“You’re still here. Good.”
That’s it.
He skates away before I can decide whether that was comfort, approval, or Liam Steele’s version of telling me not to screw this up. It does something to me anyway. Liam Steele does not say things like that to anyone.
I write it down with slightly unsteady hands and keep moving, because that’s what you do when you are trying not to come apart in a room full of people who would absolutely notice.
I am very good at movement.
It has saved me before.
Water break.
He skates to the boards and stops in front of me. I have my recorder in my hand. My posture where it belongs. Every visible part of me arranged into something usable. He looks at me for a moment. Different from the way he reads a shooter.
Different from the practiced flatness he gives the rest of the world. Something quieter than that. More direct. It stays long enough to be felt. My hand tightens on the recorder.
I look back.
Neither of us says anything about Pittsburgh—the hallway, or the piece currently making laps around my nervous system.
“You came back,” he says.
Not accusing. Not surprised. Just there. Like he needed to hear himself say it.
“You noticed,” I say before I can stop myself.
He nods once.
Like that was the answer he wanted.
Then he pushes off and skates away.
I stay where I am for a second longer than necessary, staring at the ice like it might offer commentary.
My stomach does something I don’t have a clean word for.
Not panic.
Not relief.
Something warmer, which is probably the problem. I get through the next ten minutes on muscle memory and spite.
Then the text from Riley comes after practice.
My office. Both of you. Tomorrow morning. Don’t talk to anyone first.
Both of you.
The phrase settles wrong. Like my boss has spent more time thinking about me and Jax Mercer than I’ve allowed myself to.
There’s a hallway and a hand on my arm and four impossible seconds and a man who saidyou came backlike it answered a question I didn’t know he was asking.
That’s not a thing.
I text back:
Confirmed.