Page 5

I opened my laptop at my mom's kitchen table and I did the only thing I have ever known how to do with a feeling I can't survive. I turned it into an actionable plan.

A blank spreadsheet, the first one for my life.

Column one, the degree. Column two, the field, sports operations, because it was the one world I understood and the one he lived inside.

Column three, the part I never said out loud to a living soul. The team. His team. Not a wish. A destination with a deadline. I promised to tailor myself to be a great fit to whatever team he gets contracted to.

I typed it all in a hand that did not shake, and I saved the file, and I built my entire life around what was in it. I called it ambition for years.

But it was mostly about him. My ambition I hoped would turn towards me. Which it has, he’s my brother's best friend and a walking puckboy. But I still want him.

I flip the phone facedown with the serenity of a woman who’s completely fine.

When I look up, he isn't looking at the phone. He's looking at me, and the easy grin has gone somewhere, traded for something lower and heavier, his gaze dropping to my mouth and holding a beat past friendly. I can feel my body flush.

Stop. Remember, the drunken kiss. I lost most of my pride, and that green sweater I still can't put on.

It reminds me that I would wear his favorite color, hoping one day I would wear his jersey number. I was so silly to think after all this time that I can mean something real, when every post about him shows the opposite.

"Margot." He leans in, forearms on his knees, close enough that I catch his scent. "Do you ever think about…"

The internal line saves my life. Denise's extension, my boss, buzzing like a fire alarm.

I hold up one finger at Jax, and I spin my chair toward the window to breathe air that isn't full of him.

"Hello, Denise."

In the glass I catch my reflection, auburn hair scraped into the kind of knot that means business.

Freckles that show all year round. And I have on a simple blazer I wear like armor because most days it reminds me to keep it together. My amber eyes, my mother swears go gold when I'm angry but today I just look tired.

Tired of my feelings for him and his constant presence in my office. He’s always here. I’m starting to think he’s doing it on purpose.

Denise drags me out of my thoughts. She never wastes a hello. "My office. Now."

My boss's office is all glass, the practice rink glowing white two floors down.

On the ice, a lone skater, Mason, our goalie, running the same pre-practice loop he always runs, same route, same superstition, because God forbid the universe shift a single degree before a game.

My attention shifts back to my boss. She doesn't tell me to sit, which means this is very good or very bad and she intends to enjoy the reveal.

Denise is fifty and wears her age and experience like a threat. Her silver locs pinned back off her face. Reading glasses shoved up into her hair.

She built this operation, and everyone in the building knows it, which is why nobody argues with her.

"I'm restructuring operations." A folder slides across her desk. "Road coordinator. Yours, if you want it. You travel with the team, you own the logistics and every fire that lights. You will do damage control. For this you’ll get a promotion, a raise, and the funeral of your social life."

The word 'travel' goes off in my chest like a flare. This is the job. The one I moved across the country for, the one I earned without ever once using my brother's name like a coin.

Everyone knows my brother, he's on the Boston's hockey team. But I made sure no one here knows we’re related.

"Margot?"

"Yes?" It leaves me before the caution can catch it. "Obviously yes for the job."

"Good." She doesn't smile, which is how I know there’s something else. She’s holding a second folder.

"There's a condition. We’re losing sponsors because a few players treat the tabloids like a second income. So the role comes with player image duties. You clean up the messes or help hide the messes before it comes out. Margot you'll need to spin the truth. Whatever you have to do. You’ll need to think outside the box. Some of these fixes won’t be by conventional means."