Another voice cut in. “What kind of suspension are you expecting here?”
The rhythm shifted. Subtle at first. Then sharper. I felt it in my chest before I understood it. The questions stopped waiting their turn. They started stacking.
“Does this impact line deployment moving forward?”
“Was this sanctioned internally?”
“We don’t comment on potential disciplinary outcomes before they are finalized,” I retorted, pivoting cleanly. “As for team decisions, those remain within coaching discretion?—”
It sounded right. It was measured, composed, and delivered with the kind of certainty that usually held in a room like this.
It was also very wrong.
I saw it happen.
They heard it, clocked it. And just as quickly, the room changed. The energy tightened, no longer observational, but engaged in a different way. Less patient. More thirsty for fresh meet—a kettle circling overhead ready to swoop in a pick my bones clean.
Beside me, Alois moved. The subtle shift of his weight, the slight turn of his body toward mine, the space between us closing by a fraction that should not have mattered but did. He did not interrupt me. He gave me the full length of the answer, the full opportunity to correct it myself. Instead, he gave me just enough rope to hang myself.
Finally, his voice entered the space. “What she means is—”It cut through the room with precision. I stilled beside him, every part of me aware of the shift without letting it show. “The league determines discipline independently,” he continued, his tone even, stripped of anything unnecessary. “Speculation doesn’t change that. We’ll respond when they do. Next question.”
The shift was immediate. Pens moved again. Shoulders adjusted. The brief moment of heightened attention smoothed back into something more controlled, though not as relaxed as before.
My pulse thundered against my temple, sharp and insistent, each beat a little harder than the last.
Another voice cut in before the space could settle, sharper than the ones before it. “Who exactly is Beatriz Ribeiro, why is she the one assigned you?”
I straightened slightly, anchoring myself in the posture I had built over years of proving I belonged in rooms that did not expect me to.
“I’m part of the Frosthawks’ communications team. I?—”
I did not get to finish.
“Bea was hired at my request.” Alois’s voice cut cleanly across mine, low and even, carrying through the room without effort. It was not loud, but it did not need to be. The effect was immediate.
Every head turned.
Every pen stopped.
I turned toward him without meaning to. He was already looking forward. Not at me. Not at the reporters. Through them.
“She’s not just PR,” he continued, his tone stripped of anything unnecessary. “She’s the one person in this room I actually listen to.”
A ripple moved through the crowd, subtle but undeniable,the kind of reaction that came from something unexpected but not yet understood.
My skin prickled.
Here we go.
And then—“I’m in love with Beatriz Ribeiro.” The words fell from his lips without hesitation.
The room did not react immediately. For half a second, it held, suspended in the space between what had been said and what it meant.
Then it broke. Voices rose all at once, overlapping, sharper now, louder, questions colliding into each other as the focus of the entire room snapped into something entirely different.
“Since when?—?”
“Does the team know about?—?”