Chapter 17
Jamie
Each step toward Fitch's office feels like walking through concrete.
I've been replaying it since it happened.
The crack of my knuckles. Rhys stumbling back.
The bell above the door. Over and over again on a loop I can't shut off.
I stop outside the door and shake out my hand.
The knuckles are bruised, skin split at the middle.
I look at it and knock with the other hand.
"Come in."
Fitch is behind his desk. He doesn't look angry. He looks like a man who has already had the worst version of this day and was hoping it would end differently.
"Coach, I need to—"
"Sit down, Jamie."
I take a seat, press my back into the chair and wait.
Fitch folds his hands on the desk. Looks at me for a long moment. "This is serious." He pauses. "What I'm hearing is that you hit Callahan because he's gay."
The floor drops out and I go completely still with shock.
"Coach." My voice comes out wrong. I stop. Start again. "You know me. You know that's not—"
"I do know you." He rubs a hand over his face.
He looks exhausted in a way that makes my chest hurt because Fitch has been good to me for too many years and he doesn't deserve to be sitting in this office right now looking at me this way.
"I know you're not that person. But there's a reason Rhys feels that way and I can't just ignore it. "
"Then—"
"Your teammates don't know you." He leans forward.
"You're their captain and you're not their friend and I've been watching that gap get wider all season.
You're talented. Dedicated. You care about this program more than anyone I've ever coached. But right now I don’t think you don't have a single person in that locker room who would stand up for you.
And I can't ignore an accusation like this with nothing to counter it. "
I grip the chair arms hard enough to feel it in my knuckles.
"I have to give the captaincy to Bryce." He holds up a hand to stop me.
"Temporarily. You show me it's yours I give it back.
That's a promise." His voice goes harder.
"But I need you to understand something.
This goes on your record. I'm not taking it to the university yet but it's documented.
One more incident — one — and I can't protect you.
We're talking suspension. Scholarship review.
The whole thing." He stares me down. "You hear me?
This isn't me looking the other way. This is me giving you a rope and you deciding whether to climb it or hang yourself with it. Fix it and fix it fast."
The tears hit the back of my eyes without permission, but I force them back down. I will not do that here.
"You cannot be reactive like that." His voice is softer now.
Serious in a way that lands heavier than yelling would.
"You cannot put your hands on your teammates.
I don't care what he said to you. I don't care what he did.
You are a captain and you are held to a higher standard and you failed that standard today.
" He sits back. "I need to know the man I know is still in there. Because right now I'm not seeing him."
I sit with everything. The urge to explain, to argue, to make him understand — it moves through me and I let it go. Because none of it will help. He’s right.
I stand up and square my shoulders.
"Yes, Coach." Steady. "I understand. Thank you." He nods once. Picks up a bottle of antacids. Shakes two into his palm.
"Get out of here," he says, popping them into his mouth.
The hallway outside his office is empty and fluorescent and mercifully quiet.
I make it maybe twenty feet before my legs decide they’re done and I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the cold floor, head between my knees.
My scholarship. My reputation. My entire future, built brick by brick since I was old enough to lace up skates.
Almost ruined because I punched my teammate in a coffee shop.
Supposedly because he's gay. Like me. The irony of it is so brutal it almost makes me want to laugh. Almost.
I've never hit a teammate. Never even come close. Never wanted to — not really, not even when Rhys was at his most infuriating. Not even when everything in me wanted to choke him out.
Rhys keeps pushing at every locked door in me like he’s convinced one of them will open eventually.
He brings something out in me I don't even recognize.
Something I fucking hate.
Something that punches first and thinks later and that's my father. That's exactly my father. Standing over me with a hockey stick telling me this is how you fix something that's broken.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
I'm so deep in my own head that I don't hear the footsteps until they're right in front of me.
I look up.
Of course. Of course it’s him.
Couldn’t fucking get away from him even if I tried.
Something takes over. I'm on my feet before I've decided to move, crossing the distance before I've decided to close it, and I watch his eyes go wide as I back him step by step into the open shower block, my hand fisting in the front of his shirt. “You.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “You lying piece of shit.”
He hits the tile wall. His eyes are wide — something in them I haven't seen before. Not quite fear. Something closer to resignation. Like he was expecting this.
My other hand finds his throat. Not hard. Not enough to hurt. Just enough that he can feel it, enough that he knows I mean every word I’m about to say.
The pulse jumping under my palm says he feels it.
We’re close enough that I can see the bruise already forming on his cheekbone where I hit him.
Dark and swelling. I push his hair back from his face with two fingers and let my thumb trace slowly along his jaw — not gentle, not tender, something else entirely that I don’t have a name for and refuse to look at directly.
Fury. Rage.
His pulse kicks harder under my hand. Mine does too. "Don't fuck with me, Rhys." My voice drops to almost nothing. "Whatever game this is — it's done. Stay away from me."
I reach past him and turn the cold shower on full.
Then I grab my bag from where I dropped it and I walk out fast, before the cold water hits, before he says anything, before I do something so much worse than punch him.