Page 83 of Playing to Win

My cheeks burned.

“You and Mr. Mitchell are welcome to pursue a relationship, as long as you don’t break the fraternization rule. That means either he isn’t playing for our team, or you aren’t working for it.”

Kira’s eyes were wide and she looked at me in surprise.

Radner didn’t show any expression. “Any questions?”

I shook my head.

He rose to his feet. “Thank you for coming. Let me know how you decide to break things up. Just make sure he doesn’t need a reputation rehab after.”

* * *

Kiraand I were silent on the way down to her office.

She let me go in first, then shut the door before she moved behind her desk. “You okay?”

I nodded because I had to be. Radner had been very clear how I could keep my job. And what other options did I have? Newly retired women hockey players weren’t in great demand, and we didn’t make enough to have a retirement cushion to live on.

She leaned back in her chair. “I didn’t know you and Braydon had taken the fake out of fake dating.”

I shrugged. “It’s new. And I didn’t think making it real would be a problem. It would just be easier to sell it.”

Kira sighed. “Sorry, Jayna. But you said it’s new, so maybe it’s not as difficult to end it.”

Itwasnew, but I’d shared things with Braydon. He’d been the one who helped me when I found out I was losing hockey. Why couldn’t we just keep dating a little longer?

But that look on Radner’s face? He wasn’t budging. Did he think I’d decided to latch on to Braydon when I lost my own career? That I was a jersey chaser who wanted a hockey player to support me? Probably.

I’d never change his mind. There were too many people out there, starting with my parents, who saw an NHL player as a bank account. A trophy to brag about.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked, “How are we going to spin this?” Because it was going to be a spin. Something that wouldn’t expose how the dating had started.

Kira tapped a pen on the desk. “The goal is for Mitchell to look good, right?”

I flinched. It didn’t matter if I looked bad.

Kira was staring over my head while she thought, so she missed my reaction. “We’ll publicly say you mutually agreed to part ways, but we need a narrative behind that, something we can hint at, because that answer is never enough.”

People wanted to know, and felt entitled to that personal information if you were in the public eye. We’d never discussed the details of how the fake dating would end, because it hadn’t had a timeline. And by next season, if we weren’t together when training camps opened, it wouldn’t get as much attention as it would now.

“Do you think they”—I jerked my head upward—“are ending this because I retired, or because they found out it wasn’t fake anymore?”

Kira blinked her attention back to me. “Does it matter?”

If it was my retirement, then I couldn’t have changed anything. If it was the other, then being discreet might have prevented this.

“That’s a good point though. We have to make sure no one thinks you and Mitchell split because you aren’t able to play anymore.”

Another flinch.

“Sorry, Jayna. That must still be difficult for you.”

Kira worked for a hockey team, but she’d never played. She had no idea of how difficult it was. “I’m dealing with it.”

She tapped the pen again. “Neither of you are relocating, so we can’t use that.”

“What about the truth? That I can’t date a player, since I’m not one.”

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