Page 16 of What If I Hate You
I feel the heat rise, all the way from my chest to the tips of my ears. I can dismiss the lipstick comment. I get it all the time from the assholes in this room, but what I can’t get past is his judgmental narcissistic attitude about something I happen to care deeply about.
“Excuse me? You think I don’t give a shit about hockey?”
He snorts. “No, I think you don’t give a shit about anything but stirring the pot and playing media darling. You don’t ask real questions. You just lob bombs and then run away before you have to actually answer for it. But don’t worry. I get it. Gotta get your camera time while you still can, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
That’s rich.
A couple of the other reporters make little throat-clearing sounds, excited, nervous, maybe even embarrassed for me. But I hold Barrett’s gaze. It’s not the first time someone’s tried to knock me down in front of a crowd.
“Careful, Cunningham,” I say, voice as brittle as ice on the rink. “You sound a lot like every other guy in here who can’t stand being outplayed by a woman.”
He cracks a smile. It’s not nice. “Outplayed? Is that what you call it? I call it hiding behind your keyboard until you’re safe enough to take a shot.” He leans even closer, voice dropping to a murmur that’s still loud enough for the room. “You want to prove you belong here? Try saying something to my face that you’d actually say if you weren’t holding a microphone.”
He shoves off the desk, leaving a handprint on the faux wood. He towers over me, daring me to get up and escalate. All I can see is the taut line of his jaw, the pulse thrumming in his neck, and the ugly satisfaction in his eyes.
I feel every head in the room pivot and focus, like we’re in a schoolyard and a fight’s about to start. I want to believe if I just let it go, if I laugh it off and keep typing, the moment will pass and I’ll win by default. But I also know that’s not how it works. Not in here.
My words taste like pennies in my mouth. “You know what, Barrett? You can talk all you want about my job or my face or my ‘clickbait’, but at least I’ve never choked in the playoffs.”
It’s nuclear. The kind of thing you can’t take back and it hangs in the air like a slow-motion detonation. Silence follows, real and raw. Even Greg’s gaping. Everyone knows Barrett had a few bad performances at the end of last season that cost the team the Cup. I saw it happen and at the time, I felt for the guy. It could’ve happened to anyone. He took it personally and didn’t do interviews for a solid month after the season ended.I probably shouldn’t have taken such a cheap shot, but it’s out there now, lingering like glitter in an elementary classroom.
Barrett’s eyes go flat, all the color drained out. The line of his mouth tightens. For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to lay into me, maybe throw a punch, or at least threaten to. I’m braced for it, thrilled at the idea of being the one person in this building who can bring him to the brink.
But no. He just bares his teeth in a grimace.
And then he goes for the throat, and he doesn’t miss.
“Cute,” he says, voice all gravel and chill. “You want to talk about choking? I heard you flamed out of your own hockey career in college faster than anyone on record. Is that why you had to go all-in on the media gig? Because you couldn’t hack it on the ice?” The words are surgical, designed to draw blood. “Guess some people are just better at running their mouth than running a power play.”
The blow lands. It lands so perfectly that my own pulse stalls. I feel every neuron in my brain light up with equal parts rage and humiliation, and for a hot, pounding instant, I want to launch myself across the desk and claw at his throat. For a hot minute I want to scream at him for proving just how chauvinistic this career has been and continues to be for women like me. For being just like every other man in the corporate world lobbing insults at women in order to feel more powerful.
I’ve loved the game of hockey for my entire life and in one quick moment Barrett Cunningham just confirmed he’s no different than any of the assholes I stand next to on a daily basis. I thought maybe he was better than that.
But I was wrong.
Instead of whining about my place in this world, or lack thereof, I stand, slow and deliberate. All five foot five of me lining up with six foot five of him, the way I used to when charging into a corner for a puck against some overhypeddefenseman who thought she could crush me. Barrett’s expecting me to shrink. He’s betting on it.
But I can play for blood, too.
I look up at him, let his words hang, let the silence get thick enough that the whole room leans in like a hungry crowd at a fight. I let his words become my fuel and then I step into his space, so close I can see the gold flecks in his irises, so close it would be kissing distance if he didn’t look so much like he’d rather eat glass.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” I say, a whisper meant for him and the forty open ears behind us. “I didn’t flame out. I walked. You know why? Because after watching guys like you”—I tip my chin, daring him to flinch—“get handed the keys to the kingdom for being born with a Y chromosome, I realized I’d rather set the ice on fire than fade out quietly. So, if you want to come for me, Barrett, do it on the record, do it with your whole heart and your entire empty soul, and don’t you ever—ever—make the mistake of thinking I’m afraid of you.”
For a split second, something flashes in his eyes—surprise, maybe, then something darker—before the scowl locks back into place. He opens his mouth, maybe to volley another shot, but the air is so electrified that it short-circuits whatever script he brought with him. He closes his mouth and breathes out through his nose like he’s about to bellow. But instead, he just stands there, looking down at me, his gaze raw and unreadable, with a muscle jumping in his jaw. The tiniest crack in the concrete. I want to drink it in and never let him see me blink.
He nods, once, a sharp, bleak punctuation. "Good to know," he says, and his voice is lower, quiet enough that only I catch the hairline fracture in it. Then he turns and walks away, hands in his pockets, the back of his neck flushed to his ears.
Wait. What?
Where is he going?
The room deflates all at once, a collective exhale, and then the whispers start a cacophony of half-suppressed laughter, awe, and malevolent glee. Greg offers me a slow clap, like a dick. Troy mouths something that looks suspiciously like “damn, girl.”
I ignore them all as I kneel to gather my scattered stat sheets and then, when I’m out of their line of sight—under the edge of the table, knees pressed hard to the threadbare carpet—I let myself shake. Not because I lost, or even because I’m humiliated, but because he came so close to the thing I’ve fought like hell to keep out of this room: my vulnerability. He read it in glittering neon across my face, and if I’d had the luxury of privacy, I might have punched a chair or howled into my sleeve just to vent the adrenaline.
But I don’t. I don’t give them the show. I gather the papers, stack them neat, and stand slowly, aware of every chirp and snort behind me. I smile, tight, for the audience, and then go back to my notes. I think about texting Marlee but decide against it. No point in letting her see me ruffled. Instead, I finger-scroll my phone, looking up the last time a female hockey journalist made Sports Wrap for something other than an on-air wardrobe malfunction or a hot-mic disaster. I come up empty, because of course I do.
