Page 78 of The Secret Play

I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly. “I’m glad it’s coming out. Maybe once people know the truth, this whole thing will die down. No one pays attention to old news, and after the playoff game, hopefully no one will care anymore.”

“Maybe,” she said, but something in her voice—an edge of uncertainty, maybe fear—made my chest tighten.

“Matthew’s going to read it,” I said, saying my fear out loud. I had hoped voicing it might take away its power, but I was wrong. My stomach knotted down. My boss wasn’t the kind of man to take things at face value. “I just hope he reads the whole thing before making any decisions.”

“You think he’ll fire you?” she asked, her worry palpable through the phone.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair. “I broke the rules, Gemma. I didn’t know the other stuff, but I knew you were Nico’s sister when you returned, and I pursued you anyway. That’s on me. But maybe he’ll make an exception under these circumstances. There’s a child in the picture now. That changes things, doesn’t it?”

Her hesitation on the other end told me she didn’t have an answer, either. “I don’t know. I don’t know him or how he thinks about these things,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

I wanted to reassure her, to tell her it would all work out. But the truth was, I didn’t know that it would.

I ended the call and tried to focus on my pregame ritual. Everyone had their sports superstitions for their own reasons. Mine was something I’d done for years, a routine designed to clear my mind and get me in the right headspace to lead the team.

The ritual was simple. Meaningless to anyone else but me. I switched my socks from one foot to the other, thanks to an old girlfriend. She was Irish and said doing that brought good luck. I’d started doing it ever since, but when I looked it up, I couldn’t find any lore on the practice, so I was pretty sure she was bullshitting me, trying to sound mysterious. Or maybe it was to get me to look like a gullible idiot. But the team had better luck when I did it, so I continued the practice.

After the socks came touching everything navy or gold in my line of sight. The team’s colors reminded me of everything we’d worked for, and touching them grounded me.

The last part of the ritual was balancing a puck on my head and walking south to north until I no longer could. In my small office, the trip was a few steps. It was something my uncle had told me the great Toe Blake had done before games. I couldn’t find anything to back up his claim, but like the sock thing, we had better luck when I did it, so I kept it up.

But today, it wasn’t working. None of it.

My socks felt like they were on the wrong feet, even though they were the same sock, just on a different foot. I got a static electricity shock when I touched the gold corner on my bookshelf. And the puck kept falling off my head, no matter how straight I stood as I walked.

I flopped onto my desk chair, staring at the open playbook on my desk. It didn’t take long before the words and diagrams blurred together, my thoughts too loud to let anything else in.

Matthew’s reaction loomed large in my mind. He wasn’t forgiving, and he valued the rules above all else. My relationship with Gemma had been a gamble from the start, and now, with everything out in the open, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d have this job.

And then there was Gemma.

I couldn’t stop picturing her sitting at her laptop, pouring her heart into that article. I hadn’t asked to read the article ahead of time. I thought she’d be too self-conscious or uncomfortable if I read through it before publishing. Whatever she wrote, she did it all to set the record straight on my behalf.

Guilt ground down my spine. What would she say to salvage my reputation? Was she ready for the backlash? For the judgment? I doubted it, and the thought of her facing it alone made my stomach twist.

A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked up to see Whitney stepping in.

“You decent?” she asked, holding up her tablet.

“That’s a matter of opinion.” I tried for levity, straightening in my chair. When she didn’t budge, I asked, “What’s up?”

“Gemma sent me a copy of her story to approve before it goes live,” she said, scrolling through the screen. “Wanted to make sure it’s fair to the team.”

I swallowed hard. Gemma was nothing if not thorough, but knowing she’d looped Whitney in made me worry. “And?”

“It’s good, Casey. Really good. For you, for the team. But you’re not going to like it.”

“Why?”

She hesitated, then sighed. “Because you come out of it looking like a good man done wrong by a bad woman.”

The bottom dropped out from inside of me. “What?”

“That woman clearly loves you. She puts everything on herself. She takes full responsibility for not telling you about Winnie, for keeping you in the dark, for all of it. She makes herself the villain so you can come out clean.”

I stared at her, my mind reeling. Gemma was throwing herself under the bus—for me.

“I can’t let her do that,” I said, standing abruptly.

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