Chapter 28
Off the Record
Jason
The tabloid headline is still burning into my retinas when the elevator spits me into the corridor outside our office.
ULTRASOUND IMAGE LEAKED strobes in my head like a penalty light I can’t skate away from.
My hands are fists before I know it. Doors.
I’m ready to break doors. Someone at that clinic sold us out and my body is already writing checks my contract can’t cash.
Fluorescents buzz. The carpet eats my footsteps.
Past the glass conference room, three TVs run the same segment on a loop—blurred black-and-white, red arrows, my name in a font reserved for meteors and moral panic.
My phone won’t stop vibrating—agents, teammates, a player from juniors I haven’t heard from in years.
I want quiet so loud it knocks power out in a three-block radius.
I hit the threshold like a hit I mean to finish—shoulder tight, jaw locked.
Julia catches my sleeve.
“Not rage,” she says, eyes on mine, voice flat enough to cut through the noise. “Results.” She steers me sideways, out of the doorway and into the narrow slice of hall where sound goes to die. She doesn’t let go until my hands remember how to be hands.
“There’s a watermark,” I say. It comes out closer to a growl than a sentence. “Her clinic. They—”
“I saw it,” she says. “And I’ve already sent the preservation letters. The station that ran it will be getting one in six minutes. The clinic’s legal will get the big one in ten. You breaking doors buys us nothing. You breaking ratings buys us leverage.”
I force air in until the edges of my vision stop pulsing. “They want us to bleed on camera.”
“They want you to lose your temper and make my job easy for the other side,” she corrects, not unkind.
She’s in full black—sharp shoulders, sharper attention.
“We’re flipping the board. One controlled interview.
Ground rules. We reframe: harassment, boundaries, accountability.
We do it with Riley’s consent or not at all. ”
“She’s not a prop,” I say, because I need to say it out loud even to an ally.
“She’s a partner,” Julia agrees. “Text her. If she says no, I pull the plug and we go full legal. If she says yes, we own the angle before eleven o’clock turns this into a carnival.
” She taps her tablet and a calendar blooms. “I can have a producer here in forty. We shoot in Studio B—smaller room, fewer mouths.”
The hive in my ribs starts to settle, not because I’m calmer, but because I recognize the ice. “Ground rules,” I say. “No medical details. No doxxing staff. No ultrasound on screen.”
“Add: you won’t discuss dates beyond what’s already public,” Julia says, thumbs moving. “Add: they blur prior leaks, run our hotline lower third for harassment reports against staff, and agree to our right of review on the chyron language.”
I nod, already seeing the angles like lanes through traffic. “If they want color, I’ll give them tape. Practice footage. Rehab logs. They want proof? We’ve got proof.”
Julia finally lets go of my sleeve. “Now you sound like a person I can walk into a studio,” she says. “Text Riley. Use your words, not optics. If she’s a maybe, it’s a no. If she’s a yes, we move.”
I thumb open our thread. My reflection in the screen looks like a man I don’t want to be—jaw iron, eyes hot.
I breathe until I look like the one I promised her last night.
You decide, I type. If you want to speak, we set rules.
If not, I hold the line alone. Either way, I’m with you.
I hit send before I can edit myself into something paler.
Julia watches the hall, not my face, like a goalie watching the weak-side winger. “Riley says jump, we ask how high,” she says. “Until then, hydrate.” She presses a paper cup into my hand.
Water tastes like nothing and also like the first clean thing I’ve had all day. The phone buzzes. I don’t look yet. I hold Julia’s stare until my pulse drops out of the red.
“Results,” I say back to her.
She nods once. “Results.”
The reply lands fast enough to make my grip tighten.
Riley: Yes—if we set rules. No medical details. No ultrasound. No staff named. We speak together or not at all.
A second bubble appears before I can breathe it in. And we condemn harassment. Out loud.
I don’t realize I’ve been bracing until something in my back lets go. Together, I type. Your terms. Then: Calling.
I step into the empty copy room because it’s the closest place with a door that latches. The smell of paper and warm toner hits me like a childhood library. Riley picks up on the first ring.
“Hey,” she says, voice low, steady around the edges. There’s a soft scrape in the background like she’s moving a chair to sit, claiming space with furniture.
“Hey.” I close my eyes because it makes hearing easier. “You sure?”
“I’m sure I want to own the angle,” she says. “I’m not sure of anything else. But I won’t let them use my body like a billboard for their speculation.” A breath. “We do this, we do it clean.”
“Clean,” I echo. “Ground rules: no medical details, no dates beyond what’s public, no images from inside any clinic, and they run a statement condemning harassment of staff on air.”
“And a blur request for anything already out there,” she adds. “Even if they won’t do it, we ask on camera. Make it clear we did.”
“Yes.” I hear the click of a pen on her end and picture her writing bullet points in that precise trainer script that never wavers, even when the floor does. “We speak as equals,” she says. “No chivalry that reads as you rescuing me.”
“I’m not rescuing you,” I say. “I’m standing where I should have been the whole time.”
There’s the smallest smile in her silence, and then business again. “If they try to bait us into debating policy, we pivot to process. Independent oversight. Rehab logs. Facts over optics.”
“Facts,” I agree. “And love.” The word slides out before I can filter it into something media-safe. I don’t take it back.
A soft exhale. “And love.”
I knock once on the door and Julia opens it like she was already mid-reach. I hit speaker and set the phone on the copier lid. “Riley’s in,” I say. “On her terms.”
“Understood,” Julia says, already dialing with her other hand. “I’m putting the station on. We lead with guardrails and hang up if they blink.” She taps a key and a third voice joins—producer-bright, smooth as a local news anchor ordering coffee.
“Jason, we’re honored—” the producer starts.
“Guardrails first,” Julia cuts in. “You agree to the following or there’s no segment: no medical details, no ultrasound images live or b-roll, no naming or showing staff who haven’t consented.
Lower third runs: ‘Harassment of team staff is unacceptable—report issues to [hotline number].’ We reserve right of review on chyron language. ”
A pause on the other end—calculating. “We can blur sensitive images,” he says carefully. “Our audience expects context—”
“Context is facts,” Riley says, clean into the speaker. “Independent medical oversight. Audit trail. We’ll provide what you need for accuracy. We won’t provide our medical records.”
Another beat. I can almost hear him looking at his rundown and doing math. “We can work with that,” he says finally. “Studio B in thirty-five. Two cameras, one segment, ten minutes.”
“Fifteen,” Julia counters. “And you provide copies of the segment and all raw of our appearance within an hour of wrap.”
“Ten on air,” he bargains. “Off-air pickup for the post segment web. You get the files.”
Julia considers, then nods for all of us. “Done. Email the terms. If the language shifts, the interview doesn’t happen.”
He agrees, a little too quickly, which means he wants us enough to swallow pride. Good. We’ll make him swallow the rest.
The line clicks off. Julia’s pen is already moving. “Wardrobe: solid colors, no logos. Riley needs a car and a quiet entrance.”
“I’ll drive her,” I say.
“No,” Riley says, at the same time. “Together, but not through the front. I’m not giving them the shot.” She’s right. I love her a little more for thinking two steps ahead while the ground shifts.
Julia is already texting. “Side entrance. Half hour. We keep it small. We say what we came to say. And when they push—”
“We don’t rage,” I finish, catching her eye. “Results.”
“Results,” Riley echoes through the speaker. “See you in thirty.”
Studio B smells like hot lights and old coffee. It’s a smaller room than the main set—black curtains swallowing the edges, two cameras on dollies, a semicircle of chairs that want to look casual and succeed at awkward. A producer in a slate blazer meets us halfway, headset perched like a crown.
“Appreciate you coming in,” he says, smile bright enough to light a rink. His gaze flicks to Riley, then away, then back like he’s reminding himself she’s a person and not a segment. “We’ll keep it respectful.”
Julia doesn’t bother to smile. “Respect begins with the guardrails you agreed to,” she says. “We’re not here to relitigate them.”
“Of course,” he says, ushering us toward the chairs. “One clarification—we do want to show the ultrasound for context. We’ll blur the watermark—”
“No,” I say, before his sentence finishes. The word is steady, not loud. “You don’t put stolen medical images on television to explain theft.”
He spreads his hands. “Our audience needs a visual to understand—”
“They can understand without consuming a violation,” Riley says, voice level as a medic calling a timeout.
She sits without waiting for permission, crossing one ankle over the other like the chair is her office and this is a consult.
“Context is the independent oversight, the audit trail, the part where I am a professional who didn’t consent to her records being weaponized. ”
Julia slides a folder onto the table between us and taps it once. “Practice footage from three separate sessions showing neutral treatment protocols. Rehab logs signed by the independent. Player usage charts. You want visuals, use those.”