NAOMI’S POV
They pulled him out of practice on a Wednesday.
I was in the fourth row. Same spot. Laptop open, coffee going cold, eyes on number seventeen the way they always were – tracking him across the ice like a compass needle that only knew one direction. He was skating well. Controlled. The three days on the hallway floor had done something to him – softened the edges, quieted the noise. He was passing again. Communicating. Cole had clapped him on the shoulder during warmups and the tension in my chest had loosened for the first time in a week.
Then the doors opened.
Two men in athletic department polos walked onto the ice surface. Not coaches. Administrative. Clipboards. Lanyards. The specific, officious energy of people who were about to ruin someone's afternoon and had already
