Chapter Four #2
Her eyebrows knitted together. She’s not hurt—she’s irritated. Just as well. At least we’re aligned on something.
Before she can respond, I step around her and keep moving. I don’t slow for the microphones or the shouted questions behind me. I’ve already given more than I intended.
She calls after me. My name passing through her lips, sharp enough to cut, but I ignored it anyway.
That’s how this works.
They show up. They insist they’re different. Then they leave when they realize I won’t play along.
Two of them already did. She will too... Soon enough.
Oakley’s is loud when I arrive, which is typical for any night, but especially on home game nights.
The smell of fried food and spilled beer wraps around me the moment I walk through the doors.
This place doesn’t ask questions like the pretty PR agent.
It doesn’t want explanations, unlike my nagging agent, who sent me a replay of my interview from tonight with the caption: You can’t avoid this forever. We need to get ahead of it.
A pretty blonde walks up in a skin tight mini skirt and my jersey, leaning too close not to be angling for more than a conversation, and that’s exactly what I need tonight to get my mind off of Randolph’s texts, the press… the newest PR agent who thinks she’s going to get me to comply.
I silence my phone and order a drink, letting my shoulders relax for the first time all night, while the blonde inches closer.
That’s when I see her again, across the room, talking to Penelope and a couple of the WAGs.
She shakes hands with them, smiling at something Penelope says.
If they even think of inviting her to Serendipity’s Coffee Shop, they might find the building burned down by an unknown gas leak.
Then I see her ask a question, and my sister nods and points to me sitting at the bar.
I send Katerina a warning stare, but she and Penelope just smirk back in my direction, unfazed, as my sister stirs her olive skewer in her martini like the mob princess our father wished she’d be.
If only he could see her now, seemingly plotting against me with Penelope for some unknown reason.
My vision turns back to Natalia, our eyes locking as she starts straight toward me like I didn’t just dismiss her thirty minutes ago.
I watch her approach over the rim of my glass, curiosity pricking at the edge of my annoyance.
She’s persistent, and that’s the kind of thing that gets my attention, though I wish it didn’t.
I take a slow sip, already bracing for round two, when she opens her mouth and says, "Were all the Olympic medals really necessary for the photo shoot?"
I choke on the whiskey before it makes it all the way down.
She tilts her head, eyes flicking pointedly down my body. "Or were you overcompensating?"
Wolf is sitting next to me and does a spit-take, and then moves off the stool next to me as if to say, good luck, buddy, chuckling as he goes.
The puck bunny at my side stiffens. She looks at Natalia, then down at my crotch. I hear the sound of a disappointed sigh, and without a word, she grabs her purse and scurries away.
I lower my glass slowly. This just got interesting. I set my glass down with a clunk on the wooden bar top. Not because I’m calm, but because if I don’t, I might break it.
"I don’t know… would you consider ten inches overcompensating?"
I see the moment her eyes drop to my crotch. She’s wondering if I’m bluffing. I’m not.
Her gaze dips for half a second. Then she meets my eyes again. "Well, that depends. Were you measuring your cock or your ego?"
"If you’re that curious, we can measure it right now." I say, angling my body toward her, my voice low enough that it didn’t carry. "Because, as it turns out, I have all evening since you scared off my entertainment for the night."
She doesn’t even blink.
"What? Her?" Natalia shrugs dismissively, glancing toward the space the woman vacated as if she’s already forgotten her. "Come on. Don’t be such a stereotypical jock. Sleeping with women who flounce around in your jersey just to play hockey-player bingo with their friends?"
The words land how she wanted them to, but I’m not insulted, nor do I care what she thinks. I don’t even know this woman.
I bark out a short laugh. "You act as if that’s some kind of revelation."
"You’re just a name on the board," she continues, unfazed. "One-night bragging rights. A story they tell their friends to feel important."
I lean in, eyes narrowing. "I’ve got my own board."
Her lips pressed together, unimpressed.
"Except," I add, standing up from the stool, and then take a step closer, "I don’t keep track of their names."
I say it like it’s nothing. It doesn’t even register as cruelty.
"How refreshing," she says dryly, unbothered.
The crowd shifts around us, bodies brushing past, music thumping through the floor. For a moment, it feels like we’re standing in the eye of a storm, everything else blurring at the edges.
"Why are you here, Natalia?" I ask.
I said her name slowly this time. Deliberate, letting the Russian weight settle into the vowels. My English is good enough that people forget where I’m from, until moments like this, when I want them to remember that I don’t belong to their neat little categories.
She stiffens for a fraction of a second. Barely perceptible, but I see it… I always do.
She doesn’t want me to know where her mind just went.
How she just imagined what it would sound like if I said her name like that, with her naked underneath me, breathless and blaming me for it.
But I catch it anyway—the way her eyes slightly dilate, how her lips part and then press together like she can seal the thought back inside.
Her lips pursed, her eyes narrowing with annoyance—more at herself than at me—as if she’s furious her body reacted before her brain could stop it. The moment passes, but it’s already filed away in my head.
She’s not immune to me.
"I’m here because your agent hired me," she says. "And because you don’t get to decide whether this problem exists just by ignoring it."
I scoff. "You’re wasting your time."
"I don’t waste time," she fires back. "I manage it."
I laugh again, but this time there’s no humor in it. "Is that what you think this is? Management?"
"Yes," she says flatly. "Because whether you like it or not, the Olympic Committee does not respond well to being publicly embarrassed by naked centerfolds."
I lean back against the bar, crossing my arms. "I didn’t embarrass them."
"You posed with licensed medals without permission."
"It’s not that big of a deal."
Though that’s a lie. They care, and it is a big deal if I want to keep my medals.
"And yet," she says sweetly, "here we are."
Her confidence is irritating. It's not loud or showy. Just… solid. Like she expects to be taken seriously and has no interest in convincing me why.
"You think you can waltz in here, insult me, scare off my date, and I’ll suddenly decide to play along?" I ask.
"I think," she says slowly, "that you don’t like being told what to do. And I think you’re used to people backing off when you push.
" She steps closer, invading my space the way she did in the tunnel. A fearless softness that I’ve never experienced or known existed before tonight. "I’m not those people."
For a moment, I considered telling her everything—to shut her down properly. The NDA that I signed, the way the magazine lied, and my lawyer’s advice to keep my mouth shut until the Olympic Committee makes a move.
But the thought dies as fast as it appears. Information is leverage. And I don’t give leverage to people who want something from me, like my father.
Trust isn’t given freely—it’s earned, and she hasn’t earned it.
"You should go home," I say instead. "Before you embarrass yourself."
Her smile is thin. "I don’t get embarrassed easily."
"Neither do I."
We stare at each other, neither willing to give ground. The tension between us is strong enough to taste. This isn’t flirting. This is combat, and I’m not sure which one I enjoy more.
I reach for my drink, draining it in one swallow. When I set the glass down, I don’t look at her again.
I turn and slip into the crowd, letting bodies close in around me, swallowing my shape until I’m just another guy in a bar.
I don’t check to see if she follows. I already know she will. And I already know how this ends.
They always give up the moment I disappear.
Cold air slaps me in the face the second I step outside Oakley’s.
I welcome it. The bite, the sting, the way it clears my head better than whiskey ever could. I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and start walking without any real destination in mind, boots crunching against the sidewalk as the noise of the bar fades behind me.
I shouldn’t be thinking about her.
That’s the rule. That’s always been the rule. Don’t linger. Don’t replay. Don’t give anyone space in your head they didn’t earn. And she didn’t earn it.
She showed up uninvited. Pushing and prodding for information that isn’t hers to know. She tried to corner me with clever insults and Olympic scare tactics, as if she’s the first person to try it.
She isn’t.
So why the hell does my mind keep circling back to the way she stood her ground?
Most people react when I dismiss them. Anger, offense, wounded pride. Natalia reacted by stepping closer. By stripping the situation down to exactly what it was and daring me to argue with her logic instead of my reputation.
I exhale sharply, watching my breath fog in the air. She’ll give up. They always do. The moment they realize I won’t bend, won’t explain, won’t play the role they need me to play—they retreat.
I pull my phone from my pocket and glance at the time. Early flight tomorrow. Switzerland is already waiting, quiet and untouched and blissfully indifferent to whatever mess my agent is spiraling about back home.
By the time I reach my car, I’ve made my decision.
I start the engine and pull away from the curb, the city lights blurring past as I merge into traffic.
First thing in the morning, I’ll be on a first-class flight to Switzerland.
Just me. A place to disappear for two weeks. Fresh powder and steep runs that don’t care who I am or what I owe.
And definitely no five-foot-and-a-half crisis manager with dark brown hair and a scowl, trying to fix a problem I don’t need fixing.
I press the accelerator, and in my mind, I'm already halfway gone.