Chapter Four Mason Reed #3
He could have said sponsorship.
He could have said contract duty, community repair, clean optics.
All of those were true.
None of them were the whole truth.
“It’s about showing up after I made it harder for you.”
Billie went still.
Sophie’s hands paused on the tape.
Mason swallowed. “For the rink. For the kids. For the team. Not just you.”
Billie’s mouth tightened.
“But also you,” he said, because apparently his survival instinct had left the country without him.
The words landed like a puck dropped at centre ice.
Clean.
Loud.
Impossible to ignore.
Billie stared at him.
Mason held her gaze, his pulse thudding in his knee, his chest, his throat. He did not smile. He did not soften it. He did not turn it into a joke.
He wanted her to know he meant it.
Which was terrifying, because he barely knew what it meant.
Sophie cleared her throat. “I’m going to pretend I am not in this room.”
Billie blinked first.
Then she looked down at the phone in her hand, as if it had personally betrayed her by not ringing.
“You’re doing it modified,” she said.
Mason nodded. “Fine.”
“No reckless pivots.”
“Fine.”
“No hiding pain.”
He hesitated.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Fine,” he said.
“And if Sophie says stop, you stop.”
He looked at Sophie. “She always this bossy?”
Sophie said, “She’s right.”
Billie lifted her chin. “I usually am.”
Mason smiled then. He could not help it. “That must be exhausting.”
Something flickered in her face.
He regretted it immediately.
But she only said, quieter, “You have no idea.”
Sophie finished taping his knee, gave him a modified practice plan, and released him with a warning that felt medically binding.
By the time Mason got back to the locker room, the energy had changed.
The team had seen the announcement. The city had seen it too. The charity shootout had become bigger than a PR patch. Bigger than Tall Regret. Bigger than one stupid quote.
Harper’s latest post had crossed two hundred thousand views.
The sponsor dinner had sold half the room in forty minutes.
Someone had already made a cartoon of a kangaroo checking Mason into the boards.
Nate had ordered stickers.
Practice started with Alby’s whistle and a growl about focus, but even the drills felt charged.
Players skated harder. Talked sharper. Tested Mason without babying him.
Theo angled him into systems. Nate chirped him every time he touched the puck.
The younger guys watched him with open curiosity, as if trying to decide whether the import was all apology or actual help.
Mason understood that.
Respect was not granted by a speech.
It had to be repeated until people stopped expecting the old mistake to reappear.
So he worked.
He kept his turns clean. He did not cheat the left knee. He made the simple pass instead of the pretty one. He listened when Theo corrected spacing. He took Nate’s chirps and returned half, because full would have started a war. He stayed last on a puck retrieval drill even when his leg burned.
From the bench, Billie watched.
Not constantly.
Not obviously.
But he felt it every time her gaze landed on him.
Which was ridiculous.
He had played in packed arenas. He had scored with scouts watching, reporters waiting, fans screaming. He had been booed by thousands and cheered by more.
None of that had ever made him as aware of his body as Billie Hartley watching from behind a bench gate with her arms folded.
At the end of practice, Alby blew the whistle.
“Reed,” he barked.
Mason coasted over.
Alby stared at him. “You can play.”
Mason waited.
“With your brain,” Alby added. “Rare condition. Don’t waste it.”
Nate skated by. “That was a compliment.”
Theo nodded. “A big one.”
Mason looked at Alby. “Thanks, Coach.”
Alby grunted. “Don’t thank me. Be better tomorrow.”
Mason smiled. “That I can do.”
He looked toward the gate.
Billie was gone.
The disappointment hit before he could stop it.
Which was embarrassing.
He got through cool down, showered, changed, answered one angry agent text with six responsible words, and found his way back into the main corridor with damp hair and a knee that felt like it had been personally insulted by stairs.
The rink had shifted into late-afternoon mode. Quieter. Cleaner around the edges. Parents gone. Kids gone. Only staff noise, distant Zamboni hum, and the echo of pucks from a small group still messing around.
He found Billie near the community noticeboard.
She was standing alone, pinning up the first printed flyer for Friday’s event.
CHARITY SHOOTOUT MASON “TALL REGRET” REED VS AUSTRALIAN HOCKEY Supporting the Harbour Ice Junior Gear Fund Friday, 4:00 p.m. Featuring the Sydney Blades Presented with Vale Community Partners
The kangaroo graphic was wearing skates.
Mason stopped beside her. “That kangaroo looks aggressive.”
“It has legal clearance.”
“From who?”
“Max.”
“Strong authority.”
She pressed a pin into the corner of the flyer. “Your agent still hates this.”
“Gabe hates most things that don’t come with a controlled media package.”
“He may have a point.”
“Probably.”
Billie turned to him. “Then why are you doing it?”
He leaned one shoulder against the wall. “You already asked me that.”
“I’m asking again. People say noble things in training rooms with pretty witnesses.”
He looked at her. “You think Sophie is pretty?”
Billie’s face went blank. “Do not.”
He smiled. “Too easy?”
“Too stupid.”
He let the smile fade. “I’m doing it because I want to.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It is. Just not one you trust.”
She looked back at the flyer. “Trust has to be earned.”
“I know.”
For a while, neither of them spoke.
The rink hummed around them. Old building. Stubborn ice. A place that should not have mattered to him yet, and somehow did.
Billie brushed her thumb over the edge of the flyer where it curled away from the board.
“My dad used to say the rink only survives because people keep choosing it,” she said.
Mason stayed very still.
Billie’s voice was even, but something underneath it went careful.
“Not because it makes sense. It usually doesn’t. Not because it’s easy. It definitely isn’t. But because enough people wake up and choose the cold room in a hot city. They choose the early mornings. The bad coffee. The kids who forget socks. The teams nobody thinks are serious.”
She swallowed.
Mason did not move.
“It’s not glamorous,” she said. “But it matters.”
He nodded slowly. “I’m starting to understand that.”
She glanced at him.
The look lasted too long to be casual and not long enough to be safe.
“Good,” she said.
His phone buzzed again.
He ignored it.
Billie noticed. “You should probably get that.”
“Probably.”
“You are very bad at professional self-preservation.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By people you should listen to?”
“Yes.”
“And yet?”
He looked at her. “And yet I’m here.”
Her breath caught.
Barely.
But he heard it.
The space between them narrowed without either of them moving. He was suddenly aware of the wall at his shoulder, the flyer at hers, the faint freckle near her jaw, the fact that if he shifted one inch closer, she would either step back or ruin him.
Possibly both.
Billie’s gaze dropped to his mouth.
Then the main doors burst open.
A teenage boy stumbled in with a backpack, a camera rig, and the frantic expression of someone who had just sprinted across a car park with bad news.
“Billie!” he shouted.
She stepped back so fast Mason nearly laughed, except her face had already changed.
“What happened?”
The boy held up his phone. “You need to see this.”
Harper appeared behind him, breathless. “I tried to get here first.”
Billie took the phone.
Mason leaned in despite every lesson he had ever learned about minding his own business.
On the screen was a video from the rival Melbourne Kings account.
Luca D’Amato stood on their ice in a black training shirt, helmet tucked under one arm, looking smug enough to be illegal.
Mason recognised him immediately. Everybody did.
Too pretty. Too sharp. Too comfortable being hated.
Luca smiled into the camera.
“So Sydney’s new import wants to prove he respects Australian hockey,” he said. “Cute. Tell Tall Regret I’ll see him Friday. Unless the Blades are only serious when children are holding the camera.”
The video ended.
For one stunned second, nobody spoke.
Then Harper whispered, “Oh, this is terrible.”
Billie’s eyes stayed on the phone. “Yes.”
Harper’s grin spread. “And incredible.”
Mason looked at Billie.
Billie looked back.
The charity shootout had just become a rivalry event, a sponsor spectacle, and an intercity war before dinner.
Her phone started buzzing again.
So did Harper’s.
So did Mason’s.
From the rink, Nate shouted, “DID LUCA JUST CALL US CUTE?”
Coach Alby’s voice followed. “Nobody answer anything!”
Billie stared at Mason with the calm of a woman watching a building catch fire and already calculating exits.
Mason lifted one hand. “Before you say anything, I did not invite him.”
“No,” Billie said.
Her mouth curved.
Not sweet.
Not soft.
Dangerous.
“But you’re going to beat him.”