Chapter Thirteen Billie Hartley #2
Billie swallowed.
“Yes,” she said. “He is.”
Max frowned. “That’s embarrassing for him.”
The door closed behind him and Evie.
Nate exhaled. “Kid’s right.”
Theo’s voice came from the doorway. “We can leave too.”
Billie looked at him. Grateful. “Thank you.”
Nate glanced between Billie and Mason, then at Harper. “If you need anything, I can make a distraction.”
“No distractions,” Billie said.
“Legal distraction?”
“No.”
“Emotionally supportive distraction?”
“Nate.”
He nodded. “Leaving.”
Theo dragged him away.
Harper remained by the table, laptop open but eyes on Billie. “What do you want me to do?”
Billie stared at the whiteboard.
What did she want?
She wanted Ryan Vale to shut up.
She wanted her father’s photo back.
She wanted the rink to stop feeling full of hidden doors.
She wanted Mason not to be in the room for this and also desperately wanted him not to leave.
She wanted to be seventeen again for one second, before the last competition, before the pain, before the hospital appointments, before everyone discovered she was useful enough to rely on until the reliance became permanent.
She wanted too much.
So she chose what she could manage.
“Find out if Ryan has posted about skating before,” Billie said. “Search old accounts, comments, archived pages, anything tied to the year he worked here.”
Harper nodded. “Okay.”
“If he’s implying he knows something, I want to know what he thinks he knows.”
“On it.”
Harper paused at the door.
“Billie?”
Billie looked up.
Harper’s voice softened. “You don’t have to make this useful every second.”
The words landed too close.
Billie looked away. “Please do the search.”
Harper nodded and left.
The door shut.
Silence.
Only Billie and Mason now.
Perfect.
Awful.
She walked to the whiteboard and picked up the marker. Her hand shook once.
She hated that Mason saw it.
She wrote:
RYAN: Skating comments. Quit story. Was there? Photo theft. Motive escalation.
The marker squeaked.
Mason said nothing.
Billie capped it too hard.
The cap cracked.
Excellent. Very stable behaviour.
She tossed the marker onto the table. “That was my favourite one.”
“I’ll buy you a new marker.”
She laughed once, sharp and ugly. “Do not be kind about office supplies.”
“Okay.”
There it was again.
Okay.
Soft. Steady. Giving her room and somehow making it harder to breathe.
Billie faced the whiteboard. “He’s trying to make me look like a liar.”
“Is there a lie?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Mason waited.
Damn him.
Billie closed her eyes.
“There are details,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Messy ones.”
“Okay.”
“Not scandalous. Not the way he wants people to think. Just private.”
“Then they can stay private.”
She turned.
Mason stood near the table, shoulders broad, face careful, anger banked but not aimed at her.
“You don’t want to know?”
“I do,” he said.
Her breath caught.
“But wanting to know doesn’t mean I’m owed it.”
Oh.
Billie looked down.
The floor blurred for one dangerous second.
She blinked hard.
No tears.
Not for Ryan Vale.
Not for stolen photos.
Not for a man who kept offering respect so cleanly she did not know where to store it.
She sat in the nearest chair because her legs had become suspicious.
Mason did not move closer.
“After Dad got sick,” she said, staring at her hands, “I tried to keep skating. For a while.”
Mason stayed quiet.
“I was already dealing with hip pain. Overuse. Training too hard, too long, too young. Nothing dramatic enough to make people stop pushing. Just enough pain to make every jump cost more than it used to.”
She rubbed her thumb over her palm.
“My coach thought I was pulling back because of Dad. Mum thought I was pushing because of Dad. Dad thought I should quit if I wasn’t happy. I thought quitting would prove I couldn’t handle hard things.”
Her laugh barely counted.
“I was seventeen. Seventeen-year-olds are idiots with better knees.”
Mason’s mouth moved faintly.
Not a smile.
Almost one, there and gone because he understood the sentence too well.
Billie kept going because if she stopped, she might never restart.
“The last competition was the photo. Dad came even though he was exhausted. I placed fourth. Everyone said it was respectable. I hated that word for months.”
She swallowed.
“Afterward, I had a fight with my coach. In the hallway. He said I had talent but no commitment anymore. Dad heard.”
Mason’s face hardened.
Billie shook her head once. “Dad defended me. Of course he did. Loudly. Badly. With medical weakness and full Hartley temper.”
Her lips curved despite herself.
“He said, ‘My girl doesn’t owe anyone her body so they can clap for three minutes.’”
Mason’s eyes softened.
Billie looked away.
“After that, I quit. Not because I didn’t love skating. Because I realised I loved myself less when everyone watched me prove I could survive it.”
The words surprised her.
She had never said them that way before.
Maybe she had never understood them that way before.
Mason’s voice was quiet. “That’s not shameful.”
“I know.”
Mostly.
“That’s not failure.”
“I know.”
Less mostly.
“And Ryan?”
Her fingers tightened. “Ryan heard pieces. Years later. From staff stories, maybe. My dad’s old photos, people talking. He used to make comments about how I went from performer to prison guard.”
Mason’s expression turned lethal.
Not loud.
Worse.
Controlled.
“He thought it was funny,” Billie said.
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
“He liked making you smaller.”
Her throat tightened.
“Yes.”
The word cracked.
Just barely.
But enough.
Mason took one step closer, then stopped. “Can I sit?”
Billie nodded.
He sat in the chair beside her, not touching, angled toward her but leaving space.
The space felt like respect.
It also felt like temptation.
“I quit hockey in my head before I ever admitted it out loud,” he said.
Billie looked at him.
He stared at the table. “After the injury. I kept telling everyone comeback, rehab, timeline, next step. All the right words. But there were days I’d wake up and think, what if the best version of me already happened? What if all I am now is a story people compare to who I was before?”
Billie’s chest hurt.
“Mason.”
He glanced at her. “I know. Not the same.”
“No. But close enough.”
His gaze held hers.
The room quieted around them. Not empty. Held.
For the first time all day, Billie did not feel like she had to translate herself into useful action immediately.
Mason gave her that.
A pause without demand.
It terrified her.
It also made her want to lean closer.
Dangerous.
She straightened. “We still need a plan.”
His mouth curved faintly. “There she is.”
“Do not sound fond.”
“I’ll try to sound professionally reassured.”
“You’re bad at that.”
“Very.”
She picked up the cracked marker, decided it still had life, and stood.
Mason stayed seated, watching her with a look she refused to name.
“We do not respond to Ryan’s skating comment,” she said. “Not publicly.”
“Agreed.”
“Harper tracks. Mark handles Graham. If Ryan shows up Friday, security denies entry.”
“Do you have security?”
Billie paused.
Mason’s brows lifted.
“Nate does not count,” he said.
“Nate absolutely does not count.”
“Alby?”
“Alby counts emotionally, not legally.”
Mason stood. “Hire security.”
“With what money?”
“The fundraiser budget.”
“No. Money raised goes to kids.”
“Event expense to protect the fundraiser.”
She hated when he made sense.
“We’ll ask Graham to cover it separately,” she said.
“Good.”
“And no, you cannot offer again.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were thinking it.”
“My thoughts are private.”
“Your face is public.”
He smiled.
For one moment, the weight eased.
Then Harper knocked once and came in without waiting, which was either rude or efficient, depending on the emergency.
Her face said emergency.
Billie braced. “What did you find?”
Harper set the laptop on the table.
“Ryan posted about you before,” she said.
Billie’s stomach tightened. “When?”
“Two years ago. After he was fired. Mostly vague, petty stuff. Nothing that got attention. But one post mentions ‘the ice princess with the tragic backstory.’ Another says, ‘Some people quit performing and start controlling everyone else instead.’”
Mason swore softly.
Billie forced herself to breathe.
Harper clicked to another image. “There’s also this.”
A screenshot from Ryan’s old account.
A photo of Harbour Ice Centre’s back corridor.
Caption:
Locked doors only matter if people remember who still has keys.
Billie went cold.
Mason stood. “Date?”
Harper swallowed. “Two weeks after he was fired.”
Billie stared at the screen.
Two years.
He had been telling them the weakness for two years, and nobody had noticed because small men were usually easy to ignore until they found a bigger microphone.
Harper continued, “And Billie, there’s one more thing.”
Billie looked at her.
“I checked Friday’s ticket list against Ryan’s known emails. He’s not registered.”
“Good.”
“But someone bought four sponsor-adjacent seats yesterday under the name R. V. Holdings.”
Billie’s blood turned to ice.
Mason’s face went hard. “Ryan Vale.”
Harper nodded. “Maybe.”
Billie reached for the back of the chair.
Friday was not just a collision anymore.
Ryan already had a seat.