Chapter Six Mason Reed
The No-Flirting Rule Needed Legal Review
Mason Reed had survived playoff overtime, hostile arenas, one minor bus fire in Quebec, and a goalie who once threatened him with a frozen protein bar, but nothing had prepared him for Billie Hartley putting one hand on his chest and announcing he was not allowed to flirt on live television.
Mostly because his body had treated the hand like a contract.
A binding one.
With consequences.
She realised it a second after he did.
Her eyes dropped to her own fingers, still pressed against his shirt, right over the part of him behaving like a man with no professional future and even less common sense.
For one perfect, dangerous second, she did not move.
Neither did he.
The rink chaos blurred around them. Nate shouting. Max chanting. Evie waving the kangaroo head like a war trophy. Harper yelling about morning show segments. Coach Alby threatening consequences nobody believed but everyone respected. All of it went soft at the edges.
Billie’s hand was warm.
Small, but not delicate. Capable. Callused faintly at the base of the fingers. The kind of hand that tightened bolts, tied rental skates, held paperwork she would probably ban by principle, and ran a whole rink like the building itself answered to her.
Mason looked down at her.
Bad idea.
She looked up.
Worse one.
Her lashes lifted. Her mouth parted like she had a warning ready and had forgotten the first word.
Mason forgot several languages.
Then Nate yelled, “CHEST CONTACT! I SAW CHEST CONTACT!”
Billie snatched her hand back.
Mason considered moving to New Zealand.
Billie turned with the calm of a woman who had once been forged in a volcano. “Nate Callow.”
Nate took one step backward. “I saw nothing.”
“You announced it to the building.”
“I hallucinated from cupcake fumes.”
Max raised his notebook. “I can be a witness.”
“No,” Mason and Billie said together.
That made the under-twelves scream.
Harper’s phone rose again.
Billie pointed at her. “No.”
Harper lowered it with visible pain. “History hates censorship.”
“History can file a complaint.”
Evie approached with the kangaroo costume draped over one arm, eyes bright with terrible cousin knowledge. “So. Live television.”
Billie grabbed a stack of flyers from the front desk and began straightening them with unnecessary violence. “Local morning television.”
“Still television.”
“Local.”
“With cameras.”
“Evie.”
“And your hand on his chest was before cameras. Brave pacing.”
Billie looked at her. “You are family, which means I know where all your embarrassing childhood photos are kept.”
Evie’s smile vanished. “Respectfully withdrawing.”
Mason tried not to laugh.
Failed.
Billie turned her glare on him.
It hit different when he was the target.
Warmer.
Or maybe that was just his complete lack of survival instinct.
“You,” she said, “meeting room. Now.”
Nate whispered, “He’s in trouble.”
Mason nodded. “I know.”
Nate grinned. “Lucky.”
Billie pointed again. “Lost property inventory.”
Nate went pale. “Understood. Silent.”
Mason followed Billie toward the back corridor while the rink continued to buzz like an overheated comment section. He walked carefully because his knee had started to complain and because he was ninety percent sure Billie would notice and weaponise concern if he tried to hide it.
She noticed anyway.
“Limp,” she said without looking back.
“I’m walking.”
“Badly.”
“You do this with everyone?”
“Assess movement? Yes.”
“Tell them they’re bad at it?”
“Only when they are.”
He smiled at the back of her head. “You were fun as a teenager, weren’t you?”
She opened the meeting room door and stepped aside. “I was terrifying.”
“I believe that.”
The room was small, colder than necessary, and currently covered in evidence of crisis management.
Sponsor dinner seating chart. Printed campaign metrics.
A whiteboard with HARBOUR ICE CHARITY SHOOTOUT written at the top and, underneath, in Evie’s handwriting: DO NOT LET THE HOT MEN RUIN THE FUNDRAISER.
Billie saw Mason read it.
Her mouth tightened. “I didn’t write that.”
“I assumed.”
“You assumed I called men hot on operational documents?”
“No. I assumed you wrote the second half.”
She looked at the board, then back at him. “Fair.”
He sat in one of the plastic chairs because standing too long after practice was a mistake, and he was making enough of those already. Billie noticed the sit too.
Of course.
She pulled out the chair across from him but did not sit. Instead, she placed both hands on the table and leaned forward like she was about to negotiate a hostage release.
“The morning show wants us live at 7:40 tomorrow.”
“Early.”
“Welcome to rink life.”
“I’m a hockey player.”
“You’re an import. I assume someone usually tells you where to stand and gives you water.”
“I also occasionally skate.”
“Allegedly.”
Mason fought a smile. “You’re still mad about the chest thing.”
“There was no chest thing.”
“My chest disagrees.”
Her eyes snapped to his.
The silence dropped hard.
Mason immediately regretted becoming a person with a mouth.
Billie’s cheeks did not colour. She had too much discipline for that. But something in her expression warmed and sharpened at the same time, and the combination nearly took him out worse than the hit that wrecked his knee.
“Media training,” she said.
“Right.”
“Rule one. You are not funny unless approved.”
“That feels restrictive.”
“Rule two. You do not mention Canada, America, real winter, fake winter, kangaroos, rugby, beaches, or whether hockey is serious anywhere.”
“What can I mention?”
“The junior gear fund.”
“Just that?”
“And remorse.”
“Fun.”
“And community.”
“I can do community.”
“And respect.”
“Obviously.”
She looked at him.
He lifted both hands. “New Mason. Very respectful. Moderately humbled. Cupcake-certified.”
“Rule three,” she continued, ignoring him badly enough that he suspected she wanted to smile, “no flirting.”
“With whom?”
The question slipped out before he could stop it.
Billie’s eyes narrowed. “Anyone.”
“Broad.”
“Necessary.”
“What if the host flirts with me?”
“Deflect.”
“What if Nate calls in?”
“I will cut the phone line.”
“What if you flirt with me?”
She stared.
Mason smiled slowly, because apparently he had chosen death.
Billie pulled the marker from behind her ear and pointed it at him. “I don’t flirt.”
“You almost did downstairs.”
“I touched your chest to prevent a communications crisis.”
“That’s a new one.”
“It was strategy.”
“My chest felt strategised.”
She inhaled through her nose. “This is exactly why we need rule three.”
He leaned back in the chair, hands up in surrender. “Fine. No flirting.”
“Say it properly.”
“No flirting on local morning television.”
“Or before.”
“Define before.”
“From now until after the interview.”
“That’s many hours.”
“Do you need medical support?”
“I might.”
“Mason.”
He should stop.
He knew he should stop. He had promised himself distance. Professionalism. Respect. He had a sponsor event, a damaged reputation, and a knee that required actual care. Billie was not a game. She was not a prize. She was not an easy win for a man who liked difficult shots too much.
But flirting with Billie did not feel like winning.
It felt like breathing after holding his breath for a year.
Dangerous. Necessary. Probably ill-advised.
He softened his voice. “I’ll behave.”
Her expression flickered.
“Don’t say it like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like behaving is for me.”
He held her gaze. “What if it is?”
Billie went very still.
The fluorescent light hummed overhead. Somewhere down the hall, Evie shouted that the kangaroo tail was missing and Nate shouted back that he was innocent of all tail-related allegations. The rink kept existing around them. Loud, ridiculous, cold, alive.
Billie looked away first.
“Read the talking points,” she said, sliding a sheet toward him.
Mason took it.
Her handwriting filled the page. Clean. Firm. Slightly slanted.
He read the first line.
I made a careless comment before I understood the community I was joining.
The second.
The Sydney Blades and Harbour Ice Centre have shown me that hockey is serious wherever people build it, fund it, coach it, play it, and protect it.
He looked up.
Billie was watching him.
“You wrote these for me.”
“I wrote them for the campaign.”
“You made me sound better than I am.”
“No,” she said. “I made you sound like what you need to become by Friday.”
That landed in his chest and stayed there.
He looked back at the page because looking at her felt too direct.
“I can say this,” he said.
“Good.”
“But I need to say it my way.”
“Your way got us Tall Regret.”
“My improved way.”
“Risky.”
“I mean it, Billie.”
She sat then.
Not because she relaxed. Billie did not relax. She lowered herself into the chair like she was making a tactical decision.
“What would you say?”
Mason looked at the page again, then set it down.
He thought of the skate room. The birthday girl’s face.
Max’s sign. Isla’s brutal edges. Theo taping his stick.
Nate turning trouble into loyalty. Sophie telling him to stop treating today like proof.
Alby’s rough praise. Evie and her stolen hoodie.
Harper’s relentless belief that attention could be transformed into money for kids who needed gear.
He thought of Billie in an old photo, younger and fierce.
Billie now, still fierce, but carrying a building on her back and pretending it did not weigh anything.
He looked at her.
“I’d say I came here thinking Sydney was a place to hide while I figured out whether I still mattered,” he said.
“And then I got here and realised I’d insulted people who have been fighting to matter for years.
That’s on me. So I’m not doing the shootout because I think one event fixes it.
I’m doing it because showing respect has to be more than saying sorry once when a camera is on. ”
Billie stared at him.
Too quietly.
Mason shifted. “Too much?”
“No,” she said.
The word came out softer than he expected.
“It’s good.”
His throat tightened, which was annoying. “Yeah?”