Chapter 26
Breaking Point
Jason
The press room is a box of heat and humming glass.
White lights bleach the edges off everything—the podium, the sponsor backdrop, the rows of faces already puckered into questions they think are knives.
The cameras don’t just look; they thrum.
The vibration settles in my ribs like I swallowed a hive.
Julia’s shoulder brushes mine as we step up.
She’s all steel in a black blazer, a legal pad in one hand and a pen she clicks when I worry her.
Click. Click. I take my place at the mic and the branded backdrop makes my skull hum.
This is supposed to be familiar—answers about forechecks and ice time. This is not that.
I find her before I take a breath.
Riley stands just offstage in the wing where the curtain shadows soften the light.
One hand is fisted at her side, knuckles pale against the dark of her blazer; the other is loose, fingers tapping her thigh like she’s counting breaths.
Her chin is up. Her mouth is set. The sight cuts through the glare and slides everything into focus.
It’s not the cameras that matter. It’s that hand, that chin, that woman.
“Jason,” Julia murmurs, low enough not to bleed into microphones. “Remember: we set terms. Don’t chase.”
“I won’t,” I say, even though we both know I might.
The moderator gives the nod. Red lights blink alive. First question comes barbed and fast from a guy in the second row who’s built a career on making someone flinch.
“Jason, are you exploiting your position to involve yourself with a staff member?” He doesn’t lift his eyes from his phone as he asks it, thumbs ready to live-post any stumble.
The room tilts hostile with the first syllable.
I can feel the owner at the back before I see him—Nolan Blackwood isn’t a presence, he’s a weather system.
When I do clock him, he’s in the last row, silver hair carved into place, mouth a straight line.
His right hand slices quick across his throat: cut it short. Stick to script. Be manageable.
I lean into the mic. The metal is warm from the light. My pulse steadies on a beat that is not for the cameras.
“I won’t dignify that premise,” I say, voice level.
“But I’ll answer the question I think you tried to ask.
” I draw breath. It tastes like hot dust and stage.
“I love Riley Lane.” The room inhales like a single body.
“We’re having a baby.” Flashes pop. Phones lift.
Somewhere to my left a cameraman swears softly.
“And the harassment of her—online, outside her home, at her workplace—stops now.”
Julia’s pen stops clicking. In the back, the owner’s jaw hardens until I can feel the pressure in my own molars. Offstage, Riley’s shoulders square another half inch. It’s enough to make the lights feel less like interrogation and more like daylight.
I plant my hands on either side of the mic stand to keep from going for the throttle the way I’m built to. The hive in my ribs quiets. The room, for two seconds, forgets what question it was going to throw next.
Silence breaks like glass. Hands shoot up; voices overlap; a moderator tries to impose order and gets trampled by momentum.
“Sponsors are reviewing ad buys—comment?”
“Code of Conduct, Section Twelve—are you in violation?”
“Did Ms. Lane treat your injury while you were romantically involved?”
“Who signed off on her travel?”
I let the noise crest and pick the cleanest line through it.
“One at a time,” I say, the way you tell a bench full of egos we’re still a team.
“Sponsors first. They’re free to review anything.
I’m also free to say this: I won’t be part of any campaign that makes a woman collateral.
” A murmur. I don’t let it swell. “Next—Code of Conduct. Section Twelve prohibits staff-player relationships that create conflicts in supervision and evaluation. Riley didn’t supervise or evaluate me.
Rehab oversight came from an independent physician appointed by the league. Logs are available for audit.”
A reporter two rows back lowers his camera an inch, surprised at the specificity. I keep going.
“Did she treat you while involved?” someone calls.
“I was under her care as a patient before our relationship resumed,” I say. “Once there was potential for conflict, we followed protocol. Independent oversight. I complied with every recommendation, and where there was a gray area, we chose distance. That’s on record.”
The moderator blinks at his clipboard like he didn’t expect me to have receipts. Julia finally moves—slides a single sheet closer with bullet points we built last night. I don’t look down. Knowing I can if I need to is enough.
“What about the optics?” a woman near the aisle asks, pen poised. “Staff are talking about favoritism.”
I nod like it’s the fair question it is.
“Optics aren’t facts,” I say. “Facts are my time-on-ice split and the transparent rehab schedule Riley wrote with the medical team months before any of this. If anyone wants to argue my line changes, we can do it with tape, not rumor.” I pause.
“As for staff: no one should be harassed because of proximity to me. If you’ve filmed or followed a trainer in a hallway this week, I suggest you look at your own code of conduct. ”
That lands harder than I meant it to. Fine. It should.
“Jason—if the league finds a violation, will you accept discipline?”
“I’ll accept any consequence that’s mine,” I say.
“I won’t accept Riley being used as a shield for other people’s discomfort.
Her work stands on its own. Protecting her ability to do it is non-negotiable.
” I glance to the wing. She’s still there—jaw set, eyes steady. It threads iron through my spine.
A guy in a navy blazer—sponsor pin glittering—leans toward the aisle mic. “Our brand cannot be associated with impropriety.” He tries to make impropriety sound like a slur.
“Then associate with integrity,” I say. “Ask for the audit. Read the logs. Call the independent. If you want a clean line: no preferential treatment. No special access. And if you’re asking whether I love a woman who is excellent at her job—yes. Put your brand on that.”
Clicks. A low oath from somewhere right of center. Julia’s pen resumes a slow, satisfied tick. The room recalibrates around the idea that I am not going to flinch.
“Last one for now,” the moderator says, sensing control again. “Given the attention, do you think Ms. Lane can continue in her role without distraction?”
“Yes,” I say, before he finishes. “If you let her. If you stop turning her hallway into a gauntlet. If you treat her like the professional she’s always been.” I lean in, let the mic carry it. “The distraction isn’t her. It’s the circus.”
Offstage, Riley’s fist unclenches. Mine does, too. For a full breath, the camera hum blends into something that almost feels like quiet ice.
In the back row, Nolan’s jaw goes iron. I can feel it from the dais the way you feel a cross-check you’re about to take and decide to skate through anyway. Julia slides a note across the edge of the podium with two words in a tight, controlled hand: Stick to script.
I look at the note. I look at the room. I look at Riley—offstage, steady as a blue line.
“No,” I say—not into the mic, into the part of me that still thinks pleasing men in suits keeps anyone safe. I fold the note once and set it beside the water bottle. My fingers stop shaking.
A reporter opens his mouth for another bite. I get there first.
“You want clarity,” I say. “Here it is. If protecting Riley means I sit, I sit. She keeps her job.”
The sound that rolls through the room isn’t one thing. Gasps. A dropped camera thunk. An oh from the moderator he doesn’t catch with his hand in time. Julia freezes half a second and then starts writing faster, recalculating trajectories like a goalie tracking a puck through traffic.
I let the quiet after do work. Make sure the words sink in where they’re supposed to. Take me. Leave her.
“Are you saying you’ll accept a suspension?” someone manages.
“I’m saying I won’t let you make Riley the price of my learning curve,” I answer.
“If there’s a consequence to pay, it’s mine.
You don’t gut a woman’s career because two adults made private choices and then did the professional thing when it mattered.
” I hold the room’s stare until it looks away first.
“Mr. Maddox,” another voice tries, more cautious now, “do you grasp what sitting would mean for your season? For the franchise?”
I glance toward the owner because you don’t talk about a man like he isn’t in the room, even when you’re inviting him to hate you.
“I grasp what it would mean for my son or daughter someday to google their mother’s name and see it tied to a scandal she didn’t create,” I say.
“I grasp that I can skate again. She doesn’t get to rewind a reputation. ”
A camera’s red tally light blinks like a heartbeat. The hum of the lenses feels different—less like a hive, more like a room deciding what kind of story it’s in.
From the wing, Riley doesn’t move. She doesn’t have to for me to feel the gravity of her attention. I remember her in the kitchen last night, hands around a glass of water instead of a grenade, saying both of us or neither of us. This is both of us.
The moderator clears his throat and tries to pivot to a safer sport question, but no one bites. We’re not talking plus/minus today. We’re talking terms.
Julia’s pen pauses just long enough for her to breathe, then resumes with a single underlined word I know without reading: control. She doesn’t like how I took it. She’ll figure out how to use it.
A rustle near the aisle draws my eye—navy blazer, sponsor pin, a man already halfway up from his seat like he’s going to step out and call his board to tell them the asset’s gone feral. He turns as if the door is the smartest play.