Chapter 22 Benched
B y morning, Nico Reyes had been benched.
Not officially.
Not at first.
Officially, the athletic department called it a temporary precautionary removal from competitive activity pending internal review.
Which was a lot of clean words for one ugly thing.
They had taken the court from him.
Lena found out in Conference Room B, because apparently every terrible thing at Westbridge had decided to schedule itself beneath fluorescent lights and framed photos of smiling athletes who had never once ruined anyone’s life in public.
She sat at the end of the table with her hands folded tightly in her lap, her phone faceup in front of her, and the memory of Nico’s voice from yesterday still cutting through her ribs.
Stay away from me.
Soft.
Controlled.
Final.
Except she had not stayed away.
Of course she had not.
She had spent half the night trying to stop the anonymous poll from spreading.
She had sent messages to Talia. To Maya.
To Jace. She had reported the post from three separate accounts.
She had drafted four versions of a statement and deleted all of them because every sentence either exposed too much or protected too little.
The poll had closed at midnight.
The audio had not dropped.
Yet.
That yet sat in her throat like a stone.
Across the table, Nico sat beside Jace with his braced wrist resting on his thigh and his face locked into the kind of blankness that made Lena want to scream.
He had not looked at her since he entered.
Not once.
She told herself that was better.
It was not.
Coach Hart stood at the front of the room with Talia, Dr. Langley from Athletics Administration, and a university compliance officer whose name Lena had already forgotten because her brain had decided there was only room for panic and Nico’s profile.
Dr. Langley was a silver-haired woman with a calm voice and sharp eyes. She looked like she had never raised her voice in her life because policies did it for her.
“We have multiple issues to address,” Dr. Langley said. “The leaked communications document. The undisclosed nature of the relationship campaign. The ongoing public speculation about Mr. Reyes’s injury. And now the threat of additional media involving another student athlete.”
Declan.
No one said his name.
Cowards loved passive language.
Nico’s jaw tightened.
Lena saw it.
She wished she did not still see everything.
Dr. Langley continued. “Until we complete a preliminary review, Mr. Reyes will be held from competitive play and public team appearances.”
The words hit the room with no sound at all.
Jace’s head snapped up. “What?”
Nico did not move.
That was worse.
Coach Hart’s face was stone. “Dr. Langley—”
“This is temporary,” she said.
Nico laughed.
Once.
Quiet.
Empty.
Everyone looked at him.
He looked at no one.
“Temporary,” he repeated.
The word sounded dead in his mouth.
Lena’s fingers curled beneath the table.
Jace leaned forward. “The championship is next week.”
“We are aware,” the compliance officer said.
“Are you?” Jace snapped. “Because you’re talking like this is a parking ticket.”
“Jace,” Coach Hart warned.
“No, Coach, come on.” Jace looked between them, furious now. “We all know why this is happening. They’re scared of another headline.”
Dr. Langley’s expression remained even. “We are concerned about student welfare and institutional responsibility.”
Nico looked up then.
Finally.
Not at Lena.
At Dr. Langley.
His voice was calm enough to hurt. “You weren’t concerned when the first clip went around without context.”
The room froze.
Dr. Langley folded her hands. “Mr. Reyes—”
“No.” Nico leaned back, his mouth curving without humor. “You were concerned when donors emailed.”
Lena closed her eyes.
Not because he was wrong.
Because he was right in a room that punished truth when it sounded inconvenient.
Coach Hart’s voice cut in. “Reyes.”
Nico’s gaze moved to him.
Something passed between them.
Player and coach.
Problem and authority.
Boy with everything to lose and man deciding how much loss was acceptable.
Coach Hart’s jaw flexed. “This is not helping.”
Nico’s face hardened.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m noticing help has a funny definition around here.”
Lena flinched before she could stop herself.
Nico saw.
For one second, his eyes cut to hers.
One second.
That was all.
It was enough to make her chest ache.
Then he looked away.
Dr. Langley cleared her throat. “Ms. Hart.”
Lena straightened.
Her father’s eyes shifted toward her.
Talia looked down at her tablet.
That was how Lena knew the next knife was hers.
“Given your personal involvement in the campaign and the subsequent public confusion around the boundaries of that campaign,” Dr. Langley said, “you will also be removed from any official or unofficial media responsibilities related to Mr. Reyes and the men’s tennis program until further notice.”
For a second, Lena heard nothing.
No air conditioner.
No chair creaks.
No distant thud of tennis balls from the indoor courts.
Nothing.
Removed.
From the campaign.
From the program.
From the one thing she had been trying to prove she could handle.
Her father’s face tightened.
Not surprise.
Regret.
He had known.
Of course he had known.
Lena looked at him.
“Dad?”
The word came out before she could stop it.
Not Coach.
Not professional.
Dad.
Something flickered across his face.
Pain, maybe.
But not enough to stop what was happening.
“This is temporary,” he said.
Temporary.
There was that word again.
People loved calling damage temporary when they were not the ones bleeding from it.
Lena’s smile appeared.
Automatic.
Polished.
Deadly.
“Of course.”
Nico’s head turned toward her.
She felt it.
She refused to look.
Because if she looked at him now, if she saw pity or guilt or worse, nothing, she might break in front of everyone. And Lena Hart had been raised better than to fall apart in conference rooms.
Talia’s voice was careful. “Lena, this isn’t a reflection of your ability.”
That almost made her laugh.
“Isn’t it?”
Talia’s mouth closed.
Good.
Lena had no patience left for soft lies.
Dr. Langley continued, “We also ask that both of you refrain from public comment until the department issues an official statement.”
Nico stood.
Jace grabbed his arm. “Bro.”
Nico shook him off.
Not hard.
Enough.
“Are we done?” Nico asked.
Dr. Langley looked at Coach Hart.
Coach Hart looked at Nico.
“Yes,” he said. “For now.”
Nico nodded once.
Then he walked out.
No argument.
No explosion.
No headline.
Just silence.
That was somehow worse than all of it.
Lena lasted twelve seconds.
Then she stood too.
“Lena,” her father said.
She did not stop.
The hallway outside Conference Room B was empty except for Nico, who stood near the window at the end of the corridor, one hand braced against the sill, head bowed.
For one foolish, impossible second, she thought he had waited for her.
Then he turned.
His face proved he had not.
Or maybe he had and hated himself for it.
“Nico.”
He looked past her toward the conference room door. “You should go back.”
“No.”
His mouth tightened. “Of course.”
She stepped closer. “I’m sorry.”
His laugh was soft and brutal. “For which part?”
The words hit.
She deserved them.
Maybe.
Probably.
Still, they hurt.
“For all of it,” she said.
“That’s broad.”
“I know.”
“Convenient.”
Her throat tightened. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
His eyes finally met hers.
There was so much pain in them it almost looked like anger.
“I don’t want you to say anything.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.” He stepped closer, voice still low. “Fair was gone the second I found out I was a strategy document before I was a person.”
Lena absorbed that.
Again.
Because maybe this was what regret did. It kept returning in different clothes until you understood every way you had failed.
“I can’t undo that,” she whispered.
“No.”
“But I can tell you it changed.”
His eyes flashed. “When?”
She went still.
He had asked it before.
At the lobby.
In anger.
Now it sounded worse.
Like he genuinely needed to know the exact moment the ground beneath him had stopped being fake.
Lena swallowed.
“At the coffee shop,” she said.
He looked away.
She kept going because stopping now would be cowardice.
“When you moved your chair to block the cameras. You didn’t do it for the campaign. You did it because you saw me panic and wanted to stop it. That was the first time I realized I had been looking at you wrong.”
His jaw worked.
“And then the freshman. The strings. Your mother’s call. The court at midnight.” Her voice thinned. “The way you see me when I’m trying so hard not to be seen.”
Nico closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
When he opened them, the wall was back.
“Don’t.”
“Nico—”
“No.” His voice cracked at the edge, and that tiny fracture hurt more than a shout. “You don’t get to use truth like a bandage after the cut is already infected.”
She flinched.
He saw.
Good.
Let him see.
Maybe they both needed to stop hiding the damage.
“I know you’re hurt,” she said.
His mouth twisted. “Careful. That almost sounded like one of your notes.”
The blow landed low.
Lena’s eyes burned.
She looked down because she would not cry here. Not in a hallway where anyone could turn a corner and make grief into content.
Nico inhaled sharply.
Regret.
Immediate.
Useless.
“Lena.”
She shook her head once. “Don’t.”
Silence.
A door opened behind them. Staff voices spilled into the hallway.
Nico stepped back.
That step felt final.
“You should stay away from me,” he said.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep not listening.”
“Maybe because you keep saying it like you want me to argue.”
His face changed.
There.
The truth.
A tiny flash of it.
He did want her to argue.
He wanted her to stay.
He wanted to be the kind of person who could ask.
He was not.
Or did not believe he was.
The door to the conference room opened wider. Jace appeared, saw them, and stopped.