Page 119 of Unmanageable

Scottie hasn’t moved her head from the vinyl headrest since we cleared the grocery store parking lot.

Her eyes are open, tracking the green highway signs as they flash past in the gloom, but she’s not seeing them. She’s staring into the middle distance, her jaw locked in that stubborn, beautiful line that tells me she’s currently running through every possible catastrophe in her head.

I reach down, click my indicator, and swing the van across three lanes of traffic toward the exit ramp.

“The rink is north, Cash,” she says. “You’re heading away from the rink. The equipment manager is going to lock the room at five.”

“The equipment manager is currently at a sports bar.” My hand stays loose on the wheel as I guide us down the steep curve. “I saw his story. He’s three beers deep at Murphy’s.”

“What are you talking about?” She turns her head, her brow furrowed. “I have the schedule right here. I confirmed the steel prep with the front office yesterday morning. They’re expecting you.”

“And I called Wade from the bathroom at the gas station,” I say smoothly, pulling the van up to a red light. “I told him my shoulder felt like a bag of wet gravel and I wasn’t putting my skates on until tomorrow morning. I canceled the skate, Scottie. The whole thing. We’re scratched for the next twenty-four hours.”

Scottie sits up straight in her seat, her fingers dropping the planner entirely. Her face doesn’t light up. She doesn’t look shocked in a fun, spontaneous way. She looks horrified.

“Are you serious?” she asks, her voice dropping. “Finnian, the general manager is flying in from Chicago tonight specifically to look at your short-side recovery metrics. You can’t just scratch a showcase because you feel like it. The agency—”

“The agency isn’t in this van,” I interrupt, turning the key and cutting the engine. “And neither is the goalie. For the next twenty-four hours, there is no agent and there is no hockey player. Look across the street, Sharky. See that vintage store? We’re going to go inside, find the most ridiculous outfits they have, and create fake personas. We’re going to be amateur birdwatchers named Gary and Bernadette, and we’re going to spend the afternoon doing street mime routines. No hockey, no contracts. Just—”

“Stop it, Finnian.”

She turns in her seat, her face flushed a dark, angry red, her eyes dark with a frustration that makes my fingers freeze on the steering wheel.

“Stop joking all the fucking time,” she spits, her voice shaking as she glares at me. “I am sick of it, Cash. I’m done. I am trying to keep your entire professional life from collapsing, and you’re treating this like a spring break road trip. I don’t want to play dress-up. I don’t want to be Bernadette. I am trying to do my job, and you are acting like a child who can’t take a single second of reality seriously.”

The words hit me right in the center of the chest, a hard, physical blow that makes my jaw lock.

For a second, I can’t even look at her.

Yeah, maybe I lean on humor too much. Maybe I throw it around like a life raft. But it’s the only way I’ve ever known to keep people close, to navigate the mess of things you can’t fix.

Hearing her spit it back at me like it’s useless, like I’m useless… it lands deeper than she knows.

But even through the sting, I know she doesn’t mean it.

She’s hurting, scared, stretched thin, and I am the closest target.

“I’m trying to help you, Scottie.”

“Well, you’re not helping,” she snaps. “You’re just distracting.”

“I’m distracting you because you look like you’re about to jump out of a moving vehicle,” I say, my voice steadying. “I saw your face in that store, Scottie. I’m not trying to sabotage the contract. I’m trying to make sure you’re still breathing by the time we hit the winter meetings.”

Scottie stares at the brick wall across the sidewalk for five long, agonizing seconds, her chest heaving under her green pullover. The silence in the van is thick, suffocating.

Then, the anger just… drains out of her all at once, leaving her shoulders slouching forward, her head dropping into her hands.

“God,” she whispers, her voice cracking as she presses her palms against her eyes. “Sorry. Cash, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that.”

I don’t say anything. I just watch her, my hands still flat against the wheel, giving her the space to unravel.

She takes her hands away from her face, turning to look at me, her eyes wide, wet, and exhausted.

“I’m just… I’m so sorry, Finny,” she says, her voice dropping into a small, broken register I almost never hear from her. “Please forgive me. I know you’re not a child. You’re the best thing in my life, and I just… I’m sorry.”

“You keep saving me,” she continues, shaking her head like she hates admitting it. “You always know before I do that I’m about to disappear into my own head. I don’t think I tell you this enough, Cash, but I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She swallows hard, a stray tear cutting a clean line through the dust and rain on her cheek.