Chapter 20
Fault Lines
Jason
The morning won’t sit still. The apartment hums like a fridge about to kick on and never does. I make coffee, forget it, find it by the sink with a skin on top that smells like burnt almonds. I drink it anyway. It’s cold by the second swallow.
My wrist twinges under the tape when I turn the mug.
I flex, rotate—soft grain-of-rice grind where scar tissue lives.
Riley would’ve rewound the anchor, floated the padding, told me to stop arguing with physics.
You’ll feel pressure, then release. Today the echo lands wrong, like a song played in the wrong room.
Her It’s nothing keeps looping. Not the way she says I’m fine to a rookie who wants attention. The kind of nothing that feels like a dam. I watch the bedroom door like an idiot, as if it might confess what it’s keeping.
Phone on the counter, face down. I flip it, flip it back, lose a minute, flip it again. The lock screen throws my grainy face at me. I hit call before I can talk myself out of it and lean against the counter while it rings.
“Hey.” Her voice lands like touching a hot stove: quick, soft, pulled back fast. Zippers, a door catch, sneakers on tile. “I’m on my way in.”
“Riley.” I keep it easy because panic makes her shut the door. “About last night—”
A beat of breath. “Later,” she says, gentler than the word deserves. “I promise.”
I want to believe her. A triple-tone needles through the line—pager, emergency channel. She inhales. “I have to—” The sentence frays. “Later,” she repeats, softer, and the line goes dead.
I keep the phone to my ear like stubbornness can summon her back. It can’t. The promise feels like a rope tossed from a moving car. I set the phone down like it might bruise and stare at the winter city pressed flat against the glass.
The tape itches. I strip it with my teeth, peel back layers until the skin flashes pink and mean.
I retape one-handed because I hate being handled when my head’s like this.
It’s sloppier; the distal anchor bites. Good.
Pain I can digest. Hoodie, cap, keys; the coffee cools to a skin while I’m locking the door.
The elevator is a metal confession booth that smells like someone else’s cologne and a fight I didn’t win. Numbers blink. A small voice in my head keeps counting what I can’t name: one missed call, two words, five letters—later.
Outside is all salt and puddles and the city’s bad mood. Practice in an hour. PR will have a plan for my mouth. I’ll ruin it or I won’t. Either way, the ground feels shifted and I’m the only one who noticed.
Traffic stacks like bad Tetris. Wipers thump lazy ellipses across a salted windshield.
At the first red, I call her again because restraint didn’t wake up with me.
Voicemail. The recording is older than we are now—too bright.
I don’t leave a message. Anything I say will sound like a demand in a room that already wants too much from her.
Text instead: With you. Breathe. It looks thin, a paper umbrella in a storm. I add: Later works. The moment I hit send I hate it for pretending time is ours to set.
A siren needles behind me; I make room. Heart kicks for reasons that aren’t traffic.
I picture her bent over a table, pager tucked to her hip like a second pulse, the way she tunes the world out until there’s only the body in front of her and the fix.
Holy to watch. A door I don’t follow her through.
The facility lot is the same oil stains and winter air that bites the inside of your nose.
I kill the engine and sit with the key in my hand longer than necessary, her Later, I promise ricocheting around the cab like a puck I can’t clear.
Promises are only as good as the ice they’re laid on. Ours feels thin.
Buzz. Not her—Julia: Heads up: media scrum pre-ice. Keep it vanilla. We’ll reset narrative this afternoon. A second: Owner on site.
Vanilla makes my teeth itch. I rub my taped wrist where the anchor bites and welcome it. Pain is a fence I don’t mind leaning on. I text back: Copy on scrum. I don’t add vanilla.
Inside, the hallway smells like detergent and damp gear. Sharpeners sing their high, anxious note. Kitson shoulders through with a coffee balanced on a tape roll. “You good?” he asks, half-grin offering me a chance to lie.
“Define good,” I say, and bump his cup with mine. It sloshes, he curses; for three seconds normal exists and I cling to it like center of gravity.
PR has the scrum set by the logo wall—four cameras, two mic flags I recognize, one handler clutching a list like a weapon. He clocks me and pastes on a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Two minutes, Maddox. Hockey only.”
“Always,” I say, and hear the lie plain as glass. He hears it too; his smile tightens.
I check my phone once more before the lights. Nothing from her. No dots. No later turning into now. Do Not Disturb on. Phone deep in the pocket so the silence can’t skitter out and embarrass us both.
Red lights snap on like targets. The handler raises two fingers—two questions—and reporters volley anyway.
“Last night’s fight—message or loss of control?”
“Your thoughts on Code Section Twelve—”
“Do you deny a relationship with—”
I take the cleanest blade. “We won because our systems were good,” I say. “Discipline in the neutral zone, commitment on the kill. That’s the story on the ice.”
A mic lunges. “Is discipline the story off the ice?”
I can feel Julia’s sigh from three rooms away. The handler chirps, “Hockey only.”
I keep my eyes on the lenses—where rumors like to live. “Here’s what’s true on and off the ice,” I say, steady enough to skate on. “I trust Riley Lane with my life.”
The scrum inhales. Pens actually scratch. The handler’s smile dies and resurrects in a blink.
“Can you expand on that?” someone pushes. “Trust in what capacity?”
“In the one that matters,” I say. “Health. Performance. Doing the job better than anyone I’ve worked with. She’s the reason I’m on the ice as much as I am. She’s the reason a lot of guys are.”
“Are you saying you and Ms. Lane—”
“I’m saying stop making competence a scandal.” Not sharp—final. “You want policy? Great. The team is implementing open doors, double-staffed treatments, logged sessions. Transparency that protects staff and players. That’s the headline.”
“Blackwood was seen entering practice,” a beat writer I respect calls out. “Have you spoken with him?”
“We’ve talked. Ownership cares about wins. Wins come from healthy bodies. Healthy bodies come from good staff. Connect the dots.”
“Last one,” the handler begs.
“I’ve got it.” I give them something to print. “We skate at eleven. Systems matter. Guys are bought in. That’s your copy. And yes, Kitson finally figured out how not to be cute at the blue line.”
Laughter ripples—relief disguised as humor. Red lights wink off. “On record, yeah?” someone says. I nod so there’s no confusion.
The scrum dissolves into hallway hum. My pulse eases a notch. I can feel the text I’m about to get from Julia—three line items, one threat, a grudging good line—writing itself. Under it, a promise I didn’t say out loud settles where I can carry it: don’t let them turn her into content.
The handler leans in, pitching for mentor and landing hall monitor. “We said hockey only.”
“We did hockey,” I say, already turning for the room. “You just heard the part that wins games.”
The rink empties to white noise and condensation.
Practice burns through the noise in my head until all that’s left is lungs and motion.
By the time Ducks blows the final whistle, my body feels rinsed out—cleaner, if not lighter.
Steam fogs the mirrors in the room; I stay seated, taping and un-taping my wrist just to give my hands a reason to exist.
The silence that follows practice always feels too big.
I reach for my phone because quiet never meant peace.
One text half-typed: Come over tonight? No cameras, no calls.
Just us. The cursor blinks like it’s mocking me.
I hit delete. Anything I send will sound like a demand she doesn’t owe me answers to.
Screw it. I call. Straight to voicemail. Her recorded voice is too bright, too old. I listen through the greeting before I can stop myself.
“Hey. It’s me.” I hate how that sounds—seventeen and uncertain. I try again. “Jason. Practice was good. You don’t owe me anything. I just… I’m here. Come by tonight if you need to. Or don’t. Just—breathe. I’ll do the rest.” I hang up before I beg.
The buzz that follows isn’t her. Julia’s name fills the screen.
“On your line about ‘trust Riley with my life,’” she says by way of hello, her voice tight and fast. “We’re clipping it for socials. It’s testing well.” A pause, paper shuffle. “For now.”
“What’s the count?”
“Vectra wants a contrition statement—‘regret any confusion,’ ‘respect for policies.’ WaveTech will settle if you do a community event. FreshFuel still wants you for a ‘values’ podcast. Owner wants a signature today.”
“No,” I say, flat. “We’re not selling a scapegoat statement.”
“Jason.” She sighs into the line. “We can word it so you’re not admitting anything, just cooling sponsors.”
“I’m not throwing her under the bus in passive voice.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We give them the protocol, the paper, the work. Nothing else.”
Static hums while she thinks. “Okay. I’ll buy us twelve hours. After that, Nolan decides.”
“Then make it expensive,” I remind her.
“Always.” Her tone softens. “Eat something. You sound like gravel.”
The call ends. I stare at the phone until my reflection warps in the black screen. No dots. No reply. No clock that says later is now. I pocket it and head for the showers, steam rising like ghosts.
By late afternoon, the day has the texture of sandpaper. I go home because there’s nowhere else to be that won’t turn into a headline. The apartment smells faintly of rain and her shampoo. I stand in the kitchen, trying to care about eggs or nothing. Water wins. The glass sweats against my palm.
Her hair tie lies on the counter—a thin black circle that could hold a planet in place. Beside it, her tablet rests facedown, forgotten. I don’t touch it. I also don’t walk away. The rain needles the windows. A radiator ticks. My phone stays silent.
The tablet wakes with a soft glow. A banner slides across the lock screen before I can look away:
Appointment Confirmed — Midtown Women’s Clinic
Today, 4:10 PM · New patient intake
The words knock the air sideways. I go still enough that the hum of the fridge sounds like a siren. I don’t swipe, don’t breathe. I read them again. 4:10. Midtown. Thirty-eight minutes from now.
She didn’t tell me. She didn’t ask. Of course she didn’t. She said later, and the city ate the clock.
The rational voice in my head tries to file options—routine visit, standard check-in, nothing dramatic. The other voice counts seconds like heartbeats. Each one louder than the last.
The banner fades. The room exhales. I stare at the dark screen, at my own reflection hovering there, waiting for something I can’t name.
My phone buzzes—a phantom or real, I don’t know—and I grab it, stupid with hope.
Nothing from her. Just a calendar ping: Skate review moved to 6:30. I swipe it away like an insult.
I type, Do you want me there? Delete. Here if you need a ride. Delete. Tell me what you need. Delete. The cursor blinks until my eyes burn. Backspace. Nothing.
The tablet wakes again, efficient and indifferent: Reminder: Leave now to arrive on time.
A pressure change rolls through the apartment—the kind that happens before a storm. I set my phone on the counter so I don’t crush it, brace both hands on the sink, and let the cold metal bite. She scheduled it. She’s going. Alone.
Rain threads down the glass. The fridge hums steady. I count the seconds to 4:10 and none of them add up to anything I can carry.