Page 85 of Off-Limits as Puck

...breach of confidentiality agreements...

...any further communication with media outlets, social media platforms, or Mr. Reed Hendrix will result in immediate legalaction...

They’re not just firing me. They’re erasing me. Making sure I disappear so completely that it’s like I never existed in their world at all. The NDA I haven’t signed yet has apparently been upgraded to a legal muzzle.

My phone buzzes. Another unknown number, probably another reporter fishing for quotes I’m now legally forbidden to give. I let it go to voicemail, add it to the growing list of calls I can’t return.

The apartment feels smaller with each passing hour. Like the walls are closing in, cutting off my air supply. I need to get out, need to move, need to do something other than sit here drowning in paperwork and self-pity.

Which is how I find myself at the United Center at eleven PM, using my security badge that hasn’t been deactivated yet to access the building one last time.

The facility at night is a different creature entirely. Empty hallways echo with the ghosts of better days. Emergency lighting casts everything in sickly yellow, making shadows dance like accusations. My footsteps sound too loud, too final.

My office is exactly as I left it—boxes packed, diplomas wrapped, the debris of a career that lasted less than six months. I should grab my things and go. Should disappear like the lawyers want, fade into whatever comes after professional suicide.

But first, I need to see it empty. Need to stand in the space where I thought I was building something meaningful and admit it was all an illusion.

The boxes are heavier than expected. Eighteen months of my life reduced to cardboard containers that fit in my trunk. As I load the last one, sound drifts from deeper in the building—the unmistakable scrape of skates on ice.

Someone’s using the practice rink. At eleven-thirty on aThursday night.

I know who it is before I see him. Know it in my bones, the way you recognize the sound of your own heartbeat. But I follow the sound anyway, drawn like a moth to the flame that’s already burned me beyond recognition.

The rink is mostly dark, lit only by emergency floods that turn the ice into a silver mirror. Reed moves across it like he owns it, alone with his thoughts and the rhythm of blade against ice. No gear, just jeans and a practice jersey, working through whatever demons drove him here in the middle of the night.

He sees me before I can retreat. Skates to a stop at center ice, chest heaving from exertion or emotion or both.

“Building’s closed,” he calls, voice echoing in the empty space.

“So I heard.” I don’t move from the tunnel entrance. “Didn’t stop you.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

The honesty in that admission cracks something in my chest. We stare at each other across the expanse of ice—him in the middle, me at the edge, the distance between us feeling infinite and nonexistent simultaneously.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say finally.

“Neither should you.”

“I was getting my things. Cleaning out. Making it like I never existed.”

He skates closer, stopping just short of the boards that separate us. Up close, I can see the damage—split lip, bruised knuckles, the hollow look of someone who’s been fighting losing battles.

“Saw the video,” I admit. “You beating up that guy in the bar.”

“He deserved it.”

“Did he? Or was he just another punching bag?”

“He called you a puck bunny with daddy issues.”

“And you thought hitting him would help?”

“I thought he should keep your name out of his fucking mouth.” Reed’s hands grip his stick harder. “Same way I think everyone should.”

“Noble. Stupid, but noble.”

“Yeah, well. Stupid’s kind of my specialty.”

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