DRAFT PRESS RELEASE – FOR PLAYER APPROVAL
Whistler Wolves Announce Partnership: The Sin Bin Lounge
“The Sin Bin Lounge is the future of Whistler hockey,” says franchise cornerstone Gabriel Castellano. “Whistler deserves a venue that matches the caliber of hockey we bring to the ice. The Sin Bin Lounge will be that place—a rare embodiment of excellence, community, and championship culture.”
My hands shake.
A harsh, ugly sound scrapes out of my throat. The caliber of hockey. I just played eight minutes of garbage hockey and got thrown out for a brawl. The timing is so perfect it’s sick.
Words I’ve never spoken stare back at me in quotation marks, like I meant them. The worst part is that I can hear myself saying it. The exact cadence, the exact brand of polished-nothing I’ve handed reporters in countless press scrums, meaning it precisely as much as this quote means anything.
Westfield didn’t invent Gabriel Castellano. That started with my father—or with me, trying to be worth his pride. Westfield just kept the model running long after the only audience I built it for was gone.
At the bottom: Approved for Publication: Gabriel Castellano, #3
A signature line. Blank. Waiting.
I reach for the whiskey glass and knock the phone instead. The screen lights up.
The team chat is still running—Thompson sending a photo of the back room at Araxi, the table full, everyone already there. Underneath it, a notification sitting quiet, timestamp from two hours ago. While I was in the locker room counting Suzuki’s blood on my knuckles.
Valentina.
Val: Hey big brother. I’ve been trying to catch you but you’re harder to reach than Drake’s lawyers, so text it is.
Val: I was going to surprise you for Christmas. Booked time off, found a decent fare, picked which of your Wolves hoodies to steal.
Val: Buuut you’re clearly slammed and I don’t feel like spending holidays alone in Vancouver, waiting for you to remember I exist.
Val: So I said yes to staying with Rafael’s family in Tuscany. We leave tomorrow.
Val: Love you. Even when you’re being a ghost.
The phone slips from my fingers. Clatters on marble.
That was her. The buzzing in my jacket pocket while I sat in the empty locker room I thought was Westfield. It was Val.
And who the hell is Rafael?
That’s the thing that disturbs me. Not the Tuscany part or the canceled ticket, but the fact that my baby sister is with someone and I don’t even know his name. That she built a life with rooms I’ve never visited while I was busy being the kind of brother who disappears with excellent excuses.
She used to call me after my games when we were kids.
When she was still living in Dad’s house.
I’d be wired from adrenaline, and she’d stay up past her bedtime asking me questions about the plays, making me recount them like stories.
She was the only person I ever talked to about hockey instead of performing it for.
When did that stop?
You know when it stopped. Calgary. Not the details—those still come apart in my hands when I try to hold them. But the before and after. That part I’ve never lost. Before, hockey was mine. After, it belonged to everyone else.
The press release is still in my other hand.
All it needs is my signature.
I look at the blank line. Then at my reflection in the dark window. I have no idea who I am. Without an audience, my face just… goes empty. I’ve managed it for so long that this is what’s left when no one’s watching:
Nothing.
My sister thinks I’m a ghost.
My team is at dinner without me.
And I’m one signature away from making Ivy’s life worse.
Because I’ll sign it. Because I always do.
She’s the one person who’s never bought a second of the performance—looked at me like she could see straight through the suit since the day I walked back into her bar.
The walls press closer. My lungs lock. I need out. Air. Anything that isn’t this glass box watching me back.
I pull on the first things I find—joggers, a hoodie that still smells like hotel detergent from the road trip. Grabbing my parka, I shove my feet into boots. My skin prickles under the fabric, overheated and restless.
The elevator ride down blurs.
“Pretty rough out there, Mr. Castellano—”
I ignore the concierge and push through the glass doors.
The cold pours over me. Wind drives snow horizontal, needles against my overheated face. My skin goes electric.
I pick a direction and walk.
The penthouse disappears behind me into the white. Ahead, the village lights smear through the snow.
I don’t think about where I’m going.
I already know.