Page 62 of Game Misconduct
That part of me has been buried, dust on dust.
“Not sure I’m much of a hero,” I mutter, but the words snag on my tongue when his grin grows wider.
“Yeah, you are. You just saved the city.” He points at the goalie sketched into his page—a hulking figure in pads, stick like a weapon, net glowing behind him.
My throat tightens.
I reach for the pencil he’s holding, careful not to crowd him. “Mind if I add something?”
He nods fast, shoving the notebook closer. My fingers feel too big, clumsy, but I draw anyway. A comic bubble over the goalie’s head:Not today.
Connor bursts out laughing, and I can’t help it—I laugh too. It rips out of me raw and unexpected.
For a second, it feels like I’m not sitting in a hospital ward, cameras watching, and handlers waiting.
For a second, I’m just a man sharing comics with a kid who believes I’m something more than I am.
And then I feelher.
Sloane’s eyes on me, heavier than the press lights, hotter than the cameras.
I don’t have to look to know she’s watching. It coils in my gut, warning me of danger.
The board will call this “optics.” She’ll probably spin it that way too.
But the way her gaze crawls over me, the way my body tightens under it—it’s not professional. Not PR.
It’s something else.
I turn another page in the sketchbook, steadying my voice. “You’re good, kid. Better than I was at your age.”
He beams, pencil scratching as he adds another cape. And Idon’t dare look up at her, because if I do, I’ll forget the cameras and the crowd and the fact that she’s my boss.
And I’ll give away too much.
I double down my focus on Connor, as he works on the stick-figure goalie we’ve made up together. He laughs when I give the hero a scar. “So he looks tough, like you.”
His words sink deeper than I want to admit.
Then I hear it—soft laughter from across the room.
I glance over before I can stop myself.
Sloane crouches beside a little girl, same pale skin, same sharp cheekbones as the boy beside me. Twins, no doubt.
The girl has a ballet book clutched in her lap, edges frayed, corners bent from love. The cover’s worn thin like she’s read it a hundred times.
Sloane leans in, dark blonde hair sliding forward, eyes warm in a way I’ve never seen in a boardroom. “You want to skate?” she asks, voice gentler than I thought she could be.
The girl nods, shy smile flickering. “Like the girls in the Olympics.”
Sloane’s smile curves slow and soft, and it sucker punches me. “Then you can. Next time I’ll bring my skates. You’ll try it with me.”
The girl’s eyes go wide, the kind of wide that swallows light. She believes her.
Just like that.
My chest pulls tight, a deep ache I can’t shift.
