Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Toni Amato
Three weeks with the Gold Coast Guardians and I have learned exactly one thing about the corridor between the training room and the ice: it is a neutral zone.
Players pass through it. Trainers pass through it.
I pass through it carrying my clipboard and my professionalism and my absolute commitment to the boundaries of this assignment.
I am presently here, and Max Stevens exits the locker room at its distant end.
In a towel.
One towel. Low on his hips. His hair is wet from the shower, and he has skate socks on, which should not be as funny as it is — six feet two inches of professional athlete in tube socks and terrycloth.
He has a roll of pre-wrap in one hand. It’s evident he’s on his way to the training room.
At the same time I notice him, he notices me, and his mouth forms a shape that’s almost a grin before he holds it back. “Amato.”
“Stevens.” I drop my gaze to my clipboard. “The on-ice session starts in twelve minutes.”
“I know. Shoulder work first.” He lifts the pre-wrap. Evidence.
“Fine,” I start toward the training room door.
“You’re not going to say anything?”
“About what?”
“About—” he gestures at himself. At the totality of himself. At the considerable expanse of torso and shoulder and the frankly unnecessary amount of physical presence that exists in tube socks. “This.”
“You’re an athlete in a locker room corridor,” I say, eyes down. “This is the expected habitat.”
He falls into step beside me. Wet hair. Towel. Completely unbothered. “You’re impressively professional.”
“Yes.”
“It’s impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m timing it,” he says. “To see how long before—”
The alarm goes off.
Not a gentle alarm. A fire alarm. The full building system, strobes firing in the corridor ceiling, the PA blasting three short tones and then a recorded voice informing us to evacuate via the nearest exit and not use the elevators.
The training room door swings open, and Dave, the head physio, comes through, already pulling on his jacket, radio in hand.
“Out the back,” he says, pointing down the corridor toward the emergency exit.
“Front lobby’s going to be a mess, facility’s directing everyone to their zone muster points.
Service exit takes you to the east dock; that’s our zone.
” He’s already moving. “I’ve got to grab the medical kit from—” he’s gone, through the training room again, his voice trailing.
The emergency exit at the end of the corridor has already disengaged; the push-bar glows green, and the heavy steel door stands open two inches from the automatic release. Standard fire protocol. I know this because I read the facility safety documentation in my first week, as I am that person.
Max pushes through the door. The October air hits us like a wall.
I follow him through the door, and it swings shut behind me with a sound I recognize immediately and do not love.
The magnetic lock re-engaging. Card-reader entry only.
My badge is on my lanyard, which is around my neck, which means I have the means to re-enter the building.
My badge reader requires the system to be reset by facilities.
During an active alarm, the system does not reset.
I test the handle anyway. It doesn’t give.
Behind me, Max exhales once, like he already knows exactly how this is going to go.
I stare at the door, gazing at the small red light on the card reader.
Standing on the concrete service dock, I observe an industrial dumpster, a folding chair of unknown origin, a half-empty pallet of water bottles wrapped in plastic, and a spectacular view of the facility’s loading bay.
Beyond it, the October sky is gray and entirely serious about the temperature.
Then I look at Max. My eyes flick downward, entirely against my will. An unfortunate system failure. For just a second, I allow myself to recall what’s under that towel, and I’ll admit to no one that I’m a little turned on.
Max looks at the door. Observes the card reader. His eyes flick to the dock, then shift to me. “Huh,” he says.
“The muster point is around the front,” I say. “There should be a pathway around the perimeter—”
“That door,” he says, pointing left to the facility’s exterior wall, “is a loading dock gate. Padlocked.” He points right.
“That’s the HVAC unit. The perimeter path is on the other side of it, and there is a ten-foot security fence between us and it.
” He scans the dock, calm about it in a way that is somehow more irritating than panic.
“We’re on the east dock. The muster point is east. That location is on the other side of the building. ”
I look at the fence. The HVAC unit. The sky. “How long does a fire alarm take to resolve?”
“In my experience?” He drops onto the folding chair without ceremony.
It creaks, protests, holds. “Twenty minutes if it’s a false alarm, which it is, because there’s no smoke and the sprinklers didn’t fire.
” He looks up at me. Wet hair. Towel. Skate socks.
Absolutely at home on a concrete service dock in October.
“Could be thirty. Facilities has to walk the building, confirm clear, contact the fire department, get the all-clear, reset the system. It’s not as bad as it could be. ”
“How do you figure that? I could also be in a towel? That would be my worst scenario.” I pull my blazer tighter.
Max smiles wide and gorgeously, closing his eyes. “Now that’s a visual I’d like to take a few minutes to ponder in depth.”
I’m striving intensely to remain unaffected. He opens his eyes and looks at me.
“You’re in a towel,” I say.
“I’m aware.”
“It’s forty-two degrees. What could be worse?”
“I’m also aware.” He doesn’t look cold. This is physiologically improbable and somehow completely consistent with everything I have observed about Maxwell Stevens in three weeks.
“Explain to me. How is this situation capable of deteriorating further?”
“It could be Friday instead of Monday.”
“Why is the day significant?”
“Because the garbage truck switched out last week’s dumpster for a new one early this morning.”
My head turns, and my face instinctively grimaces when I acknowledge the dumpster.
“You could come stand closer,” he says. “Body heat. Professionally speaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re in a blazer.”
“I run warm.”
“Toni.” His voice carries the specific quality it gets when he’s done performing. Flat. Real. “Come stand near me before you actually freeze.”
I cross the dock. Stop approximately three feet from the chair. The wind off the loading bay is cutting and direct, and I absolutely do not move any closer. “The folding chair,” I say. “Where did it come from?”
“Hendricks leaves it here. He comes out for lunch sometimes. Doesn’t want anyone to know.” I file this information about the referee away for later. “Sit,” he says, standing.
“I’m not taking your chair.”
“I’m offering it.”
“You’re in a towel. Sit.”
He sits. Studies me for a moment. “You could sit on the armrest.”
“I am a professional.”
“The armrest is twelve inches wide and made of plastic. I’m not propositioning you.
” I sit on the armrest. It is, in fact, twelve inches wide and made of plastic and slightly elevated from the dock, which means the wind hits less.
The heat from him hits instantly. Immediate.
My shoulders drop half an inch before I catch it.
And I do not comment on it. We sit in silence for approximately four seconds.
“So,” he says.
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to say something insufferable. I could hear it forming.”
“I was going to ask how the on-ice program is going.”
“You were not.”
He tilts his head. “I was going to ask about last night.”
“We had a deal,” I say.
“Your hour was up at seven forty-five a.m.”
I check my watch. It is nine twenty-two. “I needed more time.”
“Interesting.” His voice is even. “How much more?”
“Professionally speaking, the events of last evening fall outside the scope of—”
“Toni.”
“The assignment parameters require—”
“An-ton-i-a.” My full name in his mouth does what it always does, and I hate him for it.
No woman should have to conduct disciplinary oversight while a man built like this wanders around in a towel.
I keep my gaze on the loading bay. On the padlocked gate.
The gray Chicago sky. On anything that is not the six-foot-two man in a towel whose arm is approximately four inches from mine and whose body heat is the only thing standing between me and genuine hypothermia.
“I’m not doing this here,” I say.
“Where would you like to do it?”
“Somewhere that isn’t a service dock next to a dumpster.”
“I agree it’s not ideal.” He extends his legs out across the concrete. Skate socks. I will not look at the skate socks. “But we’ve got time.”
The alarm is still going off. Distantly, I can hear voices from the front of the building, the muffled sound of the team assembling at the main muster point.
Nobody is coming around the fence. Dave has the medical kit and the radio and is almost certainly efficiently managing the front zone and has not yet registered that we are not there.
We are alone on this dock. No buffer. Just a dumpster, a pallet of water bottles, and a man in a towel four inches from my arm.
“You were timing something,” I say. “Before the alarm.”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“How long your professionalism would hold.” He glances at me sideways. “I’ve been running the experiment for three weeks.”
“And?”
“It’s impressive,” he says. “Genuinely. I’ve never met anyone who could maintain a wall that consistently.” A pause. “Most people have one weak spot. You build another wall in front of yours.”
“That’s called discipline.”
“That’s called exhausting.” His voice is warm. “I should know. I’ve been running the same play.”