Chapter 13 Rory's Pov
1424 Words
Jaxon dragged a hand over his face, and for the first time since I had known him, he looked older than thirty-one. Not powerful. Not untouchable. Just tired in a way that had nothing to do with hockey.
“I didn’t collect it.”
“That is supposed to comfort me?”
“No. It is supposed to be the truth.”
I stepped closer. “The truth? You want to talk about truth?”
His jaw clenched.
I moved before I could stop myself, pushing the door wider and walking back inside.
If we were going to do this, I thought, we were not going to whisper in the hallway like criminals afraid of being overheard. Let the apartment witness it. It had witnessed everything else.
Jaxon followed me in slowly. Too slowly. As if he knew one wrong movement might make me bolt.
That almost made me angrier.
He had no right to be careful now.
I crossed to the coffee table and snatched up the envelope before he could look too closely at it.
His eyes followed the movement.
“Where did that come from?”
“Not your concern.”
“If someone from management contacted you—”
I turned on him. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend your first instinct is to protect me.”
His face hardened. “It is.”
“No, Jaxon. Your first instinct was to break me.”
The words landed just right and he did not deny them. He could not deny them and somehow, that was the worst part.
If he had argued immediately, maybe I could have kept my anger clean. If he had told me I was wrong, if he had lied badly, if he had given me something simple to hate, I could have survived it better.
But he stood there and took the hit.
Like he knew he deserved it.
My throat tightened. I hated him for that too.
I threw the envelope back onto the table. “Five-million-dollar bonus upon resolution of the female player situation. Voluntary resignation. Trade acceptance. Contract termination. Your cooperation appreciated.” I looked at him. “Did I miss anything?”
His eyes closed briefly. “Rory.”
I shook my head this time. “No. Do not say my name like you are sorry. I am not giving you a softer room to confess in.”
He opened his eyes and the blue in them looked almost ruined.
“In the beginning,” he said quietly, “yes.”
Something inside me went very still.
I had known.
Of course I had known.
The file had told me. The email had told me. Every humiliating correction, every brutal drill, every cold glare had rearranged itself into evidence.
But hearing him admit it was different.
Words had weight when they came from the mouth that once kissed you like a promise.
“In the beginning, yes what?” I asked steadily despite how my insides were crumbling inside.
His hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Yes, I knew about the clause. Yes, Victor offered the bonus. Yes, I agreed to cooperate.”
The room disappeared for a second. Not literally though.
I still saw him. The couch. The rug. The city outside the window.
But everything seemed distant, as if I had been pulled underwater and sound had become distorted and cruel.
“You agreed,” I repeated.
He looked sick. “Yes.”
My laugh broke out before I could stop it. It was small, awful and almost amazed.
“You agreed.”
“I did.”
“Say the rest.”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“Say what I was.”
His throat moved as he understood what I was talking about. “Rory—”
“No. Say it.” My voice rose before I could control it. “Say I was a situation. Say I was a problem to resolve. Say I was a bonus with legs. Say I was the woman you could shove into boards, humiliate in drills, isolate in a locker room and still go home feeling like a captain because the contract said it was strategy.”
His face tightened with every word. Good. Let him feel all of them.
“Say it,” I whispered.
He stared at me for a long moment. Then his voice broke low.
“You were never that to me.”
I recoiled like he had touched me.
“Do not insult me.”
“I am not.”
“You just admitted you agreed.”
“I agreed before I knew you.”
“You knew me for two years.”
“No.” His voice sharpened. “I played beside you for two years. I competed against you for two years. I resented you for two years because every time you stepped on the ice, you made me see how rotten the room was, and I hated you because it was easier than hating myself.”
I froze as I listened even as his chest rose and fell heavily. The words seemed to have torn something open in him.
“The day Victor brought me into his office, he did not say, ‘Help us destroy Rory Callahan.’ He said the team was unstable. He said sponsors were nervous. He said you were a legal and financial risk. He said if you left on your own terms, everyone would be protected. You. The franchise. The locker room. The season.” His mouth twisted. “He made it sound clean.”
I shook my head slowly. “No.”
“I am not excusing it.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“I am telling you how I was stupid enough to listen.”
“You were not stupid, Jaxon. You were cruel.”
He took that too even as his eyes did not leave mine. “Yes,” he said.
The word was so quiet I almost missed it. But I heard it.
Yes.
No argument. No defense. No anger.
Just the truth, ugly and bare between us.
Something in my chest cracked and I hated that it was not satisfaction. It was grief.
“You made me think I was losing my mind,” I said.
His face changed. “Rory—”
“No, you need to hear this.” I pressed a hand to my chest because suddenly breathing felt like work. “Every time you corrected me in front of them, I told myself not to be sensitive because maybe you were right. Every time you hit me too hard, I told myself this was the league, this was the price, this was what I had to survive. Every time you looked at me like I did not belong, I went home and watched footage until my eyes burned because some part of me thought if I became perfect enough, you would stop.”
His jaw flexed, but he said nothing.
“You made my own ambition feel like evidence against me.”
Pain moved across his face then. Real pain. I looked away first because I did not want to see it. Because if I saw too much of it, I might remember that I care for him. And my feelings, right now, was the most useless thing in the room.
“You should have told me,” he said.
My head snapped back toward him.
“I should have told you?”
“No.” He shook his head immediately. “That is not what I meant.”
“It sounded exactly like what you meant.”
“I mean you should have confronted me before running.”
I stared at him in shock. The audacity coming from him was so large it almost deserved applause.
“Before running?” I repeated incredulously.
His face tightened as he realized his mistake. “Rory—”
“No. Let’s talk about running. You left the apartment the night I almost asked you what was happening between us. You said nothing could happen. Then I found out why. You ran first, Jaxon. You just had a contract to make it look professional.”
His mouth shut just then.
Good, I thought in anger.
I turned away from him because the room was starting to blur again and I had promised myself I would not cry in front of him. Not over this. Not over him. I just wouldn't cry.
- Writer
