skate. Evie arguing with a skate rack. Harper filming something near the boards. Theo helping an older volunteer move gear. Nate wearing the Tall Regret sign like a necklace.
And Billie.
Billie standing in the training room doorway like she had already decided not to ask him to stay in the fight, because she did not ask for things she was afraid people would refuse.
That bothered him more than Gabe’s call.
More than the knee.
More than the hashtags.
“Tell Mark I’m doing it,” Mason said.
Billie’s eyes snapped to his. “You don’t have to decide right now.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You can think. Talk to Sophie. Talk to your agent. Talk to someone who isn’t surrounded by donation goals and twelve-year-olds with vengeance issues.”
“I said I’m doing it.”
Her face hardened. “Do not make this about proving you’re tough.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what is it about?”
Mason looked at her.
He could have said reputation.