Chapter 2
Ryan POV
The steel knurling of the forty-five-pound Olympic bar bit into the calluses of my palms, pressing against bone until the metal felt hot.
I drove the weight up off my chest, locking out my elbows with a dry, mechanical snap that sent a dull flare through the front of my left shoulder.
The strain radiated down into my ribs—a deep, persistent ache from taking three consecutive hits along the boards during yesterday’s third period.
I racked the bar into the iron stanchions, the clatter reverberating through the cavernous varsity gym.
The space smelled of menthol rub, damp leather, industrial rubber mats, and stale sweat. Fluorescent tubes hummed sixty feet overhead, bathing the racks in cold, sickly light.
My chest hitched as I sat up on the vinyl bench. The air in my lungs tasted like raw copper.
On the wooden locker bench behind me, my phone vibrated against the slats. Three sharp buzzes.
I didn't need to pick it up to know what the screen said.
It would be my father, demanding an update on the booster fund, or an invoice notification from the neuro-rehab clinic in Ann Arbor where Leo spent four hours a day relearning how to fire the nerve pathways in his lower thighs.
Four years of physical therapy bills, specialized vans, and hydraulic lift maintenance.
Every single cent of it hinged on a top-ten signing bonus in June.
One clean season. That had been the plan. Twenty games to prove my lateral drive hadn't lost an inch of explosiveness, secure the Frozen Four bid, and sign the contract before the scouts started dissecting my medical history.
Instead, I had four weeks of administrative probation hanging over my head for putting an opposing winger’s head through the penalty box glass after the final horn against BC.
I scrubbed a coarse cotton towel over my face, wiping away the stinging salt. The skin of my right forearm still held the phantom friction of Nylah Collins’s jacket sleeve.
She had smelled like crushed winter mint and cold rain. Not the synthetic vanilla or cheap alcohol that usually drifted through the campus houses on Saturday nights, but something clean and sharp enough to make the back of my throat tighten.
When I’d grabbed her arm in the stone corridor, she hadn't backed down.
She hadn't dropped her eyes. Most of the student trainers flinched if I spoke above a conversational volume; Collins had stepped straight into my space, tilted her chin, and picked apart my recovery metrics like she was reading an obituary.
Twelve percent.
The little academic had clocked the drag in my left hip before the coaching staff even noticed the compensation.
That made my teeth grind until the masseter muscles ached beneath my ears.
She was a liability. A walking, talking data leak with a clipboard and an axe to grind over a few crushed pieces of silicone from last season.
The double doors of the weight room swung open with a heavy bang.
"Owen." Coach Vance stood in the frame, his wool coaching coat zipped to the throat, a thick manila folder tucked under his arm. "Third floor. Athletic Director's office. Right now."
I didn't answer. I dropped the towel, grabbed a clean grey team hoodie off the bench, and pulled it over my damp compression shirt. The fabric dragged over the fresh contusions along my ribs, a sharp bite that kept my head clear.
* * *
The heat inside the administrative suite was stifling, thick with the smell of floor wax and stale radiator steam.
I pushed the heavy oak door open without knocking.
"Take a seat, Ryan," Director Hayes said from behind his massive desk.
I stayed on my feet, my boots planted on the Persian rug.
The room felt crowded, the air thin. Coach Vance moved past me, leaning his back against the window ledge, his jaw set in a hard, grim line.
Dr. Albright, the head of the engineering department, sat in one of the high-backed wing chairs, nervously thumbing the corner of a tablet.
Beside him sat Collins.
She had shed her oversized down parka. Beneath it, she wore a fitted charcoal wool sweater that emphasized the straight line of her shoulders and the delicate curve of her collarbones.
Her dark hair was scraped back into that severe, efficient knot, not a single strand loose.
Her hands were folded neatly over a blue card resting on her crossed knees, a thin silver band on her right thumb catching the yellow light from the desk lamp.
She didn't look up when I walked in. Her stillness was deliberate, an engineered wall of clinical detachment designed to pretend I didn't exist.
My pulse kicked against the side of my neck.
"The NCAA compliance committee finalized their review at noon," Director Hayes said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the desk. "They’re using the Boston College footage as their benchmark for aggressive non-game misconduct. You’re on aggregate behavioral probation for the remainder of the regular season. "
"I know the ruling," I said, my voice coming out gravelly and flat. "Knox told me after skate."
"What you don't know," Hayes continued, his voice dropping into a hard, bureaucratic cadence, "is the stipulation attached to your eligibility.
They didn't suspend you immediately because our legal team argued you were managing an undocumented mechanical flare-up from a legal check earlier in that game. "
A sour metallic taste hit the back of my tongue. I glanced toward Collins. Her amber-flecked eyes finally shifted, tracking up my frame until they locked onto mine with razor-sharp calculation.
"To preserve your playing status," Hayes said, "the athletic board approved an intensive load-management and telemetry pilot program.
Starting tomorrow, every ounce of your physical output—strain, force output, range of motion, and tissue recovery—is tracked, logged, and cleared through the biomechanics lab. "
"No," I said instantly.
Hayes's face hardened. "It isn't a negotiation, Owen."
"Put me on ice-time restriction with the varsity training staff," I snapped, taking a step toward the desk, my physical frame casting a long shadow across Hayes's paperwork. "I'm not letting an academic department turn my season into a research thesis."
"The varsity training staff answers to me," Hayes shot back.
"The compliance committee knows that. They demanded independent oversight from an accredited research body.
Collins is the lead technical director on the motion-capture grant.
Albright vouches for her data models. The university board signed off an hour ago. "
I looked down at her.
Collins remained motionless, her chin slightly lifted, meeting my stare without blinking. Her fingers tightened around the blue clearance card on her lap, the silver ring on her thumb digging into her flesh, but she didn't give an inch.
"She doesn't touch my clearance," I said, my voice dropping an octave, low and venomous. "She has an axe to grind from last season."
"I have a grant to fulfill, Owen," Collins said.
Her tone was smooth, devoid of inflection, slicing through the tension like a scalpel.
"Your personal paranoia doesn't factor into my data sets. You generate the kinetic output. I measure whether your tissues are about to tear. That’s the extent of our relationship. "
"You don't know what you're measuring," I growled, stepping closer until I could see the minute gold flecks in her irises. "You look at graphs and think you understand what happens on the ice."
"I understand that your left adductor is showing an eleven-degree deficit in eccentric load capacity," she replied, her words clipped, ruthless, and precise.
"Which means that if you take another hard hip check without stabilization, you won't be skating in the Frozen Four. You’ll be having your groin surgically reattached. "
The room went dead silent.
Hayes tapped a pen against the desk blotter, the sharp plastic clicks cutting through the quiet.
"She owns your ice time, Ryan. Five-thirty AM.
Sub-Level Two. Every morning. If she doesn't log your clearance by seven, you don't dress for practice.
If you miss a session, I notify the league compliance officer, and you sit six games. "
My fingernails dug into the meat of my palms, pressing so hard the skin threatened to split. The pressure behind my temples spiked, a dull throb that matched the heavy, suffocating beat of my heart.
"Dismissed," Hayes said, already looking down at his monitor. "Both of you."
* * *
Collins stood up without a word, gathered her heavy binder against her chest, and walked out the door. The rustle of her wool sweater against the heavy wood frame was the only sound she made.
I let the door swing shut behind her, waited three seconds, and followed.
The third-floor hallway was empty, dimly lit by ancient sconces, the coastal fog pressing thick and grey against the high frosted windows. She was halfway down the corridor, her stride brisk and purposeful, her winter boots clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor.
"Collins."
She didn't stop. She didn't even turn her head.
I closed the distance in four strides. My boots made no sound on the runner. Just before she reached the heavy iron door of the fire stairwell, I stepped past her shoulder, swung my arm out, and slammed the flat of my palm against the doorframe, blocking her exit.
The wood groaned under the impact.
Collins stopped dead. Her breath left her in a sharp, defensive hitch. She turned her torso toward me, her back coming up against the wallpapered wall of the alcove, her binder held flat against her sternum like a breastplate.
She was so small in the dim light. The top of her head barely cleared the middle of my chest. But when she tilted her head back to look at me, there was no fear in her expression—only a tight, coiled defiance that made my blood run hot.
"Get out of my way, Owen."
I leaned down, bracing my other hand on the wall beside her hip, caging her between my arms. The space shrank down to nothing. The smell of cold air and crushed winter mint washed over me again, cutting straight through the lingering haze of my exhaustion.
"You think this is a game," I said, my voice a gravelly murmur that barely carried across the two inches between our faces. "You think you can take an administrative mandate and hold it over my head to settle a score."
Her gaze dropped to my mouth, tracking the words as they left my lips, before snapping back to my eyes. The pulse in the hollow of her throat was jumping—a frantic, visible flutter beneath her pale skin that betrayed the steady mask she wore.
"I don't care about your scores," she whispered, her voice rough at the edges. "I care about my fellowship. And right now, your stubborn, violent arrogance is the only thing standing between me and Colorado Springs."
"Then walk away," I commanded, leaning closer until the heat of my chest brushed the wool of her sweater. I watched her pupils dilate, swallowing the amber in her eyes. "Go back in that room. Tell Hayes you have a conflict of interest. Tell him you can't work with me."
"No."
A dry, bitter laugh scraped out of my chest. "You really have no idea what you’re getting into, do you?"
"I know you're an athlete who relies on brute force because he's terrified of anyone seeing he's broken," she said, every word hitting with the impact of a clean check to the sternum.
My jaw clenched so violently the bone popped.
Collins didn't flinch. Instead, she took a single half-step forward, closing the microscopic gap left between us, her boots brushing the toes of mine. She held up the blue clearance card, the heavy stock pressing against the center of my chest, right over my thudding heart.
"Five-thirty tomorrow morning," she said, her voice dropping into a deadly, quiet cadence that brooked no argument.
"Sub-Level Two. Be on the table, Owen. In your shorts, on time, and ready to do what you're told.
Because if you make me wait even five minutes, I will pull your card before you can lace your skates. "
She held my gaze for three agonizing seconds, letting the silence crush us.
Then she dipped beneath my outstretched arm, shoved the heavy fire door open with her shoulder, and descended into the echoing stairwell.
The heavy steel door swung shut, the latch catching with a brutal, metallic snap.
I stayed where I was, my hand still braced against the cold wood, the imprint of the card burning through the fabric of my hoodie. My knuckles were white, the skin stretched tight over the bone, my lungs burning as I pulled in the empty, freezing air she’d left behind.
She wasn't going to break.
And having her hands on me every morning in that dark basement was going to be an absolute living hell.