Page 26 of Face Off
Sophie.
And Chloe.
The two of them in the same building. In the same section. Sophie with Finn on her lap, Mia beside her, and Chloe sitting not too far away with her notebook out and that focused look she gets when she’s scribbling observations. The memory makes my chest tighten for reasons I don’t want to unpack.
Murphy chews aggressively, then shoves the rest of the knot in his mouth. “Tabloid Girl shouldn’t even be here,” he mutters, crumbs flying.
There it is. The nickname. The one Sophie and Mia used last night. The one that’s stuck like gum under a bench ever since Chloe pulled her stunt with Murphy over a year ago.
Dylan leans back on his stall, smirking. “She’s here because someone thought it’d be hilarious to let her write about us for the season. And honestly? I’m already looking forward to the headlines. ‘Murphy cries on bench while girlfriend glares at Tabloid Girl.’ Pulitzer material.”
Murphy chucks his tape roll at Dylan’s head. Misses by a mile. Dylan laughs anyway.
I keep my mouth shut, jaw tight. Because what I want to say, the thing pressing against the back of my teeth, isn’t going to make me popular.
That her write-up this morning was good. Better than good.
She didn’t trash us, didn’t sensationalise, didn’t make it about herself. Just sharp observations, clipped sentences, details only someone actually paying attention would notice. The ice conditions, the shifts, even the way Jacko’s line ground down the opposition until they had nothing left.
Practised. Clean.
Nothing like “Tabloid Girl.”
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I bend down to tighten my laces and let the conversation roll around me. Defending her last night had been a mistake, one I’m not keen on repeating in the near future. The backlash still lingers in the cold air.
Murphy’s muttering again, Dylan’s poking the bear, Jacko’s calmly munching his own cinnamon knot like he’s above it all. The Rookie is trying to make himself look busy when he’s secretly listening to every word.
Me? I just keep hearing Chloe’s laugh in my head. That soft, surprised one she let slip at coffee the other day, like she wasn’t used to someone actually making her laugh instead of making her defend herself.
And I keep seeing the way she looked at me when I winked at her last night. Like I’d cut through the noise, straight to her.
I drag a hand down my face. Christ. I need to get my head on the ice.
Practice is brutal. Coach must’ve woken up and chosen violence, because he’s got us doing suicides until Murphy’s wheezing, and even Jacko’s sweating through his jersey. My lungs burn, but I keep pushing, harder than I need to, trying to skate the thoughts out of my system. Trying not to let the pain in my hip show. The bastard thing is giving me grief again, not that it every reallywent away. If Coach or Jonno notice, they’ll bench me. So I keep pushing through.
But every time I circle back to the line, every time I slam my skates into the ice for another sprint, her face flashes in my mind.
Chloe with her pen scratching across a page. Chloe with her sharp mouth, sharper wit. Chloe leaning back in her seat at the game, trying to look unaffected while Sophie and Mia whispered about her.
I grit my teeth and push harder.
She doesn’t need me defending her. She wouldn’t want me to.
But damned if I don’t want to anyway.
After practice, the locker room hums with tired chatter. Jacko passes around what’s left of the knots. Dylan steals Murphy’s second one and nearly loses a finger.
I collapse onto the bench, sweat dripping down my temples, muscles humming and my thigh throbbing like a bitch. I grab my phone from my bag. Notifications flood the screen. Raptors fans buzzing after the win, memes already floating around, a dozen tags on X.
But I scroll straight past all of it until I find her article again.
Read it once. Then twice.
There’s a line in there about me, nothing flashy, nothing obvious. Just a small note about how I’d created space on the wing that led to the second goal. Most reporters don’t catch that. They credit the goal-scorer, maybe the guy with the assist. Not the grunt work that makes it possible.
She noticed.
I let the phone fall back into my lap, staring at the floor.
