EPILOGUE — AFTER THE ICE
POV: Damon Blackwood
Spring in Northaven had an irritating way of feigning innocence, as if the campus hadn’t spent the entire winter opening files, summoning former athletes, bringing down family names, and discovering that pretty ice could hide old blood beneath the surface.
The trees around the arena were green again, the stone pathways no longer gleamed with frozen rain, and students crossed the lawns with coffee cups, open backpacks, and the rushed energy of finals week, talking about exams, parties, games, and internships as if the university had returned to its normal rhythm.
Maybe it had. Maybe institutions were like that: they survived scandals because buildings don’t have shame, only maintenance.
People were more complicated. People needed to learn how to live in places after the truth had trampled through with dirty boots.
I sat in the empty stands of the main arena, my left arm resting on the back of the seat beside me, my shoulder finally free of the brace, my right hand holding two coffees that Noah would only call acceptable to avoid admitting the new cafeteria had improved.
The ice below was smooth, freshly resurfaced for the freshman open practice starting in an hour, and the overhead lights made everything too bright for drama.
For months, I thought I wouldn’t be able to set foot in here without hearing Julian somewhere in my head, without feeling the anger hunting for a target, without going back to that hallway where I left Noah holding a folder and picked the wrong person.
Now, the arena still hurt. But it no longer owned me.
The scandal didn’t end with a single explosion, the kind that makes headlines and gives the public the illusion of clean justice.
It ended in layers: Julian officially cut off from any relationship with Northaven Athletics, sponsorship contracts revised, lawyers talking more than any normal person should have to listen to, former athletes receiving settlements and medical follow-up, my father’s name removed from some honors and kept on others only as part of a history that couldn’t be erased without becoming a lie again.
Henry Bennett lost his position as head coach but stayed on as an external technical consultant in a safe return-to-sport program, after publicly acknowledging what he’d failed to do.
Noah took weeks to accept dinner with him without keeping his chair too far from the table, and I learned not to ask how each conversation went when he came home with tired eyes and a tight jaw.
Some reconciliations don’t need an audience.
Some only survive because no one tries to rush them.
The new plaque at the entrance to the medical wing still gave me a strange feeling every time I passed it: Carter Ellis Program for Athletic Integrity.
Carter hated the idea at first, said having your name on a plaque was something for dead people or rich donors trying to buy forgiveness, but Valerie published such a fierce article about concrete reparation that he ended up accepting—on the condition that the program fund injured athletes without depending on sponsor goodwill.
Valerie, naturally, pretended she hadn’t done any of it out of emotion.
Mason said she was a public menace in a red coat and probably deserved a shrine in the locker room.
She replied that his shrine should have a trash can for his ego.
Mason remained insufferable. That, at least, gave the world stability.
“You’re sitting in the dark with two coffees and the face of someone composing a posthumous letter to their own trauma,” his voice came from the entrance to the stands, too loud for an empty arena, and I didn’t even need to turn to know he was carrying food stolen from the athletes’ lounge.
“Should I call Noah or a sports exorcist?”
“I’m sitting under full lighting.”
“Emotionally, no.”
I turned just enough to see him coming down the steps with a paper bag, jacket open, hair still wet from the shower, and the satisfied expression of someone who had learned nothing about personal boundaries.
Mason Reed had gotten offers from two smaller professional teams and turned them both down for now, saying he wanted to finish his last semester before officially selling his soul.
I didn’t believe the part about the soul.
Mason would have traded his for new gloves and a good parking spot.
“Is Noah coming?” he asked, sitting two seats away and stealing one of the coffees without permission, even though I’d brought it for someone else.
“That coffee isn’t yours.”
“It was. Fate changed its mind.”
“Do you want to die before graduation?”
“If Noah finds out, tell him I was testing his ability to handle small losses. It’s part of emotional rehabilitation.”
“My emotional rehabilitation involves reducing contact with you.”
“And yet here we are, because I’m the only friend who loved you when you were basically an angry refrigerator on skates with a trust fund.”
I didn’t respond because, in a twisted way, it was true.
Mason had been there when I was at my worst, when I made mistakes, when I almost repeated the same mistakes, when Noah left the penthouse and I stood there holding white tape like an idiot.
He never pretended I was better than I was, and maybe that’s why he helped build a version of me that didn’t depend so much on lies.
I grabbed the remaining coffee and took a sip, trying not to think about how Noah would notice the loss immediately.
“Are you nervous about today?” Mason asked, less mocking.
I looked at the ice. The athletes’ graduation ceremony would be late afternoon, small, without the parade of sponsors Julian would have demanded.
The previous week, I’d signed a contract with a professional team, with medical clauses reviewed by Noah, Marjorie, and a lawyer who owed no favors to any Blackwood.
Noah would finish his internship at Northaven at the end of summer and start a sports medicine residency at a partner clinic in Boston, forty minutes from my new training center.
We’d already visited two apartments and argued for thirty minutes about the kitchen, natural light, and my supposed inability to evaluate a floor plan without fixating on windows big enough to feel like a penthouse.
He called it rich people’s real estate trauma.
I called it aesthetic preference. He laughed in my face.
“I am,” I replied.
Mason nodded as if this honesty wasn’t a small revolution. “Good. People who aren’t nervous before changing their life are either idiots or poorly written secondary characters.”
“You’ve been reading too much of Valerie’s stuff.”
“She lent me a book about university corruption, and now I sound like someone who actually understands institutions. It's horrible. I miss my superficiality.”
Noah appeared before I could respond, and the arena seemed to shift its temperature without asking.
He came through the side passage wearing dark pants, a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and the temporary badge from the new medical program clipped to his pocket—though he no longer needed it to get in almost anywhere.
His hair was a bit longer than when he'd returned, falling across his forehead in a way he'd push back when he was concentrating; I'd learned to love that gesture with almost ridiculous attention.
He carried a folder against his chest, but no one on campus looked at a folder in Noah Bennett's hand anymore and saw trouble.
Some people saw fear. Others, respect. I saw both, and more.
“Reed,” Noah said, stopping in front of our row, his eyes landing on the cup in Mason's hand. “Was that coffee mine?”
Mason took a long sip, completely shameless. “It was emotionally unstable. I saved you.”
“You stole my coffee.”
“I saved you from stealable coffee. Preventive security.”
Noah looked at me. “You let him?”
“I'm practicing not controlling everything.”
“Convenient.”
“I brought another one too, but Mason drank it before I could warn him it was poisoned.”
Mason choked for half a second, then pointed at us with the cup. “This is why no one believes in happy endings. Couples get violent once they're stable.”
Noah climbed two more steps and sat beside me, close enough that our thighs touched.
The contact was slight, natural, almost ordinary.
Still, my body held onto it. Months ago, I would have turned any touch from him into provocation or need.
Now, sometimes, I just let it exist. His hand found my left shoulder through my shirt, two fingers pressing lightly, assessing without asking. Old habit. New tenderness.
“No pain?” he asked.
“No pain.”
“Truth?”
“Truth.”
“The pro contract doesn't give you permission to be irresponsible in another city.”
“I know.”
Mason made an offended sound. “I love when you two flirt in medical chart language. It's disturbing and weirdly specific.”
“Go bother Valerie,” Noah said.
“She's interviewing Carter and threatened to turn me into a case study on athletes with too many useless opinions. I figured it was safer to stay with you two, who'll only poison me with coffee at worst.”
Noah picked up the folder from his lap and opened it, ignoring him with practiced efficiency.
I recognized the printouts for the Boston apartment—printed, annotated in blue pen, because Noah didn't trust important decisions that only existed on a screen.
There were circles around prices, comments about distance to the clinic, marks by the windows, and in the corner of one page, a note in smaller handwriting: decent kitchen to prevent Damon from committing crimes against toast. I looked at him. He pretended not to notice.
“You marked the Marlowe Street apartment,” I said.