Epilogue Cash
Few months later
I have survived playoff hockey, which is basically just a polite term for legal assault on ice.
I’ve survived broken ribs that made breathing feel like a hobby I couldn’t quite afford.
I’ve survived a locker room speech from Callahan after a particularly brutal mid-season loss—the kind where he doesn’t yell, he just looks at you with a profound, soul-crushing disappointment that makes you want to apologize to your own ancestors.
I’ve even survived a snowstorm in the White Mountains that turned the team bus into a rolling sauna of panic, bad decisions, and a very questionable sing-along to nineties power ballads.
None of it, absolutely none of it, prepared me for the reality of Scottie Reed becoming my agent.
Six months ago, I was still under the delusion that my life had edges. I thought I knew where I started and where the game ended.
Now, I’m standing in Iveline Talvi St. James’ kitchen—a place that smells suspiciously like expensive espresso and actual domestic stability—holding a cup of coffee I didn’t even ask for.
Across the room, her fiancé, our former captain and current domestic menace, is currently losing an argument with a florist on speakerphone regarding the structural integrity of peonies.
And Scottie Reed? She is stationed across the marble island, already methodically reorganizing the entire trajectory of my future with a swipe of her thumb.
I’d heard the rumors about The Shark long before I ever heard the rhythmic, intimidating click of her heels. People whispered about how she took mid-tier players with “attitude problems” and turned them into legends.
They talked about how she made General Managers break out in a cold sweat without ever raising her voice above a pleasant hum.
There was even a legend that she once rewrote an incentive clause so cleanly and ruthlessly that the league office sent her flowers out of sheer respect for the craft.
Nobody hires Scottie Reed by accident.
She is currently leaning against the counter, her suit crisp enough to intimidate a small nation and her smile sharp enough to cut through safety glass.
Somehow, impossibly, she’s doing all of this while balancing a color-coded wedding binder for Ivy, a tablet overflowing with my contract drafts, and a leather briefcase that smells faintly of expensive vanilla.
I’ve faced some of the most terrifying enforcers in the league. I’ve had three-hundred-pound defensemen threaten to turn my ribs into toothpicks if I even thought about crossing the crease. None of them have the sheer, concentrated power of Scottie Reed in a pair of Louboutins.
When she looks at a contract, the ink practically rearranges itself on the page out of fear. She is the only person I know who can make the word synergy sound like a death threat and marketing sound like a promise of imminent world domination.
I spent my whole career thinking I was the one in control because I was the one with the puck on my stick. But Scottie just walked into the room and reminded me that while I might play the game, she is the one who owns the arena, the air rights, and the parking lot.
It is terrifying; it is exhilarating.
And it is making me seriously consider buying an entirely new wardrobe just so she doesn’t look at my favorite flannels like they are a gruesome crime scene.
“Hi, O’Connell,” she says, her voice as bright as a sunbeam and twice as blinding. She doesn’t even look up from her tablet. “I own your career now. Try to keep up.”
I choke on my coffee, spraying a fine mist of caffeine across the pristine counter. It’s a great start. Really professional.
“This feels illegal,” I manage to wheeze out once I can breathe again. “I’m pretty sure there are labor laws against this level of intimidation.”
She finally looks up, and she grins. Her teeth are impossibly white and her lips are painted a dark, dangerous red. “You signed the papers. I have the digital trail to prove it.”
I did. I absolutely, one hundred percent did.
My last contract was a mess—it left money on the table, years on the line, and my body was starting to do math that my brain refused to acknowledge. I knew I needed someone who was ruthless enough to protect me from my own worst impulses.
Unfortunately, I picked Scottie.
Don’t ask me when the decision became final. Don’t ask me why I thought I could handle this. It’s possible I was under duress. It’s more likely I was just distracted by her eyebrows, which are terrifyingly precise in a way that demands immediate obedience.
Across the room, Ivy is leaning against Callahan’s chest, the two of them looking like a living advertisement for “happily ever after.”
Three years ago, they were a scandalous headline that almost broke the sport. Now, they’re just two people arguing about whether the flower girl is allowed to wear sneakers under her dress.
This place does that to people.
It makes you believe in second acts. It makes you reckless enough to think that maybe someone could see all your worst habits, your jagged edges, and your loud mouth, and still choose to love you anyway.
Scottie leans against the counter beside me, her arms crossed over her chest.
“You’re skating too much on your off days,” she says.
“It’s called conditioning, Scottie,” I reply. “You know, the thing athletes do to stay athletic?”
“It’s called unnecessary risk to your hip flexors. We’ll be renegotiating your off-season training program starting Monday. I’ve already sent a list of approved trainers to your inbox.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly feeling like a desert. My brain is performing a very frantic interpretive dance to avoid saying the actual words I want to say.
I’m a professional hockey player; I’m supposed to be able to handle pressure, but this is a different kind of heat.
“You’re very intense,” I manage to say.
She tilts her head to the side. The corner of her mouth tugs up in a way that makes me forget how to use my lungs.
“You love it.”
I absolutely do not say yes. I cannot afford to give her that much ground this early in our professional relationship.
She steps a few inches closer, lowering her voice until it’s just for me. It’s a casual movement, but it feels as final as a guillotine.
“Are you nervous around me, O’Connell?”
“No,” I lie.
She raises one eyebrow. It’s a slow, surgical movement that tells me she knows exactly how fast my heart is beating.
“…Hm. We’ll see about that.”
Her laugh is bright, unapologetic, and dangerous.
“Relax,” she says, patting my arm. “I don’t bite unless the contract negotiations get really ugly.”
My brain short-circuits.
There are actual sparks. Somewhere in the distance, a small fire starts in my subconscious. I’m pretty sure a smoke alarm is going off, but it might just be the ringing in my ears.
Across the kitchen island, Ivy catches my eye for a split second and silently mouths the words good luck before turning back to her seating chart.
Traitor.
Scottie taps her tablet with a manicured nail. “Dinner tonight. Seven o’clock. We need to discuss the new endorsement deals for the hydration brand.”
“Is this a professional dinner?” I ask, my voice sounding much weaker than I’d like.
She smirks, and the look in her eyes is pure chaos. “Define professional, Cash.”
I am so, so screwed.
***
Later—because with Scottie, there is always a “later”—she brushes past me on her way to the living room. Her fingers trail briefly, almost accidentally, over my forearm. My chest tightens, and the air in the room suddenly feels very scarce.
“Try not to fall in love with me,” she says lightly over her shoulder. “It’s bad for the brand.”
Too late.
Way, way too late.
From the living room, Callahan is watching us. He shakes his head once, his expression a perfect mix of deep-seated warning and quiet amusement.
Callahan survived Ivy and that makes him an expert witness to my impending doom.
I just grin at him, because if chaos is coming for me in a designer suit, I’ve decided I’m ready for it.
Scottie suddenly reappears in the kitchen doorway.
“Oh, by the way—”
Before I can even ask what she forgot, she flicks a rolled-up seating chart at my chest. I catch it instinctively, my hockey reflexes finally doing something useful.
“You’re late to our strategy session.”
I blink at her. “Strategy session? I thought we were doing the endorsement talk at dinner.”
She grins, and it is pure, unadulterated chaos. “Wedding planning first. Contract renewals second. Also, you’re wearing whatever I tell you to wear to the gala next month. I’ve already picked out the tuxedo.”
Ivy and Callahan appear in the doorway behind her, watching the scene like two functional adults observing the apocalypse unfold in real time.
Callahan gives me a look of deep, personal pity. He recognizes the expression on my face—it’s the look of a man who has walked into a very obvious trap and decided that he actually quite likes the scenery.
Ivy just looks satisfied.
She’s the architect of this entire mess. She’s the one who introduced us in the first place, telling Scottie that I was “undervalued, over-caffeinated, and in need of a firm hand.”
She’s playing matchmaker with my professional life, and she’s doing it with the same surgical precision she used to fix our power play back in the day.
They share a look between them. It is honestly disgusting how much they love each other. It’s beautiful, and I hate them for it, mostly because it makes me realize exactly what I’m missing.
Scottie winks at me, her eyes dancing with a challenge I know I’m going to accept.
I think quietly to myself: I am completely and utterly doomed.
But as I watch her start jotting down notes, threatening to sign me to a commercial involving a mascot if I don’t listen to her stance on social media presence, I realize it’s the best kind of doom.
I take a deep breath, realizing that I am completely unprepared and way over my head. And somehow, looking at her, I wouldn’t change a single thing.
Scottie Reed has entered my orbit, and there is no eject button in sight.
Good luck, Cash. You’re not coming back from this one.
For the record, I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in stars aligning or meant-to-be nonsense.
But I do believe in Scottie Reed getting exactly what she wants, every single time.
* * *
03:37 AM
Me: Remember when I said I’d marry a redhead
Callie: Unfortunately
Me: I think God heard me and said “bet”