Page 36 of Game Misconduct
I drag my eyes away before anyone catches me staring.
Cameras flash again, and the circus rolls on.
The stage lights hit like a cross-check. Too hot, too blinding. Rows of microphones lean forward like weapons, reporters stacked shoulder to shoulder, their pens and cameras twitching for blood.
I drop into the chair, suit jacket stiff across my shoulders. The name placard in front of me reads like a challenge:Maddox Lasker Goaltender.
The first question cracks out.
“Thirty-nine. That’s ancient in this league. You think you got what it takes to last all season?”
My jaw tightens. “Ask me in April.”
Laughter ripples, sharp-edged. Another voice jumps in.
“Last season was your worst statistically since your rookie year. Why would Atlanta take a risk?”
The murmurs sharpen. More questions slam down—Boston, the suspension, the “incident” no one will drop.
My pulse spikes, heat climbing my throat. Every instinct screams to stand, to walk, to leave them with nothing but the scrape of my chair.
And then she’s there.
Sloane Carrington slides into the seat beside me like she owns the oxygen.
She’s calm, precise, and doesn’t flinch at the barrage of questions that are judging both my worth and her decisions.
“What Atlanta gains,” she says, voice cutting clean as a skate blade, “is one of the most experienced goaltenders in the league. A man who knows pressure, who’s stood in the crease when the odds were stacked, and who still came out swinging. This city doesn’t need safe. It needs strong.”
The room stills. Reporters pivot, pens flying to catch her words.
She redirects the next question before I can open my mouth, slices the angle on another, and reframes every strike until it sounds like strategy instead of damage control.
It should piss me off.
And it does.
Every muscle in me bristles at being handled, leashed. I don’t need her smoothing edges I sharpened on purpose. But watching her work—unflinching, unbreakable—forces something else out of me.
Respect.
The press pushes harder, trying to wedge daylight between us.
“Are you worried, Ms. Carrington, about managing a player with…temperament issues?”
Her smile is a blade. “The only folks who should be worried are the opponents underestimating him.”
Heat coils low in my chest.
Not pride. Not exactly.
Something sharper, messier.
Because the whole time she’s steadying this ship, her presence pins me harder than the questions ever could.
Control against control.
And under it,—sparks neither of us will name.
