CHAPTER 16 — SPONSORS DONT BLEED #2
Silence fell clean over the table. One of the sponsors folded his hands.
The woman from legal went still. My father closed his eyes for an instant, so brief that maybe only I caught it.
Damon, beside me, didn’t move, but his thigh tensed against mine.
Julian merely tilted his head, as if I’d asked an interesting question at dinner, not touched the raw nerve of the room.
“Are you referring to unverified material in the hands of a student journalist?” he asked. “I expected a health professional in training to know the difference between contextualized documentation and a fragment used for narrative.”
“A health professional in training tends to take interest when an administrative authorization contradicts a medical recommendation,” I replied. “It’s an inconvenient ethical quirk.”
“Noah,” my father said quietly, not as a public reprimand, but as an attempt to pull me back before Julian got what he wanted.
Damon looked at my father. I didn’t miss the gesture.
Neither did Julian. My father shrank almost imperceptibly in his chair, as if Damon’s gaze carried questions he wasn’t ready to answer yet.
His body told me more than any formal confession: he knew this room, knew Julian, knew the price of every word.
“The meeting isn’t about old accusations,” Julian said, regaining control.
“It’s about the current perception of conflict of interest. Damon is temporarily living with the physical therapist responsible for his rehabilitation.
That physical therapist is the coach’s son.
There’s personal history between the families.
And now there are rumors an article will be published linking Damon’s injury to past program events.
Do you understand how vulnerable that makes us? ”
“We understand you crammed a lot of elements into one sentence to make it look like I’m the problem,” I said.
“The problem is the appearance of impropriety,” the woman from legal cut in, her voice carefully neutral. “None of us are accusing Noah of inappropriate conduct. But we need to ensure Damon’s medical plan is supervised transparently.”
Damon let out a low laugh. It wasn’t humor. It was a warning. “Transparent. Did Northaven just discover that word, or was it filed away with the medical reports that disappeared four years ago?”
The room changed. I felt it before I saw it.
Julian went utterly still, my father’s head snapped up, the athletic coordinator adjusted his glasses.
Damon hadn’t shouted. That was what made it so effective.
His voice stayed low, controlled, but there was a blade in it that wasn’t pointed at me.
My heart pounded so hard I had to put my hand on my own knee to keep from touching him under the table.
“Careful, Damon,” Julian said. “Pain, the pressure of the season, and certain influences too close to you could be clouding your judgment.”
“You mean Noah.”
“I mean you don’t seem to be assessing risks with your usual cool head.”
“Maybe I’m working with more information than before.”
Damon’s words landed. Not on Julian’s face, which stayed composed, but on his hand resting on the table.
Two fingers tapped once against the surface, then went still.
My father saw it too. Guilt flickered across his face, mixed with something like relief—as if Damon challenging Julian in public was something he’d both expected and dreaded for years.
“What information?” Julian asked.
Damon leaned back in his chair, favoring his shoulder without making it obvious.
“The information that a medical clearance with your signature contradicts professional recommendations. The information that Noah reacts to your name like someone being threatened, not someone guilty. The information that you texted me in the middle of the night asking me to distance myself from him before telling the team who Noah really is.”
My breath caught. I didn’t know Damon was going to say that here.
Didn’t know he’d reveal part of the message, expose the threat without fully giving me up.
Julian looked at me, and for the first time, I saw real irritation in his eyes.
Not open fury—Julian was too disciplined for that.
But irritation. The kind you feel when a piece moves without your permission.
“I was protecting you from a personal scandal,” Julian said.
“Funny,” Damon replied. “You always say protection when you don’t want me asking questions.”
The pride I felt for Damon scared me. It came tangled with fear, because he was still close to striking before we had enough ground to stand on.
I slipped my hand under the table, touching his knee lightly.
A warning. An anchor. Damon went still for half a second, then his hand covered mine.
He didn’t interlace our fingers, didn’t make a big gesture.
Just held on enough to say he understood.
Enough to make my breath come out uneven.
“I suggest a simple solution,” Julian said, colder now.
“Noah should be temporarily removed from Damon’s direct care.
Another physical therapist takes over the case until we’ve clarified the situation.
This protects Damon, protects Northaven, and frankly, protects Noah himself from negative interpretations. ”
“No,” Damon said.
“Damon,” the woman from legal began.
“No,” he repeated, and his hand squeezed mine under the table before letting go, as if remembering too late where we were.
“Noah knows the injury, knows my compensation patterns, and he’s the only one so far who’s stopped me from making it worse out of stubbornness.
Removing him now isn’t medical protection. It’s reputational convenience.”
My father took a deep breath. “Technically, Damon is correct. An abrupt change in who’s handling the case mid-plan can harm continuity, and Noah reports to Marjorie Lane as his supervisor. All sessions are documented.”
Julian looked at my father, and in that look were years of unspoken things.
I watched my father hold the gaze—not for long, but he held it.
That hurt. Not because it erased the past. Because it showed he was still capable of some courage, even if late, even if small.
Damon saw it too, and his expression shifted by a fraction, as if a new piece had entered the board.
“Then let the record show that Damon opposes the change,” the woman from legal said, writing something down. “But I recommend that any contact outside the clinical environment be minimized until the risk analysis is complete.”
Mason would have laughed if he’d been there.
I didn’t. The phrase contact outside the clinical environment brushed against the rumpled sheets, the couch, Damon’s arm around my waist, the kiss in the restricted hallway—everything that couldn’t exist in that room and existed anyway.
Julian looked at me as if he knew. Maybe he didn’t know the details.
But men like him didn’t need details to sniff out vulnerability.
“I agree,” Julian said. “Distance is always wise when desire and judgment start to blur.”
Damon stiffened. I pulled my hand from his knee before anyone could see, but Julian’s words had already landed where he’d aimed them. I lifted my chin and met his brother’s gaze with a calm I didn’t feel.
“Do sponsors usually speak of desire and judgment with such intimacy, or is that part of your administrative experience clearing injured players against medical recommendation?”
My father made a low sound, almost my name. Damon turned to me with an expression that mixed warning and something close to admiration. Julian smiled, but his patience had lost a layer.
“You’re bolder than you were at eighteen,” he said.
“And you’re less untouchable than you seemed.”
The meeting ended a few minutes later—not because anything was resolved, but because no one wanted to keep bleeding in front of sponsors.
The official version was recorded as medical continuity review and legal monitoring of reputational risk.
The real version was simpler: Julian tried to push me out, Damon stopped him, my father backed it up on technical grounds, and everyone left the room knowing something had cracked.
Cracks weren’t collapse, but they let air in.
In the administrative hallway, I walked too fast. I needed to get out of that wing before my body caught up with how much I’d been shaking inside.
Damon came after me, and I heard him before I felt his hand on my elbow.
He didn’t squeeze. Just touched enough to make me stop near the elevators, where the glass walls reflected us both in fragments.
“You did well,” he said.
I laughed—low, joyless. “Is that a performance review or Blackwood affection in its experimental phase?”
“Noah.”
“No. Not now. I can't decide if I want to thank you for not throwing me to the wolves or curse you out for poking the alpha without a plan.”
“I had a plan.”
“Confronting Julian in a room full of sponsors isn't a plan. It's suicide in nice clothes.”
The elevator arrived, and we stepped in before anyone from administration could appear.
The doors closed, sealing us in a small mirrored box, the light too harsh.
I pressed the button for the lobby. Damon stood beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched.
I could see his reflection from three angles: face tense, jaw hard, left shoulder hitched slightly from the pain.
My reflection looked calm. Competent liar.
The elevator dropped two floors and jerked to a stop.
The light flickered once. Then steadied. The panel froze between the fourth and third floors. For a beat, neither of us spoke. Then Damon let out a breath that would've been laughter in another life.
“Of course.”
“Don't move,” I said, already pressing the emergency button. “And don't turn a stuck elevator into a metaphor about fate, because I will jump down that shaft voluntarily.”
“You're shaking.”
“I'm pissed.”