Chapter 5 Garrett
Garrett
The sixth-floor conference room is a vacuum—quiet, sterile, the kind of space built to mute emotion. I push through the glass door and get hit with recycled air, dry and chilled, a poor imitation of the clean bite of rink-level ice that actually means something.
Afternoon sun slices through the windows, turning the polished mahogany table into a blinding slab of reflected light.
Sloane sits behind her laptop, a study in composure. That auburn ponytail is pulled tight and clean, not a hair out of place. She doesn’t look up. Just types, fingers moving fast and precise like she’s auditing my worth.
“Right on time,” she says, eyes still on the screen.
I drop into the chair across from her, the leather sighing beneath me. “Let’s get this over with.”
Now she looks up—cool green eyes sharp and unreadable. “Good. Because we need to deal with your media presence using actual data, not guesswork.”
She taps her keyboard, then swivels the laptop toward me.
“In the last forty-eight hours since your interview aired, your social sentiment dropped thirty percent. Your Q-rating among the eighteen-to-thirty-four demo—Northstar’s core demographic—is down fifteen points.
And the comments you made last night haven’t helped matters. ”
Then she opens another tab. “This is what their exec sent us.”
I lean forward. The email is short but brutal: Concerned about brand alignment... need to see significant improvement in public perception... reviewing partnership terms.
“Point made.”
“We’re not done.” She clicks again—and a familiar, bitter feeling rises in my throat.
The interview.
My voice fills the quiet room, low and detached, as I offer up shrugs and one-word answers. The silences stretch. The reporter’s fake smile trembles. I watch myself dismiss a question about community outreach like it was beneath me.
She freezes the video. “This is what we’re working with.”
“So?”
“So,” she says, eyebrows lifting, “this isn’t about camera charm. These partnerships fund everything from the sticks in your hands to the gym you train in. When you tank an interview, you don’t just hurt yourself.”
I sit back, arms crossing. “Media training isn’t going to change who I am.”
“I’m not here to change who you are.” She clicks to another tab, fingers moving with practiced efficiency. “I'm asking you to tell your own story before someone else does it for you.”
The screen changes, and something cold slams into my chest.
“The Iceman: All Talent, No Heart.”
The words are a gut punch. The sterile conference room dissolves, the scent of recycled air replaced by the thick, sour smell of a losing locker room—sweat, tears, spilled beer.
I'm twenty-two again. The locker room air is thick—sweat and grief and something sharper, like metal left too long in the cold.
Miller, our captain, a guy who seems carved from granite on the ice, has his face buried in his hands.
His shoulders heave in waves I can hear more than see, each sob a punch to my sternum.
Our coach stares at a spot on the concrete floor, mouth working silently, like the words died before they reached his tongue.
Someone has to hold the center.
I move. One foot, then the other. My hand lands on Miller's shoulder—the padding gives under my grip, foreign and too soft.
I open my mouth. Sound comes out. I don't know what I'm saying.
My jaw aches from clenching it so hard my molars grind.
There's crushed glass in my throat, each swallow a fresh cut.
My ribs feel wrapped in steel bands, tightening with every breath I force in and out, measured, even.
If I breathe wrong—if I let the rhythm slip—the pressure behind my sternum will crack me open.
A reporter materializes as I push through the exit. Microphone first, then his face—sharp, hungry. He already has his story.
"Not much emotion from you, Sullivan. How does a loss like that feel?"
My vision tunnels. I can feel my pulse in my temples, behind my eyes, a throb that matches the white-hot pressure building at the base of my skull. My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails biting half-moons into my palms. The pain centers me. Keeps everything locked down.
I give him nothing. Just a flat, dead stare. Because if I open my mouth—if I let even one word slip past the barricade—the rest will follow. The howl will come. And I will shatter in front of everyone.
So I don't.
The harsh light of the conference room brings me back to the present.
To Sloane, her cool green eyes watching me, seeing too much.
The memory makes my stomach turn. My hand clenches into a fist under the table.
The heat doesn't just spread through my chest; it's a wildfire, climbing my neck, turning my skin hot.
“What the hell is this?”
“This is what happens when you let someone else control the narrative,” she says, voice even. “One bad interview. One cold expression. And suddenly, you’re the villain.”
“You think because you read some clickbait from a decade ago, you understand who I am?”
“I don’t claim to know you.” Her tone is calm, unflinching. “But I know how fast this machine chews up reputations. And right now? You’re handing it the ammunition.”
I slam my palm onto the table. The laptop jolts. That article was bullshit. Written by some hack who decided I wasn’t sad enough. It cost me endorsements, cost me the captaincy on my last team when they decided they needed someone with more “leadership presence.”
I surge to my feet, my chair rolling back against the windows. “You have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Then tell me.” Her voice is steady, but there's something else there now. Something almost gentle. “Help me understand.”
I lean over the table, jabbing a finger at the screen.
Close enough now to catch the subtle scent of her perfume—something clean and sharp, like citrus cutting through the sterile conference room air.
“You want to understand? That reporter had his headline written before he asked a single question. My team was a mess. Our captain was sobbing. Our coach couldn’t speak.
I was trying to hold the damn center. And because I kept my shit together in front of a camera, I was branded as the asshole with no heart. ”
Her lips part, just slightly. The steel in her melts for half a beat. Not pity—just realization.
“Garrett—”
“No.” I shake my head, run a hand through my hair. “I’m done. We’re done here.”
I stalk toward the door, every muscle taut. The urge to escape claws up my spine. I should leave. I want to leave.
But my hand lingers on the doorknob.
Because I gave my word. And Tank Sullivan doesn’t break his word—not even when every instinct in his body tells him to run.
Behind me, the room stretches quiet.
She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just waits.
I turn back, jaw tight, pulse still high. “Not here.”
She blinks. “What?”
“If we’re going to keep doing this—” I jerk my chin toward the screen “—I need a beer.”
It’s not a request.
The walk from the arena to The Penalty Box bar is three blocks, but it's a skate uphill through molasses.
The Penalty Box is one of the few bars around here that I can go to and generally keep a low profile.
Neither of us speaks. Sloane keeps pace beside me, her heels clicking against the sidewalk, each step snapping like a metronome against the silence stretching between us.
The tension from upstairs follows like a ghost, clinging to the back of my neck.
Every few steps, I catch her sneaking glances—curious, cautious—like she’s trying to read a particularly complicated power play.
The cold should help. It doesn’t. My chest still feels tight, the lingering sting of that article making every breath taste like rust.
The Penalty Box delivers what I need: low lighting, the smell of grease and stale beer, the ambient murmur of a game playing overhead. Familiar. Uncomplicated. Hockey sounds.
I claim a corner booth with a fresh pint, watching Sloane settle across from me with her untouched club soda. She's taken off her blazer, and I notice the way her sweater clings to her shoulders, the graceful line of her throat as she tilts her head to glance at the game overhead.
The silence stretches between us, thick with fallout from the office.
I take a long drink, buying time. The beer is cold and bitter, grounding.
“The article. It’s a sore spot.”
She doesn’t rush in with apologies or small talk. Just watches me, hands wrapped around her glass, steady as a goalie in net.
“It’s not just the nickname,” I say, eyes on the foam. “It’s how fast the world decides who you are in a headline—and how damn long you spend trying to prove them wrong.”
Something in her expression softens, the precision in her eyes giving way to something warmer. “I shouldn’t have used that article. It was a shitty move.”
“You were making a point.”
“A bad one,” she says. “And you’re right—the media loves a good villain.”
Her fingers start tracing the rim of her glass, a nervous habit she probably doesn't realize she has. There's something almost hypnotic about the small gesture.
Her words from the conference room—you're letting them run the show—echo in my head, making my skin crawl.
My ex-fiancée used stuff like that during our breakup.
The thought is a pale summary of the real memory flashing hot and sharp behind my eyes.
Emma hadn't just used the article; she’d built a whole damn campaign on it.
I could still see the headline from the gossip blog that ran with her exclusive interview, the words seared into my memory.
“He lets other people tell our story because he's too cold to write his own.”