Icing The Heart

The news alert came while I was brushing my teeth.

TITANS CAPTAIN JAXON KANE AND FEMALE PLAYER RORY CALLAHAN: LOVE MATCH OR PR STUNT? INSIDE SOURCES SUGGEST RELATIONSHIP MAY BE FABRICATED.

I stared at the screen so long toothpaste slid down my chin.

For one strange second, I did not move. I just stood there in my bathroom, barefoot, hair a mess, one hand gripping my toothbrush while the headline carved itself into my brain.

Inside sources.

Of course.

There was always a source. Always someone smiling in the locker room, clapping you on the shoulder, pretending not to carry a knife. Someone had leaked the fake relationship. Someone had spoken to the press. Someone wanted this lie to collapse before it had finished serving its purpose.

The only question was who.

And because my life had recently become a punishment written by a committee of men in expensive suits, my first thought was not even panic.

It was exhaustion...

I rinsed my mouth, wiped my chin, and walked into the living room.

Jaxon was already there, staring at his own phone.

He looked up. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he said, “We have a problem.”

I laughed humorlessly. “Just one?”

***

Two hours later, we were in the conference room at Titans headquarters with Coach Harris, Lena Brooks, Victor Shaw, and three other people from management who all looked like they had been created in a laboratory for crisis control.

A large screen showed the article.

The photo for the article was from the restaurant kiss. My fingers were clenched in his jacket. His hand was in my hair. We looked like a couple who had forgotten cameras existed.

Lena stood at the head of the table, tablet in hand, her expression tight. “The story is spreading fast. If the relationship is exposed as fabricated, the endorsement deals collapse. Sponsors will say the team misled the public.”

“Because the team did mislead the public,” I said.

Coach shot me a look.

I folded my arms. “Sorry. Did we stop pretending honesty exists?”

Victor Shaw relaxed back in his chair, his silver watch catching the light. “This is bigger than your attitude, Callahan.”

“My attitude seems to get blamed for everything. Might as well give it a chair at the table.”

Jaxon’s mouth twitched in response but said nothing.

Lena ignored both of us. “There is also the league issue. If this becomes a formal investigation, you may both face suspension for conduct detrimental to the league.”

My stomach tightened. Suspension. What the hell!

Jaxon went very still beside me. “You said you had it contained.”

“We did,” Lena said. “Until someone leaked.”

“Find them,” he said.

Victor’s eyes cooled. “That is being handled.”

I did not trust the way he said that.

Lena tapped her screen. “In the meantime, we go bigger. You need to be more convincing. Publicly. Immediately.”

I stared at her. “What does that mean?”

“You already live together, correct?”

I hated that she knew that. I hated more that it was true.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then we escalate. Social media posts. More visible affection. A romantic trip this weekend. Somewhere photogenic, intimate and private enough to look accidental when the media discovers you there.”

“Accidental,” I repeated.

Lena did not blink at all. “Strategic.”

Coach folded his arms. “Non-negotiable.”

My laugh was soft this time. “I am starting to hate that word.”

Jaxon turned his head toward me.

I expected irritation. Coldness. Maybe the blank, controlled look he wore when he wanted the world to know nothing could touch him.

Instead, I saw regret. It was there for one second. Then gone. And I hated him for making me notice.

***

The cabin was not a cabin.

It was a rich person’s idea of a cabin, which meant glass walls, polished wood, a fireplace big enough to burn evidence in and a bedroom with a bed so large it looked like it had its own weather system.

Bedroom.

Singular. Great. Really great.

I dropped my bag just inside the door. “Absolutely not.”

Jaxon walked in behind me, carrying his duffel. “I will take the couch.”

“You said that last time. Then somehow your emotional damage spread across my whole apartment.”

“My emotional damage is neatly packed.”

“It has designer luggage.”

He shook his head at me and looked around the room, jaw tight. “This was Lena’s doing.”

“Convenient,” I said very sarcastically.

Noting my tone, his eyes came to mine. “I did not choose this.”

I looked at him. I wanted to ask if he chose any of it.

The contract. The strategy. The proximity. Me.

I did not. Instead, I turned away.

***

Outside, snow dusted the trees in soft white layers. The cabin sat far enough from the city to feel like another world, which was probably the point. We were supposed to look hidden. Private. In love.

By dinner, I had decided to survive the weekend the same way I survived everything else.

By acting better than everyone expected.

Jaxon cooked again because apparently the universe was committed to making him confusing. I chopped vegetables with too much force. He opened a bottle of wine and poured me half a glass.

“You trust me with a knife?” I asked.

“No.”

“Smart.”

“But I trust your aim.”

“Also smart.”

For a while, we moved around each other almost easily. He reached for the salt before I asked. I handed him a towel before he realized he needed one. Our shoulders brushed once at the counter and neither of us moved away quickly enough.

I noted how domesticity was dangerous. How it made lies feel warm.

We ate near the fireplace because the dining table looked too formal and the couch looked too intimate. There was no safe furniture in that place.

The wine loosened something in the room or maybe it only loosened me.

Jaxon watched the fire for a long moment before speaking.

“Can I ask you something real?”

I looked at him over my glass. “Depends.”

“Do you ever wish you had chosen an easier path?”

My fingers stilled.

He glanced at me. “Not hockey exactly. Just… something where you did not have to fight every day.”

The question should have annoyed me. It did not. Maybe because he did not ask it like a reporter waiting to use my answer against me. Maybe because for once, his voice had no edge.

I looked into the fire.

“Every single day,” I said.

His gaze settled on me.

“There are mornings I wake up and wonder what my life would look like if I had chosen something softer. Something people did not argue about. Something that did not require me to prove my existence before breakfast.” I swallowed. “But then I think if I had chosen that, I would not be me.”

The silence that followed felt full.

Jaxon’s voice was low when he answered.

“I would not change that.”

I looked at him.

He held my gaze.

“You being you,” he said.

My chest tightened so suddenly I had to look away.

There it was again. That cruel little possibility that some part of this was real. That somewhere beneath the contract and the lies and the coldness, there was a man who saw me.

Not the situation. Not the subject. Me.

I stood up too fast. “I am going to bed.”

Jaxon did not stop me.

***

I did not sleep.

The bedroom was too quiet, the bed too big, the cabin too full of Jaxon. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the email. Every time I opened them, I remembered his hand brushing my hair from my face, his voice whispering an apology he thought I would never hear.

Around two in the morning, I gave up.

I wrapped myself in a sweater and padded into the kitchen.

To my surprise, Jaxon was already there, shirtless. He stood near the counter, one hand around a glass of whiskey, the firelight catching the hard lines of his shoulders and the scar near his ribs I had never noticed before. He looked tired. Not in the polished way celebrities looked tired in interviews. Actually tired. Like something inside him had been running for years and could not stop.

He turned when he heard me. “Can’t sleep either?”

“No.”

His eyes moved over my face, then away. “I can leave.”

“Stay.” The word came out before pride could strangle it.

He stayed.

For a while, the only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator and the wind pressing against the windows.

Then I asked the question that had been rotting inside me for two years. “Why do you hate me, Jaxon?”

His hand tightened around the glass.

“The real reason,” I said tightly.

He did not answer immediately.

When he did, his voice was rough. “I do not hate you.”

I almost laughed. “That is a lie.”

“No.”

“Then what is this?” My voice rose and I hated that it shook. “What are we doing?”

He set the glass down. Slowly. Then he walked toward me.

Every step made the room smaller. I should have backed away. I did not.

He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the storm in his eyes.

“I am trying really hard not to ruin you,” he said.

My breath caught.

“By what?” I asked. “Caring about me?”

His face changed and something broke through. Something honest and awful and impossible to ignore.

“By loving you.”

The words landed between us like a match in gasoline.

For one second, I could not breathe.

Then his hands came up, careful and shaking slightly as they cupped my face.

“Rory,” he said like my name hurt him.

I knew I should stop it.

I knew the contract was still there. The money. The plan. The phone calls. The warnings. The fact that every tender thing he did could be another strategy dressed as regret.

But then he kissed me. Not for cameras. Not for a headline. Not with the careful performance of a man playing a role. He kissed me like the lie had finally become too small to hold what was happening between us.

And it felt like everything.

I kissed him back. Because I was furious. Because I was lonely. Because I wanted to punish him and forgive him and destroy him and keep him, all at once.

Because for one night, I was so tired of being strong that I let myself be held.

So we crossed a line we could never uncross.

The rest of the night became warmth, whispered names and the terrifying silence of two people pretending morning would not come.

But morning always came.

I woke up alone.

For a moment, I stayed still, staring at the empty space beside me. Then I heard Jaxon’s voice outside. It sounded low and urgent.

I got out of bed quietly, wrapping the sheet around myself before pulling on the nearest sweater. His sweater. I hated that I noticed.

The glass door to the balcony was cracked open. Jaxon’s voice slipped through.

“…I told you, I am handling it.”

Pause.

“The timeline does not work anymore.”

My chest went cold just then.

“I do not give a damn about the bonus.”

Another pause.

Then—

“Yes, I slept with her. No, that was not the plan.”

The room tilted just then in front of me.

“Nothing about this is the plan anymore.”

I stepped back. Quietly. Carefully.

Something inside me had gone silent. Not broken this time. Silent.

I dressed without making a sound. My hands were steady, which scared me more than shaking would have. I booked a car service. Packed my bag. Found a pen on the counter.

For a moment, I stared at the blank notepad.

Then I wrote the only thing I could: This was a mistake. All of it. I am done.

Then I left before he came back inside.

***

The ride back to the city felt unreal.

Snow blurred past the windows. My phone buzzed three times. I did not check it. I could still feel his mouth on mine. Still hear his voice.

That was not the plan.

It was crystal clear that I had been stupid enough to become something inconvenient.

When I reached the apartment, I paid the driver, walked upstairs and unlocked the door with fingers that finally started to tremble.

I needed to pack.

I needed to leave.

I needed to find somewhere Jaxon Kane and his contracts and his almost-truths could not reach me.

My cousin lived two states away, close enough to run to and far enough to pretend I had not run at all. I told the team I needed time. A month. A clean break. A holiday, Lena called it, like heartbreak was something you could schedule between press appearances.

But I still played.

Every morning, I trained. Every evening, I skated until my legs burned and my chest went numb. I played sharper now. Colder. No smiles. No explanations. No second chances.

The press called it focus.

Coach called it discipline.

I called it survival.

Then one morning, three weeks in, I stood in my cousin’s bathroom staring down at two pink lines.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

No.

No, no, no.

My hand went to my stomach before I could stop it.

Jaxon Kane had followed me after all.

Not through calls. Not through contracts. Not through apologies I refused to read.

Through this.

I sank onto the edge of the bathtub, the test shaking in my hand.

Pregnant.

I was pregnant.

With his baby.

The man who had almost destroyed my career had left me with something I could not skate away from.

And in that moment, cold, clear and terrifying, I understood one thing:

I was completely screwed.