AGAINST THE ICE

Chapter6

Max POV

Coach Baxter didn’t speak right away and that was somehow worse than if he had just started shouting the moment he saw us together because silence from a man like him was never just quiet it was judgment it was calculation it was a loaded gun waiting for someone to twitch and I could feel Rory stiffen beside me like she wanted to vanish through the floor or at least rewind time far enough to step back before our mouths collided and pulled us into something neither of us could keep pretending wasn’t real.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him with a softness that made my stomach drop because when a door closes like that it means something is coming and it’s coming slow and controlled.

“Interesting,” he said at last his voice dry as the air in winter and somehow more cutting than anger.

Rory stepped away from me fast but not fast enough to erase what he’d seen and I didn’t move because pretending hadn’t helped either of us so far and I was too tired to start now.

“So this is how we’re handling distractions,”

He said not asking a question because he already had the answer and his eyes were locked on mine now not in fury but disappointment which was worse somehow because I could take being hated but being doubted by a man whose respect I hadn’t even earned yet? That cut deeper.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Rory started but he held up a hand and she stopped mid-sentence. “It never is,”

he replied then to both of us, “You do realize how bad this could get, right?”

I nodded once because anything more would have felt dishonest. “It’s not ongoing,” Rory said quickly as the words rushed like she wanted to shove them between her and the consequences.

“It was a mistake.”

That hurt more than I thought it would. Coach’s mouth twitched like he almost believed her but not quite.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, turning toward the bench and placing both hands on the back of it like he needed to lean on something before leveling us both with a look that belonged on a battlefield.

“The optics alone are poison and if you two think the media or the board or your father won’t use this to take you down, then you’re more naive than I thought.”

I wanted to defend her, I wanted to say something to take the hit off her shoulders but she stepped forward before I could and said, “We’ll handle it, we already spoke with HR, we told them the truth.”

“Did it end?”

“That it never began officially, not during his contract,” she corrected quickly.

The coach exhaled slowly, the sound more like a warning than a breath.

“Then I suggest you keep it that way because if I get even one call from upstairs about another anonymous report or photo or whisper campaign you’re both benched,” and the way he said it made it clear it wasn’t a threat it was a promise forged from years of handling egos and scandals and the kind of locker room chaos that could take down empires.

Then without another word he turned and left the room leaving the door open this time which somehow felt like the final blow like even privacy had been revoked and Rory didn’t move not right away and neither did I because what could we say that wouldn’t make things worse? Eventually I broke the silence.

“That was better than I expected,” I said, trying for a smile that didn’t come.

She turned toward me slowly and for the first time her eyes looked tired not just emotionally but bone-deep like all the weight she’d been carrying had finally begun to buckle her spine. “He’s right,” she whispered. “About what?” “All of it.”

I didn’t want to admit that the coach’s words echoed every fear I hadn’t spoken out loud, not to Max nor to myself because fear like that grows when it’s given oxygen and I’d spent weeks trying to smother it under logic and ambition and denial but it never really died, it just waited.

Max was quiet beside me and I hated that I had nothing comforting to say because he deserved more than a guilt-wrapped apology and I didn’t know how to give him anything else right now.

I sat on the bench and pressed my palms against my knees breathing slowly trying to keep myself from unraveling in a place where the walls had ears and judgment came faster than facts.

“You think he’ll report it to the board?” Max asked eventually and I shook my head not because I was sure but because I needed to believe we still had room to maneuver.

“He’ll wait, he's watching now,” I said “and if we mess up once he’ll use that as proof we can’t control ourselves.”

Max sat next to me, elbows on his thighs, head down like a man bracing for impact. “So what now?” he asked.

“Now we survive,” I said the words flat and mechanical because that’s what surviving sounded like when it wasn’t brave or noble, just necessary.

We left the locker room separately. I walked out first, didn't look back, didn't wait and he didn’t follow not because he didn’t want to but because he understood what it meant that Coach Baxter had seen us like that so that it couldn’t happen again not there not now, maybe not ever.

The next few days were a blur of tightly choreographed professionalism.

I arrived early, stayed late, took meetings with a posture so straight it hurt and when I passed Max in the hallways or saw him on the ice during practices I didn’t flinch, didn't look, didn't breathe more than I needed to.

He did the same. The rest of the team pretended not to notice which meant of course they all did because locker rooms talk more than tabloids and I was sure every closed-door conversation ended with my name and his.

Ola called one night but I didn’t answer and when she texted Are you okay I stared at it for five minutes before replying Yes even though I wasn’t.

I hadn’t been since that night in North Dakota. I hadn’t been since the kiss in the training room.

I hadn’t been since Coach Baxter’s voice nailed us both to the floor with one word: optics.

By the end of the week I was running on black coffee and public smiles but no matter how sharp I kept my heels or how quick I answered questions nothing felt stable until Friday afternoon when Marissa from legal showed up at my door again.

“The board’s requested a closed session,” she said and my stomach flipped. “About what?” I asked but I already knew and she didn’t answer because she didn’t have to.

I walked into that meeting like a soldier walks into a losing battle. My father was there. So was the rest of the board.

And when the door closed behind me I realized Max wasn’t. Just me. Alone.

“Rory,” my father said, his tone the kind he used when I was ten and asking for something unreasonable “we’re here to talk about perception.”

“Perception,” I echoed. “Of impropriety,” one of the board members clarified.

“You’re not being reprimanded,” another added quickly “but we are concerned.”

They danced around words like liability and image and questioned whether my involvement with personnel created complications for leadership.

“So what are you asking?” I said finally. My father’s face was unreadable.

“We’re asking that you take a leave of absence.

Just until this dies down.” The room spun but I didn’t let it show.

“And if I refuse?” “Then we escalate,” someone said, not my father but someone who clearly spoke for him.

I stood slowly, deliberately calm. “You’ll have my answer by Monday.” I walked out. Max was waiting by the elevators.

“You heard?” I asked. He nodded. “They want you gone?” I nodded. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I said.

“But whatever it is, I'm not doing it alone.” He reached for my hand. I let him.