Dear Ms. Hayes,
We look forward to building something meaningful together.
Tiffany Ling, Director of Public Relations
Whistler Wolves Hockey Club, a Westfield Sports & Entertainment organization
The word probationary jumps off the page. On the phone, Tiffany had been all polish and vision—Mr. Westfield wants to build Whistler’s hockey scene into something that rivals Vancouver’s. Seeing it in ink, with a three-month deadline attached, hits differently.
During this period, both parties will assess brand alignment and community impact before any long-term commitment is made.
My stomach churns. If brand alignment is the metric, a viral video of me calling out their star player over a ruined shirt is a breach of contract before the ink even dries.
I flip to the next page, Schedule A, and my pulse spikes.
“Holy shit,” Delilah breathes, leaning over my shoulder. “That’s... a lot of money.”
“It is,” I say. It’s enough to clear every invoice I’ve been avoiding.
My eyes drop to the bottom of the page.
Martin Westfield, Owner, Whistler Wolves.
His signature is already there in sharp black ink. A heavy, masculine scrawl that represents the ownership group that just traded for my nightmare.
The pen in my hand feels like a loaded gun.
Signing this hands my sanctuary to the team that employs Gabriel Castellano. It locks me in a cage, voluntarily, with the one person I swore I’d never let near me again.
“Ivy? You okay?” Delilah’s voice snaps me back to reality. “You look pale.”
I force a smile. “I’m fine. Just... overwhelmed. It’s a big deal, you know?”
She nods, her grin softening. “I get it. But this is going to change everything. For the better. Anyway, I need to pop out and run a few errands before we open. But try not to worry, Ives. This is a good thing.”
A good thing.
The door clicks shut behind her, and the silence of the empty pub immediately presses in on me. Alone with my thoughts, the weight of the viral #BeerGate video and our dire finances compounds into a physical ache in my chest.
I sink back into the squeaky swivel chair, sweeping the pile of overdue bills aside. It’s a financial lifeline for my dad’s pub. I know that. But signing means binding my livelihood to the man I hate most. A lifeline and a noose in one.
Can I actually do this? Can I stand across the bar from him, pour him drinks, and play the welcoming host without shattering?
Delilah thinks this is just about a rude customer and a viral video. She doesn’t know the whole story. No one does.
I flip back through the pages I skimmed too fast the first time, hunting for something—a clause, an exception, anything that lets me draw a line around one specific, insufferable right wing. Twenty-three pages, and somewhere in the legalese there has to be a way out that doesn’t cost me the bar.
Page six. Page eleven. Page seventeen.
My finger drags down dense paragraphs of liability terms and event-scheduling requirements until it snags on a line buried mid-paragraph in Section 9.
All registered Whistler Wolves players and personnel shall retain equal and unrestricted access to designated official team venues for the duration of the agreement, in accordance with league sponsorship requirements.
I read it twice. A third time, just to be sure desperation isn’t making me misread it.
It isn’t.
No grounds. No loophole. Nothing that lets me point at Gabriel Castellano and say, not him.
Legally, he’s as welcome here as any other Wolf.
The crisp Whistler Wolves logo blurs, then the signature line below it swims into focus, waiting for my name.
My breath comes shallow and fast.
Everything Dad built rides on this one line—the bar, this building, the only home I’ve got left.
And underneath that, the smaller, stupider hope I don’t let myself say out loud: that someday this chance means Ulf and Birgitta finally get paid what their cooking’s actually worth instead of whatever stipend I can scrape together and gratitude, that Delilah’s paycheck starts matching the job she’s actually doing.
All of it depends on me swallowing my pride and leaving the ghost of that night in Calgary buried.
The Penalty Box needs this. I need this.
With a deep, shuddering breath, I pick up the pen and sign my name. Then I photocopy it, scan it, and email it to Tiffany before I can talk myself out of it.
An hour later, the door chimes. Delilah is back from her errands, arms full of a plain cardboard box.
“This was on the back step. Guess they don’t waste time,” she says, setting it on my desk.
Inside: a banner, table tents, a window cling. And on top, in its own tissue-paper sleeve, a frosted decal for the front door.
WSE.
Same three letters I just put my name underneath.
We head back to the floor. Delilah scatters the rest of the box across the room—table tents, the window cling—while I take the decal to the door myself.
I peel the backing. Line the edges square to the frame. Press the air out with the edge of a gift card, corner to corner, until there’s not one bubble left. If it’s going on my door, it’s going on straight. My door. My glass. Someone else’s initials.
I step back. The decal catches the light, and behind it, faint in the reflection, the wall—Dad’s broken stick, his tournament photos, trophies nobody’s sponsoring. Still mine. Still here.
“Let’s see which one of us peels first.”