Max pulled out his phone, fingers moving quickly across the screen while I tried very hard to pretend I wasn't watching Cinder's silhouette through the frosted glass as he made his way back to his friends.
He turned his phone toward me, expression shifting from confused to comprehending to almost mad at himself. "I forget you still think your phone is just for calling people."
"Know what?" I repeated, not taking the phone.
"About him. About what happened." Max's voice had gone careful, the way it did when he was navigating something delicate. "Taz, he's not turning you down because he's not gay or isn't into you. Well," he added, "you're not bad to look at."
My chest tightened. "Then why?"
Max hesitated, then pulled up an article dated five months ago. The headline made my stomach drop.
Hospital's Fatal Mistake: Inside the Tragedy That Shocked Denver Emergency Medicine.
I skimmed it, each paragraph worse than the last. A child. A hesitant resident. A nurse who'd documented everything, done everything right, and still watched a little girl die. And then—
"His boyfriend wrote it," Max said quietly. "Used everything Cinder told him in confidence. Named him specifically. Made it sound like Cinder was giving him an exclusive, and Cinder got fired immediately for breaching confidentiality."
My hands tightened around the phone. "That's—"
"Yeah." Max took it back, pocketing it. "I’ll bet the hospital needed a scapegoat to avoid a lawsuit. His boyfriend got a promotion out of the story. And Cinder lost everything. He knew Nancy, and she recommended him for the team medic job."
I looked back toward where Cinder sat with his friends, saw the careful way he held himself, the brittle edges of his smile. Saw someone who'd been betrayed by the person who was supposed to protect him.
No wonder he'd said he couldn't get involved. It wasn't about interest. It was about survival.
"Fuck," I breathed.
"Yeah," Max agreed. "So maybe don't take it personally?"
I didn't. Not anymore. Now I just felt something else entirely—something protective and fierce that shouldn't be a thing after one conversation and a medical examination.
But it existed anyway, coiling tight in my chest alongside the dragon that hadn’t stirred for anyone in years.
I watched him through the glass, this man who'd been gentle with me when I was vulnerable, who'd documented everything to protect himself because he'd learned the hard way what happened when you didn't.
And I made a decision that was probably stupid, definitely reckless, but felt more right than anything had in a long time.
I wasn't giving up.
Not yet, anyway.
Chapter four
Offside - Entering the offensive zone before the puck crosses the blue line.
Cinder
I’d assumed “traveling with the team” meant the players, a couple of coaches, and maybe medical.
I was wrong.
I stood just inside the hangar doors, my duffel slung over my shoulder, and stared as bodies kept appearing from everywhere—rolling garment bags, equipment trunks, laptops tucked under arms, coffee cups balanced precariously on clipboards. It felt less like a hockey team and more like a small, well-organized migration.
They just… kept coming.
Players first, loud and loose, already half in game mode. Coaches clustered together, heads bent, talking systems and matchups like they couldn’t help themselves. Then the rest of them—the people you never saw on TV but without whom none of it worked.
Video staff. PR. Operations. Equipment.