Page 41 of The Longest Shot
Although she verbally murdered me days ago—hell,becauseshe verbally murdered me days ago—something violent and protective detonates in my chest. It’s not just attraction, though that’s there, humming under my skin like an electric fence.
This is something else.
An overwhelming need to put myself between her and him.
Becauseno onegets to touch her like that.
The thought arrives fully formed, no assembly required, and I have to physically stop myself from charging across the lobby like some kind of deranged linebacker. But then another thought shoulders its way in:Who else is going to do it?
I think about this morning, Schmidt’s too-hot coffee steaming on my desk. Last night, Leo’s rainbow of highlighters as he studied next to me. Kellerman’s cardboard PowerBars. There's a whole locker room of guys who've still got my back, even though I'm a fuckup and we're losing.
I have backup. I have a net.
Morgan has… nobody.
She’s standing there, enduring Galloway’s power play alone, the same way she endures everything else. She runs that team solo, fights every battle solo, and celebrates every victory solo. Even on the ice, she barely celebrates with her team, giving them a nod and skating back to her position while they high-five.
My instincts scream at me to make a distraction. Maybe to start singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of my lungs, or pretend to have a sudden coughing fit, or to pull the fire alarm and blame it on a freshman. Anything to shatter this awful scene without confrontation.
But Morgan’s voice from the other day cuts through the mental noise.
You did it then, and you’re still doing it now.
This is it, the chance to prove I’m not the coward she so accurately diagnosed. I can run away and pretend I didn't see it, or I can deflect with chaos, crack a joke, remain Galloway’s favorite jester, and keep my comfortable life intact.
Or.
I can be the man my team keeps believing I am, even when I don’t deserve it. I can be the person who stands in someone else’s corner. I can be serious and present for the first damn time in my whole life.
The choice hits me with the clarity of stepping out of a sauna into a snowbank.
Shocking, breathtaking, and absolutely undeniable.
Because stepping in means torching my relationship with Galloway. It means giving up my golden boy status, my preferential treatment, and my get-out-of-administrative-bullshit-free card. It means choosing her over him, publicly, in a way that can’t be walked back with a joke and an apology.
My feet start moving before my brain signs off on the decision. Each step across the marble floor feels weighted. And, for the first time in my adult life, I don’t use chaos, and I don’t make noise. I just lead with quiet, deliberate, risky intention.
I plant myself next to Morgan, close enough that my shoulder creates a physical barrier between her and Galloway. I don’t look at him. I look at her, meeting those eyes that have been haunting me since that summer three years ago.
“Morgue,” I say, keeping my voice steady and serious. No jokes. No performance. “Coach Walsh is looking for you. She said it was urgent."
The lie is so transparent you could read through it, but it’s not about being believable. It’s about giving her an out andchoosing a side. And she knows it, because her eyes widen just a fraction—in surprise, maybe, or disbelief that I’m capable of doing something useful without turning it into a stand-up routine.
Galloway’s hand drops from her arm. “Fitzgerald," he says, sharp enough to etch glass. “Captain Riley and I are having a private conversation.”
Now I do look at him, and whatever he sees in my face makes him step back slightly. The friendly warmth he’s used to—the eager-to-please energy—is gone. In its place is something cold and immovable, like I just discovered I’ve been carrying around a knife this whole time and finally decided to pull it out.
“It looked like you were finished,” I say.
The words hang in the air between us. We both know I’m drawing a line in the sand with a fucking excavator, and I’m standing on the same side as Morgan. The side without power, without protection, and without the safety net of his favoritism.
Galloway’s face cycles through expressions—surprise, confusion, fury—before settling on a politician’s smile that’s all teeth and no warmth. “I see," he says, the words weighted with the reality of bridges not just burning but exploding like they’re in a Michael Bay movie. “We’ll continue this later, Morgan.”
It’s not her name that makes my jaw clench, but the promise in his voice, the threat wrapped in professional courtesy like a razor blade in cotton candy. This man is so hard-coded to be a creep that he's prepared to burn his hockey program to the ground before changing.
He turns to me, and his smile sharpens. “Fitzgerald, I'll see you in my office at eight tomorrow morning to discuss your team’s recent… performance issues.”
The threat and subtext are clear:
