Chapter 24
Damage Control
Leo
The headline won’t stop staring back at me.
Chef Winslow: Hockey’s Biggest Distraction.
Grayson Locke’s name sits right under it, bold and smug.
Once, that name had meant competition and respect; now it feels like a bruise that won’t fade.
I read the first paragraph once, then again, even though every word feels like a punch to the ribs.
Sources close to the team suggest Voss’s personal entanglement with local chef Sage Winslow has caused a decline in focus both on and off the ice.
Entanglement. Decline. Distraction.
He doesn’t even bother hiding the tone—just layers it with that fake journalist veneer, like he’s doing the league a favor by gutting us publicly.
My jaw locks as I scroll down to the photos. He’s used the same grainy shots from last night’s article but framed them worse. Cropped tighter. One shows Sage mid-laugh, the other of me walking behind her, head down like I’ve got something to hide.
I grip my phone until the plastic creaks.
The comments section is a war zone—people dissecting her, me, us. Strangers debating if she’s “the reason he can’t score” or “the girl who’s ruining his career.”
I toss the phone onto the counter hard enough that it slides into the wall. It hits with a dull thud but doesn’t break. Pity.
The apartment feels smaller, louder. The fridge hums. The clock ticks. My pulse won’t slow down. I drag a hand through my hair and grab my keys.
Sitting here isn’t going to fix it. Reading it again won’t help. I need to move.
The Surge facility is twenty minutes away, but I drive like I’m being chased. When I hit the parking lot, the sky’s still gray, heavy with snow that refuses to fall. I don’t bother with a coat. I just head straight through the front doors.
Claire Han’s office smells like coffee and stress. She’s on the phone, headset on, typing something when I storm in. She lifts her gaze without surprise—like she’s been expecting this.
“You saw it,” she says flatly, ending the call.
I shove my phone toward her. “You’re telling me the league’s fine with this? With Locke painting her like she’s—like this is her fault?”
Claire doesn’t flinch. “The league isn’t fine with it, Leo. But they’re also not going to issue a press release every time someone with a microphone runs their mouth.”
I pace in front of her desk, every nerve in my body buzzing. “He’s crossing lines, Claire. He’s not just coming after me anymore.”
She leans back in her chair, arms crossed. “You can’t punch every headline, Leo. Stay quiet or they’ll make you the villain.”
“I’m already the villain,” I mutter.
“Not yet,” she says. “But if you lose it, they’ll make sure you are.”
Her voice is calm, clinical, but her eyes are sharp—sympathy buried under realism. “PR wants total lockdown. No interviews. No off-the-record comments. You keep your head down, you let it burn out. Understood?”
I exhale through my nose, jaw still tight. “Yeah. Understood.”
But the words taste like a muzzle.
The weight of Claire’s words still sits on my chest long after I leave her office. The hall outside hums with movement—skates clacking against tile, trainers calling out schedules, the faint squeak of wheels from an equipment cart—but it all feels distant. I walk through it like I’m underwater.
By the time I hit the gym, I’m running on muscle memory alone. The sound of clanging weights and pounding treadmills fills the air, grounding and relentless. I grab a set of dumbbells and drop onto a bench, the metal cold against my palms.
I need to burn this out of my system before it eats me alive.
“Lockdown, huh?” Gabe’s voice cuts through the noise. He’s leaning against a rack a few feet away, towel slung over his shoulder, sweat still dripping from his temple. “Claire already got to you?”
I don’t look up. “You heard.”
He snorts. “Everyone heard. News travels faster than pucks around here.”
I push through another set, the strain in my arms the only thing keeping me from snapping. “I’m supposed to stay quiet.”
Gabe raises a brow. “And you’re gonna listen to that?”
I lower the weights slowly, knuckles white. “Apparently, I have to.”
He studies me for a second, then shakes his head. “So what, you just let Locke talk about her like that? About you?”
I swallow hard. “What do you want me to do? Go break his face again? That worked great last time.”
He shrugs. “I’m just saying, man. You don’t let someone like that control your story.”
I glance up at him, and for a moment, all the noise of the gym fades. “You think I don’t want to hit something? You think I haven’t imagined knocking that smug look right off his face?”
“Then do something smarter,” Gabe says quietly. “Don’t give him the satisfaction of proving his point.”
I don’t answer. My jaw flexes. I pick up the weights again, push through the burn until it blurs into anger, into exhaustion, into nothing.
The iron crashes back onto the rack, echoing loud enough to turn heads.
Gabe claps a hand on my shoulder as he walks by. “Just remember, Voss—silence can be power too. Depends on how you use it.”
I stare after him, chest heaving, his words rattling around in my head.
Silence. Power. Control.
None of it feels like me.
By the time I get home, the apartment lights are on. Sage’s pacing in front of the couch, phone in her hand, thumb hovering over the screen like she’s debating whether to throw it or use it. Her hair’s pulled up in a messy knot, her cheeks flushed, fury radiating off her in waves.
She looks up when I shut the door. “He’s doing it again,” she says, voice tight. “Using me to stay relevant.”
I hang my keys on the hook, trying to stay calm. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” She tosses the phone onto the counter—it skids to a stop beside mine, both screens still lit up with Grayson’s smug headline. “He’s not just writing about you, Leo. He’s rewriting me. Like I’m some desperate groupie who lucked into your orbit.”
I cross the room, every step measured. “He wants a reaction. That’s all this is. He pokes until someone bleeds, and then he feeds on it.”
She shakes her head, pacing again. “You really think ignoring him’s going to make him stop? He’s getting clicks. He’s getting attention. That’s the whole point.”
My pulse spikes. “And if I give him what he wants, he wins.”
“If you do nothing, he still wins!” she fires back, spinning toward me. “He keeps talking, people keep listening, and I—” Her voice breaks, just for a second. “I keep losing.”
I take a breath, steady but sharp. “He won’t touch you again. I’ll make sure of it.”
She laughs—a short, bitter sound. “You can’t fight him, Leo. You’ll just give him another headline.”
My voice drops, low and dangerous. “I’m not letting him drag you through this again.”
Her shoulders rise and fall, her eyes blazing. “Then what, Leo? You’re going to fight everybody for me?”
I don’t answer. The space between us crackles. She steps closer, close enough that I can see the tremor in her hands, the fury behind her fear.
Her voice softens, barely above a whisper. “You can’t save me from this.”
I meet her gaze, heat tightening in my chest. “Watch me.”
The silence that follows hums with everything neither of us can say.
The silence stretches until it feels like another body in the room.
Sage’s chest rises and falls fast, her jaw tight. She’s still close—close enough that I can see the pulse fluttering in her throat, close enough that I can feel the heat rolling off her skin. The fight hasn’t burned out; it’s just changed shape.
Her voice trembles when she says, “This isn’t how we fix it.”
“I know.” My voice is rough, the words scraping out of me. “But I can’t just stand here and watch him tear you apart.”
“I’m not yours to protect,” she whispers, though her voice wavers like she’s trying to convince herself.
My hand twitches at my side. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Her eyes flash, a mix of fury and want that hits somewhere deep. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make this about us,” she says, breath catching. “When it’s already—” Her voice breaks, and she shakes her head like she’s trying to shake the thought loose. “When it’s already too much.”
I take a step closer. She doesn’t move away.
“I don’t care how much it is,” I say quietly. “I just care about you.”
Her breath stutters. “Leo—”
She exhales my name like a warning, but it sounds more like surrender. The air between us snaps tight, charged and impossible to ignore.
For a moment, no one moves. No one breathes.
Then her hand brushes mine—accidental, electric—and all the anger, fear, and chaos of the day condenses into that one, single point of contact.
My pulse hammers in my throat. Every instinct tells me to close the space between us, to forget the headlines, the cameras, the noise. Just her. Just us.
She swallows hard. “Don’t.”
But when her eyes meet mine, the word sounds like please.
I take one more step.
And the world, for better or worse, tilts toward her.