Chapter 16
sixteen
ROOK
Every squeak of my sneakers on the marble floor echoes through the athletic complex lobby like an accusation. The sound bounces off the vaulted ceiling, multiplies in the hollow space beneath the championship banners, and comes back to mock me.
And what does it sound like?
You’re a jester, Fitzgerald. A court jester for a creep.
Morgan’s words from a week ago have taken up permanent residence in my brain, playing on repeat like the world’s worst Spotify playlist. I hear it everywhere, all the time, even when there's silence. The worst part is that she nailed it, and I’ve been hemorrhaging confidence ever since.
We’ve dropped two games since she carved me up in that hallway, and both were the kind of sloppy, undisciplined disasters that make ESPN highlight reels for all the wrong reasons. And I've been performing the worst out of my guys, letting in goals I'd usually save with ease.
Meanwhile, her team has rattled off two wins through pure determination and textbook execution. The only surprise is that her performance has been a little off as well, but her down games have been more than compensated for by the discipline and effort of her teammates.
The contrast makes my teeth ache.
I’ve been a ghost haunting my team.
During practice, I go through the motions, my voice hollow when I call out plays.
The puck sounds different hitting my glove, duller somehow, like even the equipment knows I’m phoning it in.
In the locker room, my jokes land flat, and the guys keep looking at me with a mix of uncertainty and concern.
But here’s the thing that guts me: they haven’t bailed.
Schmidt shows up at my apartment every morning with a black coffee. The cup is always slightly too hot, the way he knows I hate it, because it means I have to wait, have to slow down. He just sets it down and goes back to his day, creating a bubble of normalcy I don’t deserve.
Leo drags me to the library every night and doesn’t say a word when I stare at the same sociology paragraph for twenty minutes. He just sits there, his highlighter squeaking against glossy textbook pages in a rhythm that’s almost meditative if my mind wasn't all gas, no brakes.
Even Kellerman, ever anxious and desperate for approval like a golden retriever in human form, has been leaving PowerBars in my gear bag. They’re always the peanut-butter-chocolate ones that taste like cardboard, but he includes these little notes.
“You got this, Cap!” was today's special.
I’m a train wreck, but I’m a supported train wreck, and I'm grateful for it.
Which makes me think about Morgan. When was the last time someone left her a coffee? When was the last time someone just… sat with her while she studied? Who’s her Schmidt? Her Leo? Her overeager Kellerman? Who picks her up when she's down?
Does she ever get down?
The thought follows me as I navigate the lobby, dodging a group of basketball players. They’re arguing about something that involves a lot of hand gestures and the word “bro” deployed like punctuation. I’m just here to grab travel paperwork from the admin office, in and out, and—
A championship photo catches my eye from the Wall of Fame. There I am, next to Mike, who's hoisting the trophy overhead. I've got a massive grin across my face, my hair is plastered to my head with sweat and champagne, and Maine’s arm is slung around my shoulders.
That guy looks invincible, whereas I feel like a failure and a fraud.
I shake my head and resume walking, when movement stops me cold.
It’s them.
Galloway and Morgan.
They're inside one of the glass-walled meeting rooms of the sports admin wing. That's not an unusual occurrence in and of itself, but Galloway has her cornered against the doorframe, using his body as a wall between her and freedom.
He’s standing too close, at a calculated distance that’s technically professional but is creepy as all fuck. His belly strains against his golf shirt like it’s trying to make a break for freedom, and even from here I can see the damp patches under his arms.
Morgan stands with her spine so straight she could be teaching a posture class. Her ponytail is pulled back severely enough to give her a face-lift, and her jaw is clenched tight enough to crack molars. Everything about her radiates get-the-fuck-away-from-me energy.
But she can’t actually say it and can’t actually leave, because he controls her ice time, her equipment budget, and her program’s entire existence. I mean, sure, she could complain to university admin, but women complaining about sexual predators on college campuses has a pretty low success rate.
And it'd ruin her and her team.
Galloway’s voice carries across the lobby, that patronizing rumble that sounds like disappointment and condescension had a baby. “And I’m just telling you, Morgan, your approach is a little aggressive for the boosters. They expect a certain… warmth from our female players," he says.
The word warmth carries a load of connotation so heavy it could end wars, while female comes out of his mouth like he’s describing a different species. Both make my skin crawl, like they had in the locker room, when he'd locked his eyes on her in nothing but a towel.
When you said nothing… my mind reminds me, helpfully.
He continues, clearly warming to his theme, “Frankly, I don’t see the engagement or the on-ice results to justify any budget increase right now, Morgan. A few wins is nice, but maybe if you were a little more… friendly… we could come to some sort of arrangement…”
His hand comes up to pat her arm, and his thumb makes a slow, deliberate stroke along her bare forearm, skin-to-skin, the kind of touch that’s designed to remind her who has the power here. At the sight, my hands curl into fists, knuckles cracking like ice under pressure.
But Morgan’s face doesn’t change.
Not a flicker.
But there are still signs. Subtle ones. She’s become so good at being marble that even I, who’ve been watching her like she’s game tape I need to memorize, almost miss the way her breathing goes shallow or the way her fingers curl just slightly against her thigh.
She’s trapped. By his position, by his power, and by the whole fucked-up system that says she has to stand there and take it because making a scene would be “unprofessional” and “difficult” and all the other coded bullshit they use to keep women in line.
Although she verbally murdered me days ago—hell, because she verbally murdered me days ago—something violent and protective detonates in my chest. It’s not just attraction, though that’s there, humming under my skin like an electric fence.
This is something else.
An overwhelming need to put myself between her and him.
Because no one gets to touch her like that.
The thought arrives fully formed, no assembly required, and I have to physically stop myself from charging across the lobby like some kind of deranged linebacker. But then another thought shoulders its way in: Who else is going to do it?
I think about this morning, Schmidt’s too-hot coffee steaming on my desk. Last night, Leo’s rainbow of highlighters as he studied next to me. Kellerman’s cardboard PowerBars. There's a whole locker room of guys who've still got my back, even though I'm a fuckup and we're losing.
I have backup. I have a net.
Morgan has… nobody.
She’s standing there, enduring Galloway’s power play alone, the same way she endures everything else.
She runs that team solo, fights every battle solo, and celebrates every victory solo.
Even on the ice, she barely celebrates with her team, giving them a nod and skating back to her position while they high-five.
My instincts scream at me to make a distraction. Maybe to start singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of my lungs, or pretend to have a sudden coughing fit, or to pull the fire alarm and blame it on a freshman. Anything to shatter this awful scene without confrontation.
But Morgan’s voice from the other day cuts through the mental noise.
You did it then, and you’re still doing it now.
This is it, the chance to prove I’m not the coward she so accurately diagnosed. I can run away and pretend I didn't see it, or I can deflect with chaos, crack a joke, remain Galloway’s favorite jester, and keep my comfortable life intact.
Or.
I can be the man my team keeps believing I am, even when I don’t deserve it. I can be the person who stands in someone else’s corner. I can be serious and present for the first damn time in my whole life.
The choice hits me with the clarity of stepping out of a sauna into a snowbank.
Shocking, breathtaking, and absolutely undeniable.
Because stepping in means torching my relationship with Galloway. It means giving up my golden boy status, my preferential treatment, and my get-out-of-administrative-bullshit-free card. It means choosing her over him, publicly, in a way that can’t be walked back with a joke and an apology.
My feet start moving before my brain signs off on the decision. Each step across the marble floor feels weighted. And, for the first time in my adult life, I don’t use chaos, and I don’t make noise. I just lead with quiet, deliberate, risky intention.
I plant myself next to Morgan, close enough that my shoulder creates a physical barrier between her and Galloway. I don’t look at him. I look at her, meeting those eyes that have been haunting me since that summer three years ago.
“Morgue,” I say, keeping my voice steady and serious. No jokes. No performance. “Coach Walsh is looking for you. She said it was urgent."
The lie is so transparent you could read through it, but it’s not about being believable.
It’s about giving her an out and choosing a side.
And she knows it, because her eyes widen just a fraction—in surprise, maybe, or disbelief that I’m capable of doing something useful without turning it into a stand-up routine.
Galloway’s hand drops from her arm. “Fitzgerald," he says, sharp enough to etch glass. “Captain Riley and I are having a private conversation.”
Now I do look at him, and whatever he sees in my face makes him step back slightly.
The friendly warmth he’s used to—the eager-to-please energy—is gone.
In its place is something cold and immovable, like I just discovered I’ve been carrying around a knife this whole time and finally decided to pull it out.
“It looked like you were finished,” I say.
The words hang in the air between us. We both know I’m drawing a line in the sand with a fucking excavator, and I’m standing on the same side as Morgan. The side without power, without protection, and without the safety net of his favoritism.
Galloway’s face cycles through expressions—surprise, confusion, fury—before settling on a politician’s smile that’s all teeth and no warmth.
“I see," he says, the words weighted with the reality of bridges not just burning but exploding like they’re in a Michael Bay movie. “We’ll continue this later, Morgan.”
It’s not her name that makes my jaw clench, but the promise in his voice, the threat wrapped in professional courtesy like a razor blade in cotton candy. This man is so hard-coded to be a creep that he's prepared to burn his hockey program to the ground before changing.
He turns to me, and his smile sharpens. “Fitzgerald, I'll see you in my office at eight tomorrow morning to discuss your team’s recent… performance issues.”
The threat and subtext are clear:
You chose wrong, kid. Now you’re going to pay for it.
He walks away, his expensive loafers clicking against the marble in a rhythm that sounds like a countdown to my execution. Several people in the lobby are staring now, that rubbernecking instinct people get when they sense drama but don’t know the situation yet.
Morgan hasn’t moved. She’s looking at me like I’ve just violated some fundamental law of physics by doing something helpful without immediately undermining it with a fart joke. I don't know whether I should walk away, or say something, or wait until she goes and—
"Follow me," she says, her voice low and controlled, giving away nothing.
Oh, shit. Round two.