Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alycia
My phone hasn’t stopped buzzing for an hour.
The sound vibrates through the desk like a pulse I can’t regulate, threading itself into my bloodstream until I can’t tell where the noise ends and my panic begins.
Notifications flip my screen awake again and again, like a swarm trying to claw its way inside my head.
I flip it face down again, like that will somehow make the noise in my head quieter.
It doesn’t.
The open tabs on my computer feel like a confession laid out in pixels. My resignation email sits on one monitor, already addressed and scheduled to be sent to Janine. My drafted statement blinks open on the other, the cursor pulsing like a countdown I can’t outrun.
Just seeing my name typed at the top of the resignation makes something twist painfully under my ribs. I worked so hard for this second chance, pouring an entire year of my life into being someone no one could question, accuse, or replace.
I reread the first line of my statement, the words so neat and cold they barely feel like they belong to me.
The relationship between Kyle Hendrix and me began as a PR strategy and should have remained as such… I clamp my jaw hard, swallowing the bitterness rising like bile.
This statement protects him and stabilizes the front office, but it also sacrifices me. I know how to remove myself from the narrative when the story demands a villain. But it also erases everything terrifying and beautiful that happened between us when no one was looking.
I take full responsibility for allowing professional boundaries to blur…
The cursor blinks at the end of the paragraph. This is what they want: a neat little narrative they can point to and say, See? We handled it. She handled it. Everyone moves forward but me, the woman who folded herself into the space marked acceptable loss.
My finger trembles as I hover over the trackpad.
Once I hit “Publish,” it’s over. The job, the team, and the career I clawed my way into with late nights and a spine that refused to bend in rooms full of men who mistook me for ornamental.
No one will want to touch me again after this.
My life as I know it will be over, but he walks away cleaner.
And I can live with being the villain if it means he gets to stay the hero.
The phone buzzes again, harder this time, nearly vibrating off the edge. I snatch it without thinking, ready to flip on Do Not Disturb out of spite, and freeze.
Tiff
Are you seeing this???
Maria
ANSWER YOUR PHONE. RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
My heart stutters, then kicks into a sprint.
The last time they both texted like this was the day the charity clip went viral.
I can’t open any of the notifications. I’m hanging by a thread as it is.
I flip the phone back over and set it aside because I have to.
I reread the top of the statement one more time.
This is my decision. No one has coerced me…
Not in the legal sense, but in the quieter way years of conditioning turn into a hand at your back, pushing you toward the fire until you forget you could have stepped aside.
Still, someone has to be the shield. I breathe in, moving the cursor to the “Post” button.
It glows blue, ready for me to sacrifice myself with one click.
“Alycia—don’t post anything.” Janine barrels into my office, out of breath, hair slightly out of place, with a tablet clutched in a white-knuckled grip.
“What—”
She sets the tablet on my desk with a thud, taps the screen, and swivels it toward me.
I don’t understand what I’m looking at, just a paused video frame, until my gaze lands on Kyle’s face, front and center.
He’s wearing a simple tee, shoulders squared, jaw braced, eyes so devastatingly open it feels like a hand wraps around my ribs and squeezes.
“What is this?” My voice comes out airless.
Janine’s gaze softens in a way that makes my throat tighten. “You should watch it.”
I hit Play, and his voice pours into my office, low and rough at the edges, threaded with a vulnerability I’ve never heard him use with anyone but me.
“My name is Kyle Hendrix, and I’m done lying.”
He doesn’t sound like a man reading a prepared statement.
He sounds like a man walking toward a cliff he’s decided to jump off, eyes wide open.
He says my name with reverence and care, like the syllables themselves are something he’s been holding on to for dear life.
He tells them it was PR, and it shouldn’t have been.
He tells them it stopped being fake for him a long time ago.
My hands fly to my mouth as the tears climb my throat so fast I can’t swallow them back. Then he says the line that slices every defense I’ve ever built clean in half: “She doesn’t owe anyone an apology. I do.”
This man, whom I tried to push away to protect him and who walked away last night because he wouldn’t trap me, is standing in front of the entire world to protect me. It’s as if something inside me that’s been twisted tight for years starts to come undone, one thread at a time.
“I love her,” he says, voice fraying, face raw, gaze unwavering. “I’m done hiding it.”
By the time the video ends, I am shaking so hard the chair beneath me trembles.
Janine touches my wrist—careful, like she’s handling something fragile.
“Alycia.” Her voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. “Look at the comments.”
I blink the tears back enough to see the tablet again. Half of the major sports accounts and more fan profiles than I can count have already reposted the video. My stomach clenches as I steel myself for the worst, but it doesn’t come.
Of course, there are a few circling, like always, saying the predictable things—PR stunt, attention, messy, unprofessional. I expected those, but they’re buried. Above them are people neither of us knows, choosing to believe him.
Fans telling him they’re proud.
Women saying they’ve worked in offices and that what I’m facing is bullshit.
People threading long comments about accountability that doesn’t require a woman’s public execution.
Old clips from behind-the-scenes Timberwolves content where I’m in the background, arms full of binders, mouth tight in focus.
Someone has pulled a still frame of my face from the charity footage, blown it up, and written: “She looks tired. Not calculating. Protect her at all costs.”
I was prepared for mockery and cruelty, people dissecting my competence and worth in 280 characters.
I did not prepare for strangers on the internet to meet his confession with something like kindness.
And just when I’m barely holding on, my phone buzzes again, vibrating so hard against the desk it nearly jumps.
Janine releases my wrist long enough to slide it closer with two fingers. “Take it.”
I wipe under my eyes, glance at the caller ID, and nearly choke: Maria. I swipe to answer and put it on speaker before my good sense can catch up.
“Please tell me you’re sitting down,” she says by way of greeting.
“I’m at my desk,” I manage.
Tiff’s voice cuts in—apparently, it’s a group call. “Good, because if you weren’t, we were about to show up and physically press you into a chair.”
“I— Have you—” My laugh breaks in the middle and turns into something that sounds more like a sob.
“Yes, we’ve seen it,” Maria says, voice turning soft and thick. “We watched it together. Twice. I’m on my third replay.”
“He broke me,” Tiff adds. “I had plans today, and now I have to sit here and grieve every man I’ve ever dated.”
A wet, startled laugh slips out of me. “You two are ridiculous.”
“Not ridiculous. Observant. Do you understand what he just did for you?”
I glance at the tablet, the paused frame of his face mid-sentence. “He told the truth.”
“He rewrote the narrative,” Janine says quietly from beside me, surprising all three of us.
“Is that Janine?” Tiff gasps. “Janine, if you’re there, I need you to know we are available for consulting on all future Timberwolves romance disasters.”
“Duly noted.” Janine actually huffs out a small, disbelieving laugh.
“Wait, why is Janine being cute?” Maria makes a wounded noise. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” I drag a hand down my face, tears spilling out that I don’t bother hiding. “I don’t know what any of this is. I had my resignation letter ready. I was about to—”
“You were about to torch your entire life to protect him,” Tiff says gently. “Because that’s what you do. You set yourself on fire and call it ‘controlling the damage.’”
“And he just told the world he’d rather walk through it with you than watch you burn alone,” Maria finishes.
My shoulders shake as I press my fist against my mouth, trying to catch my breath, but it’s useless.
The tears come hot and relentless, blurring my vision, clogging my throat.
The phone is full of chaos—Tiff swearing, Maria sniffing, and Janine saying my name like she’s learning how to use it for something other than assigning tasks.
“I can’t. I don’t know how to—”
“You don’t have to do anything right now. You don’t have to be composed or responsible for the universe.”
“We’ll stay on the line and rate the dramatic quality of each sob. I give that last one a nine-point-five.”
“Stop,” I say, laughing and crying at the same time.
“She can actually do both,” Janine murmurs, almost to herself. “She’s still working while she falls apart because, of course, she is.”
That makes me cry harder. I drop my forehead into my free hand, shoulders hunched, every part of me shaking with the force of it.
The dam doesn’t just crack; it gives way.
Weeks of bracing, years of swallowing fear and shame and humiliation, all of it comes pouring out over the edges of my control.
No one tries to stop me; they just stay.
Janine rooted beside my desk, Maria and Tiff in my ear, and his face frozen on the screen.
For once, no one is asking me to hold it together or informing me that optics matter more than my heart.
They are just letting me be, to feel it all.
I don’t know how long I cry, but my eyes ache, and my body feels wrung out, emptied of the constant, aching tension I’ve been carrying like a second skin.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur automatically.
“For what?” Janine asks, and it isn’t really a question.
“Being a mess at work.”
“Sweetheart, if there was ever a day you could be a mess at work, it’s the day your fake PR boyfriend tells the world he’s in love with you for real,” Tiff deadpans, causing Maria to cackle loudly across the line.
“Not helping,” I whisper, but it's all helping.
“Listen.” Maria clears her throat. “We won’t tell you what to do next. But the narrative is shifting. People are seeing you the way you deserve to be seen.”
“She’s right.” Jannie nods. “Emails were pouring in before I came here, but it's different this time. Fewer vultures and more support. The GM is panicking about image, which, frankly, is his job. My job is to ensure they don’t offer you as a sacrifice. So, consider this your official notice: You are not resigning today.”
“Janine—”
“I read your draft,” she says simply. “I reject it.”
“You— How—”
“I keep an eye on my people.” She smiles before resting her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll deal with PR later, but right now, you need to answer one question.”
“What question?”
She looks down at the tablet, at the paused frame of Kyle mid-confession, eyes dark and earnest. “After everything he just said, after the way he chose you in front of everyone… what do you want?”
What do I want? She didn’t ask me what I can live with, not what is safest, not what will prevent the least damage.
She asked what I wanted, and the answer rises so quickly it scares me.
I want him. Not the version dressed up for cameras or a franchise, but the man who just looked every fear I’ve ever had about being disposable in the eye and said: No. Not her. Not this time.
My phone buzzes again in my hand, another notification sliding down from the top.
Elevator Boy
I didn’t say I loved you because of PR. I said it because it’s true.
My vision blurs instantly, tears rising so fast they spill over before I even understand what’s happening. My fingers curl around the phone like all that exists is that single message glowing on the screen. My throat closes around a sound that’s half sob, half prayer.
“Oh my God,” Maria whispers.
“Tell us what he said, or I will hack your accounts,” Tiff squeals.
I don’t answer them. I just stare at the screen, at the simple line that feels more terrifying than any crisis headline I’ve ever managed.
Something small and stubborn that’s survived every bad boss and worst-case scenario sits up straighter.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and end the call with Maria and Tiff, promising to text as soon as I can breathe again.
They protest but tell me they love me, and I hang up.
When I look up at Janine, a soft, knowing smile spreads across her face. “Go.”
I nod my head and push back from my desk on unsteady legs. I grab my coat from the back of my chair and my bag from the floor. My hands are shaking, but for the first time in a long time, there’s no hesitation in the movement beneath the tremor.
I sling the bag over my shoulder and pause at the doorway. “What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth.” Janine slides her tablet under her arm and straightens her spine. “That there is no way we are going to let them build a story out of your silence. We never were.”
“Thank you.”
“Go find your boy, Torres.” She exhales, something like an apology exhaled with it. “Let someone else hold the line today.”
I nod once and step out into the hallway. I don’t know what will happen to my job, my reputation, or my carefully constructed career. All I know is he stood up in front of the world and chose me. It’s my turn to choose us back.
So, I walk, not away this time, but toward him.