Chapter 11 #2
“It did,” I admitted. “It worked out rather beautifully, actually. And tomorrow night, we’re going to completely wow those donors. Kardok is going to be incredible, and we’re going to make the team—you—Fairbanks Enterprises—my father look so good.”
To my surprise, Maddie made a dismissive sound as she flicked her fingers. “Your father isn’t quite as worried about what other people think as you suspect, Lila.”
My brows rose. “I beg your—what?”
“I’m just saying…” She shrugged. “You don’t need to worry about making him look good, because he’s perfectly capable of handling himself.”
Smelling gossip, and a chance to tease She-Who-Always-Teases-Me, I stacked my hands on my desk and leaned forward. “Madison Moskowitz, how do you know this?”
“Your father and I have coffee sometimes.” A faint pink appeared at the top of her cheekbones, which was the most flustered I had ever seen Maddie look in four years of working together. “He likes to stay informed.”
I set my tea down very carefully. “Maddie.”
“Don’t,” she warned.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re looking at me.”
“I’m always looking at people. It’s how eyes work.
” My lips twitched. “I’m simply noting that my father—who is very handsome for his age, very distinguished, very much in need of someone who can keep up with him—apparently has regular coffee meetings with an eligible woman who doesn’t work for him or a competing company, and thus isn’t an HR nightmare, but could be a PR boon. ”
Maddie scowled at me over her coffee cup. “This conversation is over.”
Blinking innocently, I pressed my palm to my chest. “I haven’t said anything.”
“You’ve said everything.” She stood and smoothed her hippie pants with tremendous dignity. “The gala starts at seven tomorrow. I’ll send you the final events orders.” She was already at the door. “And Lila?”
I was already reaching for the pile of mail to hide my smile. “Hmm?”
“Your father loves you.” She said it simply, without the teasing. “He’s not just proud of what you do for the company. He loves you. You don’t need to worry about him quite so much.”
She left before I could answer.
Which was good, because I wasn’t sure how to answer, and just stared out my open door with my lips parted slightly.
Huh.
Maddie thought…what? That my father wasn’t interested in looking good? Of course I worried about my father, and what he thought. That was my job, wasn’t it?
It was easier to focus on what Maddie’s words revealed—that she’d been having some personal conversations with Daddy—rather than what she’d actually said.
Shaking my head, I reached for the pile of mail and scooped it in front of me. It was the usual batch of corporate catch-all, correspondence that didn’t quite have an obvious owner, and I was glad for the distraction.
The Fairbanks Foundation quarterly report, addressed here rather than the main office, was for me.
An invoice from the catering company—also me.
A letter from the youth league board, which I slid aside to pass on to Joshua. A note from the rink manager about the Zamboni service schedule—that should have gone to maintenance, I think.
And at the bottom, a heavier envelope. Cream stock, official looking. Addressed, not to Rex Fairbanks or to the Foundation, but simply to:
The Ownership and Management of Bramblebluff Ice Complex.
No sender’s name on the front. Just the OHL crest embossed in the upper left corner.
I frowned at it.
I shifted everything off to the side and picked up my letter opener.
My heart was already thumping against my ribs, in that dull sense of dread you get when you just know this was going to be bad news. Why would the Orc Hockey League write to the ownership and management of the complex, rather than Fairbanks Enterprises or the team itself?
The answer was in the memo field across the top:
Re: Franchise Compliance Review: Teal Terrors
Compliance review? The Terrors were out of compliance? Then why write to us?
Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I began to read.
“What in the world?” My voice cracked as my eyes scanned the words with growing horror.
It has come to the attention of the OHL Franchise Compliance Division that a personal relationship may exist between a member of the ownership-adjacent party of this facility and a current member of the Teal Terrors roster.
I frowned at the letter.
Ownership-adjacent. They meant…my father? Someone associated with my father— I gasped as I understood what they meant.
Me.
Kardok and me, our personal relationship. What did they care?
My fingers crinkled the paper as I read on.
As you are no doubt aware, Section 7.4 of the OHL Franchise Agreement requires that all facility arrangements involving OHL franchises be conducted on a demonstrably arm’s-length basis, free from personal or familial relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the commercial terms of said arrangement.
Me and Kardok. Reduced to a compliance issue?
Influence the commercial terms? They meant…
I realized I was hyperventilating. They meant that the team couldn’t have any personal connection to the ownership of the practice facility, because of preferential treatment?
But that was stupid; there were plenty of teams—older, established teams—who actually owned their facilities, or where the facilities were owned by one famous player or the coach.
So our case only mattered because the ice complex was separate from the team?
We wish to assure you that this communication is not punitive in nature, and that the league holds the Bramblebluff Ice Complex and the Fairbanks organization, in the highest regard.
However, in the interest of competitive integrity and the league’s obligations to all franchise holders, we are obligated to initiate a formal review of the Terrors’ franchise standing pending satisfactory resolution of the above.
A formal review. Of the Terrors’ franchise standing. Because of me.
Oh God.
Oh God.
My hands were shaking, and I realized the words had gone blurry in front of my eyes, so I lowered the paper and turned to stare unseeingly out the window at the complex below: the parking lot, the entrance where I’d watched Kardok arrive a dozen times now.
The building my father had bought because I’d loved to skate, and he hadn’t known what else to do with that.
This was my fault.
My life, burbling over the line of what was allowable, what was proper. Daddy had only bought this complex for me to practice, and it had been such a boon for the community even before the Teal Terrors had been granted their official standing in the OHL.
And now, because I couldn’t keep my hands—or my mouth, or my body—to myself, we were being penalized.
With tears in my eyes and a dry mouth, I tried to read the next paragraph.
Should the personal relationship in question be concluded prior to the commencement of the regular season, or should the facility arrangement be restructured to the satisfaction of the Compliance Division, the review will be closed without further action.
We anticipate this matter can be resolved expediently and without disruption to the upcoming season.
I couldn’t breathe.
Concluded.
They wanted me and Kardok to break up, or they were going to pull the franchise rights for the Terrors. The team that meant so much to this community—to the players, to the complex, to us—was at risk of losing their standing in the OHL, before the season officially started.
Put like that, there was no question of what needed to happen, right?
I stood on shaking legs and managed to stumble to the door, closing it tightly, my knuckles white on the knob.
Don’t let anyone see you like this.
Right.
Don’t let anyone see you as less than perfect.
Except…Kardok had, and he’d stuck around. He’d seen me.
I took a shuddering breath and pressed my forehead to the wooden paneling of the door.
I was in love with him, and I was going to have to break up with him.
Two tears ran down my cheeks as my eyes squeezed shut.
Oh God, I was in love with him, and now I would lose him.
Of course I would lose him; the Terrors’ franchise rights were more important than this—this—this between us. The sex was great, yes, and he made me happy, and I liked to think I made him happy, but we couldn’t weigh that against the team’s future!
Because the thing was—and this was the part that made my chest ache as a sob worked its way up my throat—the letter wasn’t wrong, exactly.
Not about the facts of it. I was ownership-adjacent.
Kardok was a Terrors player. There was a relationship between us that hadn’t existed when the lease was signed.
And that made it somehow even worse, that I couldn’t even be angry at the unfairness, because it was fair.
The letter didn’t know anything about my world or his world or the way he’d shown up to the ballet in an uncomfortable tie and held my hand in the dark. The letter was about Section 7.4 and competitive integrity and arm’s-length arrangements.
But I’d known, hadn’t I?
Somewhere underneath all the happiness of the last few weeks, I’d known this was too perfect to last.
He was the most extraordinary person I’d ever met, in ways I suspected even he didn’t fully understand. But he didn’t—couldn’t belong to me. Our worlds couldn’t mesh, not the way the exhibition claimed, or the way Joshua’s choreography wanted to show.
Or the way I desperately wished.
His world and my world—the ice rink we both loved, the facility that was essentially the only home I’d ever felt completely myself in—couldn’t contain both of us at the same time.
I’d been pretending, for weeks, that it could.
“Oh God,” I whispered, the word wrenched out of me in a hopeless sob, as I turned against the door, my shoulders digging into the wood. I slowly slid down until my butt hit the floor, and I wrapped my arms around my pencil skirt, burrowing my face in my knees.
“Oh God.” The tears came then, deep wracking sobs.
I loved him, and now I would lose him, because we didn’t belong together. Not as a hockey player and an ice dancer. Not as an orc and a real estate tycoon’s perfect daughter. Not even as Kardok the Wicked and Lila Fairbanks.
I loved him and knew we couldn’t have a future together.
So I sat there on my butt on my office floor, and I sobbed. For the team, for his hopes, and for the future we couldn’t have.