Page 34 of Shattered Ice
The room is a cage of past victories and future expectations. Trophies gleam on the shelves, their polished surfaces reflecting a distorted, funhouse version of me. The air reeks of old varnish and stale authority. The door closes behind me with a soft, final click, sealing me in. The latch snaps shut like a cell door, iron and final. Addison doesn’t tell me to sit. My hands stay jammed in my pockets, a useless act of defiance that doesn’t hide my tight shoulders. He just stares at me from behind his massive oak desk.
“The Greystone game,” he starts, his voice dangerously quiet. “I spent my morning on the phone with the league commissioner, personally assuring him that my captain isn’t a loose cannon who settles scores in the locker room. Then I had to have a very pointed chat with a certain persistent reporter from theChronicleto convince her that a story about our star player brawling would be detrimental to university fundraising.”
He lets the words hang in the air. A flash of defiant pride courses through me—that bastard deserved it—but it’s immediately extinguished by the cold dread of consequence. My knuckles crack under the table, skin tight with restraint. Addison’s calm, clinical dissection of my failure is a thousand times more punishing than if he’d yelled.
“You got lucky, Adrian,” he continues, his voice low, but with a hard edge now. “That kind of recklessness costs careers. It costs franchises. Don’t make me do it again. Am I clear?”
“Clear,” I manage, my voice a rough rasp.
He leans forward, folding his hands on the desk. “Good. Now let’s talk about Ms. Harrington.”
My entire body tenses, a cold knot forming in my gut.
“I assigned her to your case to get your grades in order, not to become the center of a new storm,” he says, his eyes pinning me. “But I’m hearing things from the team. I saw the two of you in the hallway just now. And I had a visit this morning from her friends, Ms. Hayes and Ms. Laurent.”
The floor drops out from under me.Zoë and Genny went to him.The idea of them talking about me, aboutus, to him feels like a trespass. They went behind my back, over my head, straight to the one man who holds my future in his hands. But a second, more shocking thought follows: they didn’t do it to hurt me. They did it to protect her. From me. I see them in my mind’s eye—the chaotic one with the sharp tongue and the quiet, strategic one. A wolf pack of their own. I haven’t just picked a fight with a scholarship girl; I’ve antagonized a loyal, protective circle. The realization is a strange, grudging flicker of respect.
“They’re worried,” Addison says, his gaze unwavering. “They’re worried that their friend, a scholarship student already under immense pressure, is being dragged into the chaos that follows you like a shadow. Ms. Laurent was very clear. She said, ‘Clara is carrying enough weight without having to carryhis, too.’ They’re worried about the effect you’re having on her.” He leans back, and his final words are a clean, surgical cut. “Whatever is going on between you two, you need to lock it down. Your drama is affecting your focus, and you are hurting a hardworking student who does not deserve to be a casualty of your bullshit. She isnotyour goddamn collateral damage, Hale. Fix it.”
Collateral damage.The phrase hits like a body check, the syllables ricocheting—metallic, sharp, like a bullet casing on tile. I’m the center of my own story, the sun my entire world orbits. The idea that my actions, my orbit, could be creating gravitational debris that is actively harming someone else—someone I am becoming dangerously obsessed with—is a new and deeply unsettling concept. One call from my father and theChroniclefolds. But Clara would see the strings, and I need her tangled in mine, not his.
I finally find my voice. “Yes, sir,” I say, the words thick in my throat. I turn and walk out, the weight of his words a crushing load on my shoulders.
I walk through the arena, but I don’t see it. The sounds of pucks hitting the boards from the practice rink are muffled, distant. I’m trapped in my own head, caught in the crossfire of Clara’s fury and Addison’s warning. The two messages, one emotional and one pragmatic, are saying the same damn thing:You are the problem.
My methods—intimidation, control, money—are the only tools I’ve ever known. They are the tools of my father. And they are not just failing with her; they are actively hurting her. The very person I feel a primal, undeniable need to protect. She may hate me, but she’s already mine.
The realization is a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth, like biting down on blood. I’ve been playing a game of power and dominance I’ve always been good at. I thought I was runningplays. But she’s rewriting the rules, and I’m bleeding for it. I see now that we’re not even on the same board. I’ve been playing hockey in a library, trying to body-check a problem that requires a completely different strategy.
I pull out my phone, fingers hovering over her contact. The urge to text her, to demand to see her, is a familiar, visceral need. But I stop myself. That’s the old way. The way that ends with her getting hurt.
My goal for our next interaction can no longer be about dominance or winning. It has to be about earning back an ounce of the respect I just lost. It has to be about trying to understand.
It has to be about listening.
Next time won’t be about breaking her. It’ll be about binding her so tight she can’t walk away.
They all think I play for the school. They’re wrong. Every game is for her.
And for the first time in my life, I have no fucking idea how to do that.
Chapter 20
Adrian
Iwalkbacktomy dorm, the coach’s words a cold, heavy weight in my gut. The echo of his command still clings to me like shackles.She is not your goddamn collateral damage, Hale. Fix it.The command echoes, sharper than any whistle, more damning than any of my father’s disappointed glares. For the first time, it’s not about my performance or the family name. It’s about her. About the damage my chaos is inflicting on a person already fighting her own war.
My room is a cavern of shadow, the kind of dark that swallows sound. The quiet hums, heavy as a noose. The space is neat because chaos makes me stupid. Bed made with military-tight corners. Desk clear. The lamp throws a clean, sterile circle oflight without warming anything. It’s a fortress designed to keep the world out, but tonight, it just feels like a cage.
Clara’s notes are on the desk where I left them—a neat, smug, unignorable stack. The paper smells faintly of ink and her skin, as if she left a part of herself behind. A physical representation of my own failure. My first instinct is to sweep them into the trash, to reject the help, the vulnerability, the infuriating girl who sees right through my bullshit.
Hales don’t need help.My father’s voice, a phantom weight on the back of my neck. The ingrained law of my entire life. To accept this, to even try, feels like the ultimate act of surrender. It feels like admitting he was right all along—that I am careless, undisciplined, broken.
But then I see her face in my mind, the fury and hurt in her eyes when I offered her money. And I hear Addison’s voice, cold and final.Fix it.Fixing it isn’t about me anymore. It’s about not being the storm that wrecks her. She knew what my name carried and walked into it anyway. She deserves better than being drowned by it. With a deep, ragged breath that feels like swallowing broken glass, I drop into my desk chair. I stare at the notes for a long second before my hand moves, slow and reluctant, to pull them toward me.
Her handwriting is small, precise, each letter a testament to the control she wields over her own world. Each letter is a command I can’t disobey. Her handwriting is mine now, carved into my veins. It pisses me off. It makes me want to try.
I open my history textbook. The paper is smooth and thin, the printed words perfect and evenly spaced, the friendly serifs making lies about an ease that has never existed for me. I try to read the first paragraph my way: fast, brute force, trying to absorb the meaning through sheer will.
