Chapter 66 My Kingdom for Eye Contact
MY KINGDOM FOR EYE CONTACT
Nate
“Getting suspended hurt. But watching her walk away killed me.”
Nate stayed where he was when Holly called the break.
She didn’t look at him when she said it, just wiped her hands on her leggings and moved toward the hallway like she needed air more than she needed choreography.
He watched the door swing shut behind her and felt the absence immediately, like someone had opened a window in winter and let all the heat out of the room.
He told himself he should use the time to stretch, or drill the footwork she’d corrected. To do something productive, instead of standing there like a rookie who’d just been told he was riding the bench. Instead, he reached for his phone.
Big mistake. A notification from Sully had him sinking like he’d been thrown into the Long Island Sound with a cement block attached to his feet.
Sully
Suspension extended to four months. Board uncertain about next season. We’ll discuss options, but it’s not looking good.
He read it slowly, the way you read an injury report when you’re deciding whether pain means inconvenience or career-ending damage.
His jaw tightened as the reality settled.
This wasn’t a slap on the wrist anymore.
This was leverage. This was the league deciding whether he was worth the continual headache.
Nate slid his tongue along the inside of his cheek and exhaled through his nose. Panic had never helped him win a fight, and it wouldn’t help now.
His grip tightened on his phone. He hadn’t thought it possible, but the studio felt even smaller than it had ten minutes ago. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Mirrors reflected a man who suddenly looked more uncertain of his place in the world than ever.
Three days since Denmark.
Three days since she’d seen the ring. The silence felt heavier than any hit he’d taken on the ice. But she’d made herself clear. Didn’t give him a fucking choice. And god, he hated it.
Nate rolled his shoulders once, trying to bleed the tension out before it calcified as the rehearsal studio door banged open hard enough to rattle the mirrors. In came trouble, like a swarm of wasps with their stingers sharpened.
Nate turned just as two camera operators pushed through with shoulder rigs already live. A lighting tech followed, headset crooked, eyes scanning for the cleanest angle. Behind them came a production assistant dragging a props case like this was a red carpet instead of a regular rehearsal.
Nate didn’t move at first. He just watched them take up space.
He’d been around enough locker room scrums to recognize the shift in air when something was about to be documented. Cameras didn’t record moments. They hunted them. And the last thing he wanted right now was the non-existent vibe between him and Holly packaged into a teaser trailer.
Martin was in the thick of the pack, like always. “Carry on,” he called out cheerfully. “First rehearsal back after the injury, guys! Exciting. Just grabbing some B-roll.”
B-roll. Like recovery was decorative. Nate straightened slowly, adjusting his stance the way he would before a faceoff. Not defensive, just ready.
The door opened again and Holly stepped back in, one hand pushing her hair off her face, mouth already open like she’d been psyching herself up to say something normal, and then the words died when she saw the cameras.
Her spine lengthened immediately, shoulders back and chin up. Professional Holly slid into place like muscle memory, but not before he caught the half-second of calculation in her eyes and clocked it as her instinct to armor up.
“Surprise!” Kendall chirped.
Holly smiled. It was flawless, and nowhere even close to reaching her eyes.
Nate’s phone buzzed in his palm. He knew he shouldn’t look, but his eyes drifted down anyway.
Sully calling.
There was no fucking way he could take that call right now.
He jabbed a finger at the ‘reject’ button as the world tilted.
Not enough for anyone else to see, just enough that the ground felt less reliable under his feet.
Keep your head down. Like this was still something he could out-skate if he tried hard enough.
He shoved the phone in his back pocket, jaw flexing once as he forced his pulse back under control. He couldn’t afford a public misstep right now. Not with his future dangling like a carrot in front of a boardroom full of men who already thought he was a liability.
And then fucking Sophie entered like she owned oxygen, because of course that’s what his shitshow of an existence needed right now.
“This is perfect,” she said brightly, clapping once. Red lipstick, crisp blazer. Smile sharpened to a point. “All this tension is so hot right now! Fans are obsessed with the will-they-won’t-they of it all.”
The fans weren’t the only ones.
Holly’s smile didn’t waver. “We’re in the middle of rehearsal.”
“Of course you are,” Sophie said. “And we love that for you. Growth. Resilience. Stand a little closer together, though. You look like strangers waiting for a bus.”
She moved closer to the pair, repositioning them without asking. Nate felt the adjustment like a shove in the back.
“Chin up, Holly,” Sophie continued, circling. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” Holly replied evenly. No one but Nate would hear the micro-note of exhaustion in those two words.
Sophie tilted her head. “Oh, speaking of fine? Cedars Oncology called. Something about confirming your income bracket for a payment plan adjustment?”
The words landed in the center of the room like a dropped glass. It was a miracle that Holly didn’t flinch, but Nate saw her fingers curl slightly at her sides. The fractional shift in her breathing.
“I’m handling it,” she said.
“I’m sure you are,” Sophie replied smoothly, having set her charge like a demotions expert.
The photographer raised his camera. “Okay, give me something intimate but unresolved!”
Nate stepped forward before he’d consciously decided to. “That’s enough.”
Sophie’s brows lifted almost imperceptibly. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t discuss her private business in a rehearsal space,” he continued. His voice was calm in the way it got right before a serious hit. “If production has questions, you take them to her agent. Not here.”
The room went still in that way it does when power shifts and everyone pretends not to notice. A dozen pairs of eyes landed on him, and then slowly swiveled back to the Executive Producer.
Sophie’s smile thinned, but she didn’t lose it. “Careful,” she said lightly. “You’ve already flexed a lot of muscle this season, Nate. The network has been very accommodating.”
The threat landed clean, echoing the message from Sully. Nate held Sophie’s gaze anyway, straight up refusing to back down. “I’m aware.”
He could feel Holly staring at him, and he resisted the urge to reach for her. Instead he stepped closer. His shoulder brushing hers, close enough that she could lean if she needed to. Choice, not performance.
The photographer hesitated. “Uh… should I shoot?”
“Take the shot,” Sophie ordered crisply.
The flash went off.
Holly’s expression in that photo was rawer than she meant it to be, hurt flickering under discipline. Nate saw the aftermath and angled his body slightly toward hers, aligning with her more than acting like a shield.
A defenseman adjusting coverage. Quiet protection.
Sophie watched the shift, her gaze narrowed and calculating.
“Well,” she said lightly, “let’s hope the Player’s Association appreciates loyalty as much as the audience does.”
For once, Nate didn’t bite back. He needed this narrative of redemption to clean him up enough to make him look like an asset again. And Sophie fucking knew it. He was breathing more deeply, using the rush of air in and out of his lungs to stop himself from losing his shit.
Holly’s hand brushed his forearm then, quick and almost accidental.
A grounding touch that had the opposite effect and jolted him like a goddamn lightning bolt.
His eyes found her face immediately. For one suspended second, she almost met his gaze.
He saw her chin move before she readjusted herself, doubling down on her glare at Sophie, who was ignoring both of them.
The master manipulator was checking the photograph on the monitor after that shot, lips pressed together, before clapping her hands once as if the moment had gone exactly to plan.
“Good,” she said briskly. “We’ve got enough tension to sell the arc. Reset tomorrow. And Nate? Stay available.”
Sophie pivoted, already speaking to Kendall and Martin about lighting ratios as they swanned out of the door together. The room emptied quickly after that, cables coiled, softboxes lowered, the artificial heat of production cooling into something far more honest until silence settled in their wake.
Holly retreated a few paces, gaze locked on the mirror like she was reviewing game tape. For a second, Nate thought she might walk out. Swallow the moment whole and carry it alone the way she carried everything else.
Instead, she turned, her eyes still on the fucking floor.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said in a careful tone, as though testing if gratitude would cut her open if she held it too long.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”
Her jaw flexed, just once.
More silence, heavy but not hostile. In his head he could still see the way her fingers had curled when Sophie mentioned the hospital.
The way she’d steadied her breathing like she was bracing for impact.
Nate kept his gaze on her, his own expression softening back into the one he’d come to associate with the Holly-shaped part of his heart.
“What’s the amount the insurance won’t cover?”
Her head snapped up, and she finally looked at him. “Nate.”
He wasn’t about to be swayed by the fact she’d just fucking ruined him with one look, though.
“The difference,” he clarified. “What insurance won’t cover.”