Power Play

Chapter Eight: Film Session

The mandatory Sunday film session was, under ordinary circumstances, the most boring two hours of Beckett's week — Whitfield narrating tape of their own defensive breakdowns in a monotone that had, over four years, become almost soothing in its predictability. Today it felt like sitting in a room full of suspects, every teammate's face a potential answer to a question he badly needed solved.

He watched them without seeming to watch — a skill four years of captaincy had sharpened into something close to instinct. Bear, slouched in his usual seat, visibly uninterested in anything beyond the tape itself, exactly as innocent as Beckett had known he'd be. The sophomore defensemen, too new and too eager for something this calculated. The senior grinders in the back row, guys who'd never had a problem with Rae beyond the ordinary grumbling every hockey player did about lineup changes.

And then there was Tanner Reid.

Beckett hadn't thought about Tanner much before this — a fourth-line winger, solid but unspectacular, the kind of player who existed in the roster's margins without drawing much attention either way. But watching him now, slouched two rows back with his eyes flicking, more than once, toward the door like he was waiting for something, Beckett felt an old, unpleasant instinct sharpen into focus.

Tanner had been the one who'd lost his spot on the top line to Rae in October. Beckett remembered the conversation with Whitfield now with new clarity — a routine lineup shuffle, Rae's speed and hockey sense earning her the promotion over a player who'd held that slot for two full seasons. Tanner hadn't said much about it publicly. He'd taken the demotion the way most players took disappointment — quietly, professionally, no visible grudge.

Beckett had assumed, at the time, that the silence meant acceptance.

He was no longer sure that was true.

After film session ended, Beckett caught Bear in the hallway, pulling him aside with the specific low urgency that told his best friend, immediately, that something serious was happening.

"I need you to tell me something and I need you to be honest," Beckett said.

"Always am."

"Tanner Reid. What's his read on Rae?"

Bear's expression shifted, something wary crossing his face. "Why are you asking?"

"Someone sent Whitfield a photo yesterday. Of me and Rae. And then sent Rae a text threatening to send it to the board." He watched Bear's face carefully as he said it, and saw genuine shock register — confirming, at least, that his best friend had nothing to do with any of it. "I'm trying to figure out who had the access and the motive."

"Jesus." Bear ran a hand over his face. "You think it's Tanner?"

"I don't know. He lost his spot to her. He's been quiet about it, but quiet doesn't mean fine."

"Quiet also doesn't mean guilty." Bear's voice carried genuine caution, the specific fairness that had made him a good alternate captain. "You start accusing guys on this team without proof, you're going to blow this up worse than the photo already did."

"I know." Beckett's jaw tightened. "I just need to know I'm wrong before I let it go."

Bear studied him for a long moment, something shifting in his expression — surprise, maybe, at the intensity in his best friend's voice, or perhaps the first real confirmation of a suspicion he'd been quietly nursing since the housing announcement three weeks earlier. "You actually care about her," he said slowly. "This isn't just about protecting the team's optics anymore."

Beckett didn't answer right away, and the silence was answer enough.

"Okay," Bear said finally, something warm and slightly amused breaking through his concern despite the gravity of the conversation. "Okay. I'll keep an eye on Tanner. Quietly. But Beckett—" He paused, serious again. "If this is real — you and her — you need to think hard about what you're risking. Not just the clause. Your dad's going to lose his mind if this gets out before the draft."

"I know what I'm risking."

"Do you?" Bear searched his face. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you've already decided it's worth it."

Beckett thought about the warm weight of Rae's hand in his that morning, the specific honesty in her voice when she said she didn't regret it either, the particular fear of watching her walk around the apartment like a stranger for the rest of a season he could not, would not survive pretending none of this had happened.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I think I have."

That evening, back at the apartment, Rae found Beckett at the kitchen table with his laptop open, a spreadsheet of practice schedules and roster assignments pulled up alongside a notepad covered in his cramped, precise handwriting.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out who had access to the equipment closet corridor yesterday afternoon." He didn't look up, cross-referencing something against the practice schedule with the same focused intensity he brought to breaking down opposing power plays. "And who was near the apartment last night when the text came in."

"You're running an investigation."

"Someone's threatening both our careers. Yes, I'm running an investigation." He finally looked up, something grim and determined in his expression that made her chest tighten with an emotion she didn't fully have a name for yet — something between fear and a fierce, unfamiliar gratitude that he was taking this as seriously as she needed him to. "I have a theory. I don't have proof yet."

"Who?"

He hesitated, and in that hesitation, Rae understood he was weighing how much to tell her, and how much of it might frighten her more than help. "Tanner Reid," he said finally. "He lost his spot to you in October. Quiet about it publicly. Was in film session today looking like a guy waiting for something to happen."

Rae sat down across from him, the name landing with an unpleasant, cold weight. "You really think a teammate would do this? Threaten to end my career because he's mad about a lineup call?"

"I think people do worse things than that over less," Beckett said quietly. "I grew up around this sport, Rae. I've watched grown men torch relationships, careers, entire programs over pride. A guy who lost his spot to the only woman on the team, who's had to watch her succeed in the position he thinks should be his? That's a motive. Not proof. But a motive."

"So what do we do?"

"We watch. We're careful. And we don't give whoever it is anything else to photograph." His hand found hers across the table, steady despite everything, the same certainty from that morning grounding her against the fear that had been sitting in her chest since the text arrived. "I'm not letting this cost you your career, Rae. Whatever it costs me to make sure of that."

She looked at him — really looked, past the captain's composure, past the cold reputation that had defined him to her for four months before any of this began — and saw, for the first time with total clarity, a man who had decided, somewhere in the last twenty-four hours, that she mattered more to him than the careful control he'd built his entire life around.

It should have terrified her more than it did.

Instead, it felt, for the first time since the season began, like she finally had someone standing beside her instead of watching her fail.

Her phone buzzed on the table between them. Another text. Same unknown number.

Unknown: Tanner's not who you think he is. Ask him about the video from Saturday's game. Ask him what he was really filming.

Both of them stared at the screen, the ground shifting beneath a theory that had, apparently, just become far more complicated than either of them had prepared for.