Chapter 10 #2
The notes sit, untouched. I talk about Sully without turning him into a saint—how he cut me down to size my rookie year without ever yelling, how he made the hard thing the obvious thing: do the right thing when no one’s watching.
“Kids don’t need perfect,” I say. “They need steady. They need someone who shows up, owns it when they mess up, and keeps showing up anyway.”
I’m about to pivot to talk about the reading program when a woman stands near the front. She doesn’t wave. She just speaks, clear and level, and the sound travels all the way to the stage.
“It’s rich hearing you talk about role models,” she says, “when you’ve never spent a day with your son.”
The room drops into silence so complete I hear the air conditioning kick on. The microphone picks up my breath.
She shifts the toddler in her arms so he can see me. Dark hair. A stubborn jaw. Eyes I’ve seen every morning in the mirror for years.
“His name is Tyler,” she says.
The name hits and keeps hitting. Jessica Stone. The face slots into an old memory—charity event, a lobby bar, the haze of a night I barely cataloged because I didn’t want to. My hands grip the sides of the lectern until my knuckles blanch.
“Ms. Stone,” the foundation director says from somewhere, the take-charge tone on full volume. “We can continue this privately.”
“Privately?” Jessica says, not raising her voice and somehow cutting through everything anyway. “I’ve been trying privately for three years.”
Phones rise like a field of metallic flowers. PR moves at a sprint. None of it matters. The child—Tyler—looks at me from the circle of her arms with a curious, open face that looks too much like mine to argue with.
The silence is broken by the audience murmuring.
“Did you think he knew…?”
“How long…?”
“Will he…?”
I’m frozen. I don’t have language. I look for Reese, quickly breaking my stare at the small boy’s familiar eyes. Reese’s chair is empty. My heart is thumping.
“Mr. McCoy won’t be taking questions,” PR says into a handheld mic, brisk, firm. “We ask for privacy while this personal matter is addressed.”
The foundation director tries to wrestle the program forward. The room won’t have it. People murmur, rise, sit again. Cameras flash. The boy raises a hand in a little wave because he’s three and he’s polite.
I step back from the podium. The pages I never used slip off and fan across the stage. I don’t pick them up. I can only move because someone takes my elbow and steers me into the corridor.
Our PR woman keeps a hand on my arm as if I might fold in half and not get back up.
“Logan, we need to get you out of here,” she says. “Now.”
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Security is escorting Ms. Stone—”
“Reese.” The word scrapes. “My date.”
“I don’t know,” she says, softer. “We’ll try to reach her.”
She guides me into a storage room that’s been turned into a war room in under a minute. Fluorescent lights. Folding chairs. Cleaning supplies shoved to one side. Our GM, legal, PR, and Coach Martinez crowd in. The door clicks shut and the sound ricochets around my skull.
The questions hit in sequence.
“Did you know?”
“Have you had any contact with Ms. Stone since…?”
“Do you recall the timing?”
“We’ll need to arrange a paternity test.”
I sit because my knees decide this is over. Sweat chills under the tux. I pull at the bow tie; it resists. My fingers give up.
“Give him a second,” Coach says, taking the chair across from me and blocking the rest. He waits until I look up. “Did you know, Logan?”
“No,” I say, and I feel involuntary tears coming out. “I swear to God, Coach. I didn’t know.”
He holds my gaze, measures me the way only he can do, then nods once. “Okay.” To the room: “Everybody simmer down.”
My phone vibrates like it’s possessed. Teammates, unknown numbers, probably the media. I swipe past them all and hit Reese’s name. Straight to voicemail. Her voice is bright and normal and from a different lifetime. I don’t leave a message. What is there to say that doesn’t sound like a lie?
“Statement tonight,” PR says, already typing. “Brief. Acknowledgment. Request for privacy. No specifics. We’ll run it by legal and Logan before it goes out.”
Legal steps forward, grim and precise. “We’ll contact Ms. Stone to arrange paternity testing. Regardless of outcome, we need to be prepared for filings, including potential temporary orders. We’ll also need to review any previous correspondence that may have come to the team office.”
PR glances at me. “We’ll audit mail and email logs.”
All the words hum in the air like machinery I don’t know how to shut off. Underneath it: one fact, plain and massive.
I have a son.
And I didn’t know.
I picture all the things I missed without knowing I was missing them: first steps, first words, first time he laughed so hard he hiccuped. My father once told me you don’t outrun your past; you just learn how to carry it. I thought he was being dramatic. Not now.
“Logan.” Coach’s voice again, closer to human than manager. “We’ll handle the logistics. Your job right now is not to make this worse. No statements on your own. No texts to reporters. No social. Understood?”
“Understood,” I say. It sounds like someone else said it.
I check my phone again. Nothing from Reese. I hit call anyway. Straight to voicemail. I hang up and stare at the black screen until it reflects my face back at me—pale, unfamiliar.
PR reads the draft: “This evening, a personal matter was brought to Logan McCoy’s attention at the Blades Foundation Gala. Logan is taking appropriate steps to address it privately. He asks for respect and privacy for everyone involved. No further comment will be made at this time.”
“Fine,” I say, because I can’t craft something truer than that right now.
The legal team confers in the corner. Coach squeezes my shoulder on his way out to run interference. The GM takes a call and lowers his voice. The room keeps moving like a machine, and I sit in the quiet center of it, feeling like my life just redrew itself without asking.
I pull up photos of Reese on my phone—farmers market, her smile bright and careless, wind in her curls. I try to text, then don’t. I don’t have a sentence that won’t make it worse.
The door opens. PR leans back in, phone in hand. “Security confirms Ms. Stone left the building with the child. They’re safe. She provided contact information for her attorney.”
I imagine a little boy being buckled into a car seat, a hand patting his knee, a promise made that may or may not be true. I imagine the way he lifted his little hand toward me like he was saying hello to any stranger who smiled at him.
I look down at my hands. They’re still shaking. For years I said I wasn’t ready for a family and meant it. Now it’s here, in my lap, whether I’m ready or not.
I don’t know how to do this. I know I have to try.
I try Reese one more time. Voicemail. I look at it recording and end the call without speaking. The room murmurs around me; the gala presses on without care. Somewhere beyond the walls, the band is playing again because the event has to keep moving.
I close my eyes. For a moment, the only thing I see is the boy’s small face with my mother’s chin and a cowlick I’ve never managed to tame. He looked like he was waiting for someone to tell him what happens next.
So am I.