Chapter 30
Carrie
Three weeks of hell.
Three weeks of Kyle trying to make me quit because I'd refused to destroy the man I loved.
Passive-aggressive comments in meetings.
Impossible deadlines. Assignments designed to humiliate.
The slow, professional dismantling of a career by a man who'd realized I wasn't his weapon anymore and had decided to make me pay for it.
I survived. Kept my head down. Did the work that didn't compromise what was left of my integrity. Counted the days until I could find something else, anything else, as long as it didn't require me to weaponize people's pain for corporate strategy.
Matt had been extraordinary through all of it.
Supportive without hovering. Furious on my behalf but respecting my boundaries.
He'd offered to help me find a new job, offered to cover my rent, offered everything except the one thing I wouldn't let him do, which was confront Kyle directly.
That would only confirm what Kyle already suspected about my loyalties and give him the ammunition to claim I'd been compromised all along.
The source question still gnawed at me. Someone in Matt's circle was feeding Kyle information. I didn't know who, and Kyle wasn't telling, and the not-knowing sat in the back of my mind like a door I couldn't lock. But that was a problem for another day. Today had its own.
Kyle's office. Friday afternoon. That smile on his face. The one I'd learned to dread.
"Close the door, Carrie. Sit down."
I sat. Watched him. Read the room the way I'd been trained to read rooms, cataloging the micro-expressions, the body language, the corporate signals that said a decision had already been made and this meeting was just the performance of informing me.
"We have a situation," he said. "The Bruins are getting too much positive press. Baker's comeback story is sticking and our counter-narrative isn't. We need something that shows he's not the stable, reliable captain everyone thinks he is."
"And what does that have to do with me?"
"Tomorrow night. Bruins versus Detroit. Post-game press conference." He leaned back. Steepled his fingers. "I want you there. You're going to walk up to Matt Baker in front of every camera in that room. Hold his hand. Be affectionate. Make it obvious you're together."
I waited.
"And when he inevitably pushes you away, when he gets flustered or angry or tells you to leave because he's trying to keep his personal life private, we'll have exactly the footage we need. The composed captain losing control. On camera. Undeniable."
I stared at him. The media strategist in me could see the play. Could diagram it. Could recognize it as the exact kind of ambush I'd been trained to execute. Use someone's vulnerability against them. Create a moment they can't control. Let the cameras do the damage.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I let you go. Effective immediately. No severance. No references. And I make sure every sports media organization in the country knows you were fired for failing to meet basic job requirements."
The threat sat between us. Clean. Final.
And for the first time since I'd taken this job, I wasn't afraid of it.
"Fine," I said.
Kyle's eyebrows rose. "Fine?"
"I'll be there. Press conference. Tomorrow night."
"Good. I knew you'd see reason."
I walked out of his office and drove home and let myself breathe.
Kyle thought I was going to humiliate Matt. Thought I'd chosen the job over the man. Thought the woman in the black dress was back, ready to perform.
He was about to learn the difference between a performance and a choice.
* * *
The arena was packed. Twenty thousand people screaming for their team. I watched from the media section, regular credentials, anonymous among the press. Kyle had arranged everything exactly as promised. He had no idea he'd arranged his own undoing.
The Bruins won. Of course they won. Matt scored two goals and assisted on three others.
Played like a man who'd found the version of himself he'd been searching for all season, and watching him from the press section instead of the White Hearts box felt like seeing the game for the first time.
I wasn't managing optics. I wasn't performing loyalty.
I was just a woman watching the man she loved do the thing he was born to do, and the freedom of that, the uncomplicated joy of it, was worth every dollar I was about to lose.
The press conference room filled. Journalists, photographers, cameras on tripods. The usual post-game setup. I stood in the back. Heart slamming against my ribs. Hands shaking. Not from fear. From the specific adrenaline of knowing you're about to do something permanent.
Matt walked in. Freshly showered. Bruins polo. Hair still damp. Tired and satisfied and completely unprepared for what was about to happen.
He took his seat. Adjusted the microphone. Started answering questions about the game with the practiced ease of a man who'd done this a thousand times.
I waited. Timed it.
Then I moved.
Stepped forward. Out from the back. Into the camera lines. Journalists noticed. Heads turned. Recognition spreading through the room like a current.
And I felt it happen, the thing I'd spent my entire career building the skills to create. The shift in the room's attention. The cameras pivoting. The story changing in real time. Except this time, for the first time, the story was true.
Matt was mid-sentence about defensive zone coverage when he saw me. His eyes went wide. Confused. Alarmed.
I walked straight to the table. Through the cameras. Past the microphones. Every step deliberate, every step a choice I was making in front of witnesses.
The media strategist in me was screaming. About optics. About consequences. About the fact that what I was about to do would be online within minutes and would never, ever be taken back.
Good. That was the point.
Matt stood. "Carrie? What are you—"
I grabbed his shirt. Pulled him to me. And kissed him.
Not a polite kiss. Not a strategic one. The kind of kiss that makes its own statement without any supporting copy.
I kissed him like I loved him, because I did.
Like I was done hiding it, because I was.
Like every camera in the room could broadcast this to every screen in the country and I would stand behind it with my full name attached.
The room went nuclear. Cameras flashing. Voices shouting. Chaos erupting.
Matt broke the kiss. Stared at me. Then smiled. That real, wide, devastating smile that had been getting me into trouble since the gas station.
"You're definitely going to lose your job."
"That kiss was my resignation letter."
He laughed. The press was shoving cameras at us, microphones in our faces, questions piling up.
"Matt! Can you confirm you're in a relationship?"
"How long has this been going on?"
"What does this mean for your leadership?"
Matt held up his hand. The room quieted. He looked at me. Then at the cameras. Then back at me with an expression I'd never seen, determined and terrified and sure.
"Yeah, I can confirm. Carrie Wilson. She works — well, she used to work — for the White Hearts." He paused. Let that land. "And I'm completely, absolutely in love with her."
More chaos. But Matt wasn't done.
He turned to face me. Blocked out the cameras with his body. Looked at me like we were the only two people in the building.
"Actually," he said, loud enough for the microphones, "I'm going to marry her."
The room went silent for one full second. Then it detonated.
But I couldn't hear any of it. Could only hear my heartbeat. Could only see his face. Could only process the word MARRY landing on me like something I'd been waiting for without knowing I was waiting.
He took my hand. Pulled me away from the table. "That's all for tonight. Thanks everyone."
We pushed through the crowd. Through the hallway. Out to the parking lot. Into his car. Doors shut. Blessed silence.
Then my phone started ringing. Kyle.
I silenced it. It rang again. Silenced it again. And again. And again.
"He's going to keep calling," Matt said.
I turned the phone off completely. Set it in the cupholder like something I'd finished with.
"You really quit?" Matt asked as he pulled out of the lot.
"I really quit. Via kiss, on camera, at a press conference. It's not traditional but it's on brand."
He laughed. Then went quiet. Serious.
"Did you mean what you said back there?" I asked. "About marrying me?"
He pulled the car over. Turned off the engine. Turned to face me.
"I meant it."
"Matt, we've been together for—"
"I know how long. I know it's fast. I know there are a million reasons to wait." He reached across me. Popped open the glove compartment. Pulled out a small velvet box. "I also know I don't want to wait."
I stared at the box. At him. At the box.
"How long have you been carrying that around?"
"Two weeks. Bought it the day after we got back together. Kept trying to find the perfect moment." He smiled. "Then tonight happened and I couldn't hold it anymore."
He opened the box. A single diamond on a platinum band. Simple. Beautiful. Exactly what I would have chosen.
"Carrie Wilson," he said, his voice unsteady in a way that made my eyes burn. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes."
I didn't let him finish. Didn't need a speech. Didn't need the perfect moment to be any more perfect than a man with shaking hands and a ring he'd been carrying for two weeks and a declaration he'd made to the entire sports media world before he'd even asked me.
"Yes. A thousand times. Yes."
He slid the ring onto my finger. It fit like it had been waiting there.
I kissed him. Laughing and crying simultaneously, which turned out to be exactly as messy as it sounds and exactly as perfect as it felt.
"We're engaged," I said.
"We're engaged."
"Your fans are going to lose their minds."
"Let them."
"Kyle is probably having a stroke."
"That one makes me happy."
He pulled me close. Kissed my forehead. My nose. The ring on my finger.
"We should call Frank," I said. "And Mason."
"Frank's going to be insufferable. He'll take full credit."
"He should. His speech about your father is the reason you showed up at my door."
Matt's face softened. "He's doing better. The counselor says three more months of the outpatient program and he'll be in a good place. He's working. Going to meetings. Calling me instead of disappearing." He paused. "Mom would be proud of him."
"She'd be proud of both of you."
He took my hand again. Laced our fingers over the ring. Started the car.
"Matt?"
"Yeah?"
"Bob is not wearing a tuxedo at our wedding."
"Bob is absolutely wearing a tuxedo at our wedding."
"We're going to argue about this."
"We're going to argue about a lot of things. Where to live. How many kids. Whether the wedding cake has fondant hockey players on top."
"Absolutely not."
"See? Already compromising."
He pulled back onto the road. Drove toward home with my hand in his and the streetlights catching the diamond and the city unfolding around us, loud and complicated and ours.
This was my life now. This chaos. This love. This man and his dog and his brother and his team and the future we were building out of all the wreckage, not despite it but because of it. Because the breaking had been the thing that made the rebuilding possible.
I'd walked into a gas station in the rain and met a stranger who didn't want to be found. I'd set him up and lied to him and hurt him and lost him and found him and loved him through every messy, terrifying, imperfect stage of what turned out to be the most real thing either of us had ever had.
And now we got the rest of it.
All of it.
Together.
THE END