“Because the behavioral work wasn’t finished,” I say. My father looks at me for a long moment. He knows I’m giving him the cautious answer.
“Antonia.” He says my full name the same way he always has. An invitation to stop performing. “Here, I serve no official role. I’m here as your father.” My throat tightens. “I know what it looks like,” he says. “A young woman. Her first major posting. A player who has spent two seasons collecting conduct violations.” He pauses. “I know what people will say.”
“I know what they’ll say too.”
“And?”
“And I handled the assignment with complete integrity.” My voice is steady. “Every session documented. Every decision defensible. The ethics review will confirm that.”
“I have no doubt.” He folds his hands. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
The room is isolated. The arena outside the administrative corridor is waking up for game night: equipment carts, PA system checks, and the distant sound of the ice crew. My father’s world and mine, intersecting in a conference room over a photograph on the internet.
“He’s a liability,” my father says. Not cruel. Just precise. “Talented, possibly. But reckless. And the optics of my daughter?—”
“The optics,” I say, “have been managed.”
“For now.” He leans back. “For two seasons, Antonia, I’ve watched Maxwell Stevens play. I know exactly what he is. Four of his penalties have been called by me. Men do not alter their behavior due to a woman’s request.”
Max changed because he wanted to. He changed because someone finally told him his instincts are good and his habits were the problem. Because he kept a log in my format, even before I asked, he changed.
I don’t say any of it.
My father tells me, “You need to be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Be extra diligent regarding this.” The love in it is real. So is the request.
I nod once. “I understand.”
He studies me. “Do you?”
I look at my hands. Then back at him. “I hear you, Dad.” He holds my gaze for a moment longer. Then he stands. Smooths his jacket.
“Tonight’s game,” he says.
“I know.”
“I’ll be on the ice.”
“I know that, too.”
He moves toward the door. Stops with his hand on the frame. “You look like your mother,” he says. “When you’re trying not to say something.” He leaves before I can answer.
I sit in the empty conference room for four minutes. The arena hums around me. I think about Max. On the floor outside the film room. Forearms on his knees. Waiting.
I’ll be outside. I’m not going anywhere.
Rising, I straighten my blazer. Badge. Hair. He’ll have nothing tonight, I told Max. Give him nothing.
I walk back into the arena. The reporter Daniel chases me down. "Ms. Amato, do you feel your relationship with Max Stevens compromised league neutrality?"
Boom. Daniel wasn’t flirting with me when Max came in; he was working.
Chapter Thirty-One
Max Stevens
