Chapter 15
Sidelined
Riley
The badge scanner coughs out a rude little chirp and flashes red like a slap.
Not invalid—access denied. I try again because denial is a muscle memory.
The plastic is warm from my palm. Red, again.
The security gate stays stubbornly shut between me and the PR offices as if it can smell trouble on me.
Jessie pops the door from inside with her master fob. “Lane. C’mon.” Her voice is brisk, eyes soft, like a nurse about to pull a bandage nobody wants off. The hallway smells like lemon cleaner and over-brewed coffee, and my stomach rolls in time with the fluorescent hum.
Inside the conference room—glass walls, too many chairs—someone has turned the thermostat to corporate arctic. A carafe sweats on a tray beside a neat stack of paper badges. I’ve worn one on a lanyard for five seasons without thinking about it. They might as well be dog tags.
“Before we start,” Jessie says, palms up like she’s showing me she’s unarmed, “this is temporary. Cooling optics. You know how sponsor row looked last night.”
I do. My skin knows it first—heat licking up my neck, the phantom press of Jason’s hand at my back, the camera’s red eye blinking like a countdown.
Jessie nods at the security guard posted by the door. He steps forward, apologetic in the way of people doing a job they didn’t choose. I unclasp my lanyard with steady fingers and set the badge on the table on top of a folded itinerary. The guard lifts it, scans it with a handheld. It chirps. Red.
The humiliation burns hotter than the coffee I shouldn’t have sipped on an empty stomach. I press my tongue to the back of my teeth until the taste of metal fades. “What do you need from me?” I ask, because the only way through is forward.
Jessie slides a manila folder across the table. “We’ll issue a non-travel credential for home facilities only pending review. Compliance asked for it. PR recommends it. It’s not a verdict, Riley. It’s a valve.”
Valve. Like we’re bleeding air from a pressurized line before it blows. I nod, once. The chair is too hard under me, the glass walls too reflective; I can see my own face looking calm and I don’t trust it. “What’s the scope of the review?”
“Standard,” she says, and won’t hold my eyes. “Interview tomorrow. Some device checks. Internal statements today.”
My pulse ticks up anyway. I lace my fingers together on the table so I won’t curl them into fists. “Copy.” My voice is cool and professional, the one I use to make rookies breathe through a sting and not look for the camera. Inside, the breath has sharp edges.
Jessie hesitates, then slides a second sheet out of the folder and sets it down with the carefulness of a live puck. “There’s also… this.”
In clean PR font: Clarifying Statement. It’s short, a paragraph and a half, and it tastes like ash after the first sentence. We take policy seriously. Recent images may have created the impression that a member of the training staff engaged in conduct inconsistent with guidelines.
Impression. Inconsistent. Guidelines. The weasel words crawl across my skin. My throat tightens but my voice stays steady. “You want me to sign this?”
“Recommend,” Jessie says, soft. “It helps shape the narrative while compliance clears the air.”
Translation: throw myself on the optics grenade so the sponsors don’t get shrapnel.
I set the page down and push it back to the center of the table with one finger. “I won’t sign anything implying I violated policy without counsel.”
Jessie exhales—relief and dread at war. “Understood.” She reaches for the paper like it might explode. “We’ll note that.”
The guard pretends he’s a plant. The air conditioner rattles. Somewhere down the hall, the practice horn whoops once, and I swallow hard against the instinct to be there—on the bench, on my feet, doing my job instead of sitting in a glass box while my access turns red.
I square my shoulders and meet Jessie’s eyes. “What else?”
She slides a temporary badge across the table—LOCAL ACCESS, red stripe—and a folded memo with times and room numbers highlighted. “Interview is scheduled for tomorrow morning. We’ll get you a schedule update.”
My hand doesn’t shake when I take the badge. My stomach does. I clip the plastic to my belt where the weight feels wrong and try not to picture the road trip I’m apparently not on.
I step out of the glass box feeling like I’ve been squeegeed thin. The hallway is busier now—boots thudding, stick blades tapping, the slap of laughter that only sounds careless if you’ve never needed it to survive. I want ice packs and ankle tape and a list to bulldoze. Instead I get Miles.
He’s waiting by the trainers’ room door with two coffees and that lopsided, decent smile that used to be enough. The cardboard tray rattles as he straightens. “Hey. I grabbed you the dark roast. No dairy.”
My stomach rolls at the smell. I take the cup anyway because manners are muscle memory, too. “Thanks.”
His eyes flick to the red-striped LOCAL ACCESS badge clipped to my belt and then up to my face so fast I might’ve missed it if I didn’t know him. “Jessie filled me in,” he says, voice pitched soft, as if we’re in a church. “I’ve, uh… I’ve got the road trip.”
There it is. The handoff I didn’t agree to, wrapped in kindness like gauze. I stare at the lid of the coffee and watch the steam curl a question mark into the fluorescent air. “Great,” I say, and my voice doesn’t crack. “The guys will be in good hands.”
“You set the protocols.” He tries to make it a compliment. It lands like a eulogy. “I’ll stick to your plan. Mobility before lift. Rotate cryo on the back-to-back. I—” He clears his throat. “I’ll text you notes.”
It’s meant to be reassurance. It tastes like condescension. I swallow it whole so I don’t choke on it. “I trust you,” I say, and the truth of that makes the rest worse. “Let me update the sheets for the coaches.”
“Already printed.” He lifts a stack of paper, tidy, color-coded, like the universe is proving a point about how replaceable anyone can be. “I know it’s… not fair.” He drops his voice even lower. “Optics, they said. We just need to ride it out.”
We. I used to love how easy that pronoun was with him. Now it rubs my skin the wrong way. “Right.” I take a small, bracing sip of coffee and immediately regret it. “You should get them taped and out. It’s a long flight.”
He shifts, searching my face for a crack. “Riley… I can talk to Danvers. Or Julia. Or Ducks. They’ll listen to me.”
“They’ll listen to outcomes,” I say, too quickly. I make my mouth smile. “Get them a win and no one will care what color my badge is.”
He watches me for a beat that is entirely too intimate for a hallway. “You don’t have to be made of granite all the time, you know.”
“I’m not.” I step past him into the trainers’ room before the thing in my throat can turn into anything messy.
Benches, tape rolls, the chemical tang of adhesive—finally, something that makes sense.
I set the coffee down and pick up a roll of white tape like it’s a lifeline.
“Go, Miles. I’ll finish the restock here. ”
He doesn’t move. “You take care of everyone. Let someone take care of you for once.”
There’s the sting disguised as care again. It hits square and true. I keep my hands busy—drawer, labels, inventory list. “That’s sweet,” I say lightly, because lightness is armor, “and profoundly unnecessary.”
He exhales a laugh that’s not funny and rests a hand on the doorjamb. “Text me if you need anything.”
“I won’t.” I meet his eyes, make sure he hears what I don’t say: I can’t need anything right now. We stand like that for a breath too long, a quiet door propped open on a past that has nothing to do with the present, and then I rescue us both. “Go lead.”
He nods, that decent smile returning like muscle memory, and heads down the hall, clipboard tucked against his side like a shield. I watch him until he turns the corner, then let the inventory sheet curl in my fist. It crackles like thin ice.
The inventory list crackles back to flat as I smooth it on the counter. Order is a thing I can make with my hands: rows of tape, fresh scissors, alcohol swabs lined like little soldiers. The quiet of the trainers’ room has a heartbeat—the mini-fridge hum, the soft thup of the skate oven cycling.
Knuckles rap twice on the doorframe. Jessie again, but not alone. She’s flanked by Comms Director Patel, whose smile could sell ice to a Zamboni. He carries a leather folio like a verdict.
“Quick follow-up,” Jessie says, voice pitched neutral. Her eyes find the inventory I’ve lined up and soften by a millimeter. “We refined language.”
Patel opens the folio and lays two sheets on the counter, side by side.
The header is the same—Clarifying Statement—but the body is new: We reaffirm our commitment to professional standards.
We regret any confusion caused by images circulating online and appreciate our staff’s dedication to transparency during review.
“Better,” he says, tapping a manicured finger on regret any confusion. “No admission. You’re not ‘agreeing,’ only ‘reaffirming.’ We’d ask for your signature to acknowledge receipt and your initials beside that paragraph to confirm you’ve read it.” The pen appears in front of me like a magic trick.
My pulse jumps the way it does when a player goes down awkward and doesn’t get up right away. I set the pen back on the paper with two fingers. “I’m not signing anything without counsel.” My voice is steady; I cling to the steadiness like the boards.
Patel’s smile doesn’t dim, it just… tightens. “Of course. You have that right. We’re on a timetable, though—sponsors expect a statement today. Your refusal is also something we’ll need documented.” He slides over a third page: Acknowledgment of Declination. It has a blank for my name and time.