Page 24 of Face Off
The corner of her mouth twitches like she’s fighting a smile. She adjusts the strap of her bag, deflecting. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating with your team?”
“They’ve got muffins. They’ll survive.”
That earns me the faintest laugh, soft and quick, but enough to unclench something in my chest.
For a second, neither of us moves. The hum of vending machines fills the space. Her eyes meet mine, guarded but searching, and I can’t shake the sense that she’s waiting for me to say something real. Something that cuts through Tabloid Girl and all the baggage.
But if I do, there’s no going back.
So, I settle for, “You write nice things about me tonight, Miller?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t push your luck.”
But her cheeks flush as she brushes past me, and I know I’ll be chasing that image all night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHLOE
The apartment is quiet except for the hum of my laptop fan and the occasional hiss of the radiator. It’s late, too late for sane people, but not for me. Post-game deadlines don’t care if my eyes sting or my brain feels like scrambled eggs.
The cursor blinks at me, smug and unhelpful. The words are there, swimming in my head, but every time I try to put them on the page, they slip sideways. Because all I can see, clear as the game clock, is Ollie Taylor smirking at me from the ice. That bloody wink.
I squeeze my eyes shut, flex my fingers, and force myself to type.
The Raptors secured a hard-fought win on home ice tonight, battling through penalties and relentless forechecking to claim victory over the visiting Wolves.
Clean. Proficient. Nothing suggestive about the fact that my stomach dropped when he skated past my section, eyes deliberately finding mine in the crowd. Nothing about the way Sophie’s glare cut across the stands like a blade when she noticed me. Definitely nothing about the whispered “TabloidGirl” that followed me like a bad smell as I made my way down to the tunnel.
I delete and retype the same sentence three times, my chest tight, before finally letting it sit there. It’s fine. Good enough.
I push my chair back and stand, pacing to the window. The city is muted below me, a scattering of headlights, pubs emptying, someone dragging bins across pavement. Ordinary lives. I almost laugh. Because nothing about mine feels ordinary anymore.
I came here for a job. To prove myself. To claw back credibility after Murphy-gate, after the entire press box and half the internet branded me a puck bunny with a notebook. I told myself this assignment, shadowing a hockey team for a season, would be a chance to set the record straight. And yet here I am, heart pounding over a look, a wink, like a teenager at her first school disco.
I lean my forehead against the cold glass and breathe out.
“Get it together, Miller,” I whisper.
Back at the desk, I re-read what I’ve written. The game analysis is solid. Penalties logged, goals broken down, quotes from Coach slotted neatly in. On the surface, it’s exactly what my editor wants. But between the lines, I see the fingerprints of my distraction. Too many adjectives when Ollie was on the puck. Too much space given to his line change hustle. Subconscious betrayals.
I strip them out, sentence by sentence, until what’s left feels sterile.
My phone buzzes with an email. My editor.
Need this in fifteen. Keep it sharp, not soft. No human-interest detours. Sponsors want clean coverage.
I bite my lip. The sponsors. Always the sponsors.
My father’s fingerprints are all over that word, even if no one else knows it. He’s the anonymous investor everyone in theorganisation whispers about, the shadowy figure propping up The Raptors’ finances. Not so anonymous to me. He told me about the deal in clipped tones, as if sharing it was both a burden and a warning. “This team matters,” he said. “Don’t screw it up.”
It wasn’t just about the money. It never is with him. It was about legacy. About his name being tied, however quietly, to something powerful and beloved. And about me not embarrassing him again.
So here I am, walking the tightrope. The daughter no one knows is connected to the money, writing stories that have to look unbiased, while sitting on the knowledge that if I fail, I don’t just tank my own career. I chip away at his.
I type faster, mechanical.
Taylor contributed an assist in the second period and demonstrated his trademark speed along the right wing. Despite an early penalty, his energy remained consistent throughout the match.
