Chapter 15
Present Day
You know what it means if you start losing sponsors, right?
These terrible words have me frozen in the doorway to the conference room. I don’t move until the publicist arrives behind me, yapping into his phone. And Eric Tremaine is right behind him. I step aside to let them both pass by, but Chase’s agent spots me in the doorway and beckons to me.
Then she smiles. Which I’m not expecting.
Gingerly, I enter the room. Chase spots me and promptly looks agitated.
It’s hard to blame him.
Eric Tremaine, ever the gentleman, does the introductions. “Zoe, meet Bess Beringer, agent to the stars. Bess, this is Zoe Carson, the newest member of the coaching staff.”
“I know!” The woman beams at me. “I read about your hire. It’s about time, too. The Legends have been dicking around with hiring a full-time skating coach. That’s why the last guy moved to Sweden. Are they finally making this official? Are they bringing you on full-time next year?”
“We’ll see,” I say, resisting the urge to glance at Chase. He’ll hate that idea. “I hope to stay, but it’s possible the GM has other candidates in mind.” Because he told me to my face.
“My fingers are crossed.” She pops out of her chair and leans over to offer a handshake. “It’s great to meet you in any case. And I think you’re fantastic for this role. Women in sports have always been underestimated, so I can’t wait to see what you do here.”
“Thank you,” I say, my face heating. Her enthusiasm confuses me, though. If Chase is going to scapegoat me for last night’s incident, he must not have told her yet.
“Hey—I met your husband once at a conference,” Bess says, taking her seat again. “He’s a character.”
“That’s, um…” Yikes. “That’s one way to put it. He’s my ex-husband now. I received my divorce decree a couple weeks ago.”
Chase’s gaze flickers to mine. But then he glances away so fast that I might have imagined it.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bess says kindly. “Unless he was a rascal, and then I’m not sorry at all.”
“Uh, don’t be, then,” I say, clearing my throat and wondering how to change the topic.
“Chase.” Bess swats him on the arm. “Be a gentleman and say hello.”
His blue eyes flip up to pin me in my chair. “Good morning, Coach Carson,” he says coolly.
“Is it, though?” I reply, and everyone laughs except Chase.
The PR guy ends his call and pockets his phone. “Hey, Zoe,” he says. “I meant to tell you in happier times—like yesterday—that we got a big PR bounce off our press release about you.”
“Oh,” I say numbly, because it’s the very last thing on my mind. Then again, the PR bump won’t be very valuable if they fire me, will it?
“Yeah, people love the idea of the figure skating queen telling a bunch of hockey players what to do.”
I chuckle uncomfortably. “Steve, I don’t care how good the press is, I’m not wearing a tiara to work.”
“Hey,” Bess says, pointing at me. “I like this one. You’d better keep her.”
Preach, sister.
Suddenly Nolan Sharp strides into the room. Even his walk is angry. “All right, let’s get this bullshit handled. Can’t believe we’re dealing with another bout of unacceptable behavior from you,” he says to Chase.
“Pardon me,” Bess jumps in. “Another sounds like we’re in here every week. And Chase didn’t slam that fan, no matter how the video is captioned.”
The manager yanks a chair out for himself. “Do the semantics matter? A hundred thousand people watched him shove a fan to the floor of a bar. We’re lucky there was no arrest.”
“There was no arrest for a reason,” I hear myself argue.
Everyone turns to stare at me, and there’s a silence that seems to last a year but is probably only a few seconds long.
“Let’s dig into that a little bit,” Sailor says. “Why don’t you tell us what happened last night, in your own words.”
I take a deep breath. Then I turn to Chase. “First, I want to apologize if I complicated your life last night. I’m so sorry.”
His response is to lean back in his chair and study me again. Then he gives me a slow nod.
A big orange fireball. That’s what he’d called me just before everything went to shit. How prescient.
I turn my attention back to Sharp and Sailor.
“The video on the internet doesn’t tell the whole story.
Not even close. Whoever filmed it snipped off the part where the fan is the first to get, uh, physical.
And he was swinging at me. I’d stepped in front of Chase to argue with the guy, and he didn’t like it.
He was about to put his hands on me, so…
” I take a deep breath. “Chase acted defensively, pushing him away before he could knock me around.”
“Interesting,” Nolan Sharp growls. “Is that your recollection, too?” He turns to Chase.
Chase’s blue eyes turn fiery. “Sure, I guess,” he says roughly. “It happened fast, and I’d had a lot to drink.”
“Uh-huh.” The GM glowers. “But what’s this fan’s side of the story going to be? If he decides to reach out to the press, it’s his word against hers.”
“Whose video was it?” Bess asks, voicing a question that’s on my mind, too.
“Nobody is sure,” Sailor says. “It popped up on Xitter, on an account made this morning. Any theories, Zoe?”
“No idea.” I shake my head. “I didn’t notice anyone filming, but the drunk fan had friends with him. And those guys had been harassing Chase all night. That’s what the bartender said. I wasn’t there for that part.”
“And why was that?” Steve Sailor asks. “Take us through how you managed to arrive just at the wrong moment?”
My heart shimmies, and my gaze zaps right over to Chase, who must be wondering the same thing. But this new Chase—the silent, angry one—doesn’t give me any clue to what he’s thinking. His gaze is pitched somewhere over my shoulder.
I clear my throat. “Late last night, the bartender called me. He said Chase was, um, having a bad night at the bar and wasn’t ready to go home, but it was almost closing time, and he didn’t know what to do.”
“The bartender called you,” the GM says slowly. “And why was that?”
Why indeed. I choose my words carefully. “The bartender had my phone number handy. I’d been there earlier to watch the Trenton game, and we’d struck up a conversation.”
“And then you gave him your phone number?” Steve clarifies.
My face heats, because I know what they’re all thinking.
“I did,” I say in a clear voice, daring him to ask me to repeat myself.
“He seemed like a good guy. And I guess he is, because he really went to bat for your player. He explained to the police that Chase had been taking abuse all night and that the fan was the instigator.”
Eric Tremaine, ever the nice guy, jumps in to save me. “So this bartender called you—as a coworker of Chase’s. That was a stand-up thing to do.”
“Right,” I say crisply. “He said, ‘You’re the only person I know who works for the Legends, and Mr. Merritt is here alone.’”
“And drunk off his ass,” the GM says with a snort, turning his glare back to Chase. “Do you really think that’s any better? Maybe you didn’t punch the guy, you were just too shit-faced to go home. Way to represent the organization.”
Bess leans forward in her chair. “Once again, sir, if you benched every player who ever had a little too much to drink, you wouldn’t have a team.
And if Mr. Merritt made a habit of this, we’d need a different kind of meeting, right?
One where you’d intervene for your player’s health and welfare.
But unless I’m mistaken, Chase hasn’t made a habit of postgame drunken violence? ”
Across the table from her, Tremaine shakes his head. “I’m not happy about last night’s events, but I can’t say it’s a pattern.”
“His bad attitude is, though,” the manager growls, turning to Chase. “You’ll be fined five thousand dollars—”
Bess interrupts him again, because she obviously has a death wish. “There’s no need to fine him—his sponsors are all thinking of jumping ship. He stands to lose seven figures of income already.”
A bomb goes off inside my head when I hear this. Seven figures? Because of one video? Because of me? Oh God. I’ve really fucked up this time.
The GM is still ranting. “And you’ll work with PR on an apology statement. Plus, you’ll make yourself available for any and all community volunteer projects the team is sponsoring this season.”
Chase’s jaw tics. But he doesn’t argue.
And I’m still stuck on seven figures. That’s… impossibly bad.
“Excuse me, if I may,” Tremaine says, raising a hand. “We’re missing an important step here. Last night was an anomaly for Chase, so we should also be asking why. What’s going on in your life that’s brought this on?” the captain asks calmly. “And what can I do to help?”
Even through the veil of my panic, I manage to take that in. And wow. I knew I liked that guy.
Bess turns to look at her client. “Chase,” she says meaningfully, as if prodding him to explain something specific.
But after a long moment, Chase gives his head a shake. “It was nothing. Just a bad night after a bad game.”
For the first time since I stepped into the room, Bess looks truly disappointed.
“All right, then,” Tremaine says, with a shake of his own head. “If that’s all it is, then I’m sure we can get past this with some goodwill and some skillful PR.”
“That’s where I come in,” Sailor says. “Every news outlet wants a statement. I’ll have that ready for Chase’s approval in the next two hours. I’ll also want him to post it on his own socials.”
“He doesn’t have socials,” Bess points out.
“He will by the end of the day,” Sailor says with a smirk. “And we can post new content every time he spends hours serving soup to the hungry and giving flea baths to rescue kittens. You guys can hire a social media manager, and the team will make the content.”
Bess glances at Chase, who nods sullenly. “Okay, but he gets approval for every post.”
“Fine.” Sailor nods. “After the apology, we’ll look for opportunities to highlight the more serious side of your personality.”
“Really?” The GM sighs. “Does Merritt have a more serious side?”