Chapter 26
Cillian
Media day is a special kind of hell, a sprawling, loud-mouthed beast that takes over the entire building before the first puck even hits the ice.
The league requires it the day before the first game of the Final.
Every player on both teams served up to every reporter on the planet, all in the arena hosting game one.
Which is ours. So our concourse has been swallowed whole by camera risers and cable runs and a few hundred credentialed strangers.
I'm picking my way through the maze toward my next scheduled podium when I see him. Liam Brennan. He's leaning against a production crate, looking every bit the New York golden boy, holding court with a cluster of reporters who scatter the moment they clock me coming.
We've both spent the spring dismantling our respective coasts. He and his squad carved a path through the East like they were on a mission, while we've been grinding through the West, refusing to stay down.
Now there's nowhere left to go but through each other. The Final. Four wins takes the Cup, best of seven games, and it starts tomorrow night on our ice. The air in this building is already vibrating with the weight of it.
"O'Rourke, just the man." He pushes off the crate as I approach, that smug, punchable grin firmly in place. "I gotta say, I'm shocked you actually managed to drag yourself this far. Thought last year broke you for good."
"Why's that, Liam?" I stop a few feet back. I don't have the stomach for his brand of bullshit today, but I'm not about to let him think he's winning the head games before the anthem's even played.
"Come on." He spreads his hands, all mock sympathy. "The knee. The slump. Losing your mind in the stands over some woman. I watched the whole thing and thought, there he goes. Golden boy's finally cracked." He tilts his head. "And yet."
"And yet here I am." I keep my voice easy. "Must be a disappointment."
His eyes flick over the emptying stands, and then he leans in, dropping his voice below the din.
"I'm going to end you tomorrow, O'Rourke.
In your own building. In front of your own fans, and that pretty little sommelier of yours.
I'm taking that Cup back to New York and I'm going to enjoy watching your face while I do it. "
A year ago, that works. A year ago I've got a fistful of his jersey before he finishes the sentence, and I hand the league another headline and my team another mess. I know exactly how that version of me feels, because I lived inside him for twelve ugly months.
But the cold quiet has settled into my chest where the anger used to live, and I just look at him and smile.
"You've been talking about me all spring, Liam." I let it land. "Whole season, and my name's the one that keeps falling out of your mouth. Tomorrow you'll get to say it to my face on the ice. Should be a nice change for you."
His grin tightens at the corners, just slightly. Just enough.
"Cillian!" Jonesy is suddenly at my shoulder, gaze bouncing between us before it settles into a flat glare at Brennan. "Let's go. The local scrum's waiting, and this one's not worth the fine."
I nod, and we turn to leave. Brennan's laugh follows us down the tunnel, but it's a half-beat too late, and we both heard it.
"You good?" Jonesy mutters once we're clear.
"Never better."
The next hour's a blur of microphones and the same five questions on a loop. The Cup. The suspension. Margot. The pressure. Whether I can keep my head this time. I give them the safe answers, the ones Derek drilled into me, but underneath all of it there's only the ice.
Four wins is all we need. Tomorrow's the first, and even if we drop it the series is long, but to hell with the safe version. I want it all, and I want it starting now.
The flat is quiet, the city glittering away beyond the wall of glass because Margot likes the blinds open, and her toiletries have colonized half my bathroom counter over the past month, a neat regiment of bottles arranged by size.
The sight of them through the doorway makes me stupidly happy every time.
I stretch out on the bed, my muscles stiff after a full day of media obligations. Eleven hours of cameras and the same five questions on a loop, and my voice has gone half-hoarse from giving the same safe answers.
"How are you holding up with the big game tomorrow?" she asks, peering out from the bathroom as she works moisturizer into her cheeks. "Because I think I'm actually more nervous for you than you are."
"I'm not nervous," I say honestly, smiling as I watch her. "I'm too tired to be nervous, I think. Just pressure, which I don't mind. It's a healthy dose of it. The most important thing is to keep my head in the right place."
"The deep breathing is totally helping, right?" She reappears in the doorway, hair piled up in its going-to-bed clip, and does a little demonstration, puffing her cheeks out like a blowfish.
"Exactly that." I can't help laughing at her.
"Well, I'll be right there in the stands cheering for you," she says, crossing the room and hopping onto the bed beside me. "I don't think an act of God could keep me away."
I pull her close, feeling the warmth of her skin through the worn cotton of the shirt she stole from me weeks ago. "Thanks. I won't lie, having you there makes a difference."
She looks up at me. "Yeah?"
“Aye.” I nod. "You're like a lucky charm to me now. Whenever I spot you in the crowd, I feel like I can't lose."
She snorts. "That's funny, because I feel like you have that same effect on my life in general."
"A match made in heaven." I laugh and kiss her, and it goes soft and lingering for a moment before she pulls back, making a move to slide off the bed and back toward her nightly routine.
"Wait." I catch her hand before she's out of reach. "How are you doing? Honestly. It's been a lot since everything went public, and we've barely stopped to breathe. How are you actually doing with all of it?"
"Oh, you know." She waves her free hand vaguely.
"At least my parents have been behaving themselves since Dublin, so that's one miracle.
Though the label expansion has my workload bigger than it's ever been, so the timing on the entire internet having opinions about me could honestly be better.
" She flashes a smile. "But I'm fine. Really. "
I study her for a long moment. I know her tells by now. The smile that arrives a half-second too fast. The sudden fascination with whatever her hands can fidget with. She's lying through her teeth.
"Margot," I say, propping myself up on an elbow.
"What?" She's now deeply invested in a loose thread on her pajama shorts.
"You know what," I say gently. "How are you doing? Minus the lie this time."
She sighs, and her shoulders come down an inch. "Okay. Yes. I'm a little stressed."
"How stressed?"
"Cillian." She gives me a look, half exasperated, half fond. "You have a Stanley Cup Final starting tomorrow. You do not need to spend tonight worrying about me having a tiny bit of extra stress. That's the whole reason I didn't bring it up. I'm handling it. I'm okay."
"You know you can tell me this stuff, right?" I run my thumb across her knuckles. "Me focusing on the Cup and me knowing how you're doing aren't in competition."
"I know that." She leans down and kisses me, quick and sure. "And I do tell you. Of course I do. It's just normal stress, nothing crazy. You focus on the Cup, and I'll handle the work and let the comments roll off my back, alright?"
I study her face a moment longer, searching for the crack I saw a minute ago, but she smiles at me, warm and steady, and whatever it was is gone. So I nod.
"Alright,” I say. “But please promise me you'll say something if it ever gets bigger than normal stress?"
"I promise. Now I have to finish my skincare so we can actually sleep," she says, rolling off the bed. "It's important that I get enough rest if I'm going to be your number one fan tomorrow."
I smack her backside on the way up, and she yelps and swats at me, laughing, and pads back toward her regiment of bottles.
"Tease," I call after her.
"Discipline," she corrects primly from the doorway. "One of us has to have some. Especially since I've got that miserable cocktail thing beforehand tomorrow."
"Aye, I almost forgot. Will it make you late?" A bone-cracking yawn catches, the whole day landing on me at once.
"No, I'll be there in plenty of time." She leans back around the doorframe, and her nose scrunches.
"I just wish I could be with you all day instead of stuck making small talk at a Solstice fundraiser.
It's a good cause, so I feel guilty complaining, but I hate that I can't be with you for more of it before the puck drops. "
"Doesn't matter to me, Ace." I settle back against the pillows, watching her. "As long as you're in that building by the time it counts, I'm a happy man."
"Then I'll see you at the glass," she says, warm and certain, and disappears to finish her routine.
I lie there in the low light, listening to the tap run and the small clinks of her bottles, the city glittering quietly beyond the window.
Tomorrow it all begins, the biggest series of my life, the thing I've chased since I was a boy.
But lying here, listening to the small, ordinary sounds of her ten feet away, I'd swear I've already won the part that matters.