Chapter Three: The King of the Ice

Yennifer Winterbourne had spent the entire morning pretending she was fine.

She kept repeating it to herself while getting dressed in the outfit Chloe had chosen for her after declaring, “You cannot go to a hockey game looking like a grieving widow.”

It was a plain but flattering deep green dress, paired with a light coat and boots that went past her knees. Nothing too loud or desperate.

Just then her phone lit up again. Daniel again. She watched the name flash across the screen, but didn't pick up. A second later, a text came through.

“Answer your phone, please; we need to talk”.

Yennifer stared at the message as she thought, “The nerve of him” Then she went ahead and blocked him.

“Progress,” she muttered before checking her bag to make sure everything she'll be needing is in there. The interview sheet filled with questions to ask was folded inside her notebook. 

A part of her still couldn’t believe Mr. Harrison had actually said yes to Annabelle’s smug performance in the meeting. And the other part of her was a bit scared.

Because even before she met George Ashford, everyone had made him sound impossible and hard to reach. Yet the whole city seemed obsessed with him, which, frankly, unsettled her.

“Ready?” Chloe asked, appearing at the doorway with her own coat on.

“Not sure.” But Chloe grinned and took her keys. “ It's normal to feel this way for your first interview. Come on, let’s go watch New York’s golden boy.”

Thirty minutes later they reached Madison Square.

The place was a cathedral of noise and light.

Fans crowded the entrance in team colors, their excitement practically vibrating in the cold air while security ushered people through the doors. 

On getting inside, the energy only got worse.

Yennifer glanced around the arena and thought, Ashford really does have a crazy fan base. The rival team might as well have been invisible. The crowd was already chanting his name and that of his team before the puck had even dropped

“ASHFORD! RANGERS! ASHFORD! RANGERS!”

Yennifer settled into her seat with the kind of reluctance usually reserved for dental work.

“You look like you’re attending a funeral,” Chloe said.

“I might be…cause I don't get why we celebrate hockey as a game; it's literally violence strapped on knives” This caused Chloe to laugh into her drink. “Knives?... Girl, they're skates,” she tried enlightening as she burst out laughing again.

The game began fast, too fast for Yennifer’s taste. Players slammed into one another, skates carved hard lines across the rink as the puck moved with furious precision from stick to stick while the crowd reacted happily to every hit and pass made.

Then George Ashford entered her line of sight. Her research on him from the night before had paid off, because even with his helmet on, she could clearly spot him anywhere. 

He wasn’t the type of man you missed. Broad in the shoulders and impossible to ignore. His presence was compelling, like he knew the space he occupied and had no intention of apologizing for it.

His movements were controlled, efficient, almost annoyingly graceful. Yennifer squinted her eyes, so this was the famous George Ashford on the rink. The crowd roared when he stole the puck from a defender and sent it across the ice with one sharp motion.

A commentator’s voice boomed from the speakers. “And here goes the Rangers at it again!.

George skated toward the net, got shouldered hard, which got out a wince from Yennifer, but he kept moving as though he’d merely brushed against the weather.

Another wave of cheers rose when he made a pass that led to a near goal.

Yennifer watched the people around her lose their minds over him and folded her arms.

“Everyone acts personally offended by his near goal.” “That’s because he’s good,” Chloe said.

Yennifer’s attention snapped back to the ice just in time to watch him cut between two defenders, his body turning with precision. One second he was boxed in, the next he was gone, slipping through the gap as if the ice itself had decided to part for him.

The crowd exploded, cheering him on to go harder, and Yennifer absentmindedly muttered, “Come on, come on!” only to stop short, startled by how interested she sounded. 

George, on the other hand, was focused; he wasn't distracted by the screaming fans; rather, he drove forward with that same cold focus, the puck glued to his stick, every movement measured.

A defender lunged, but he pivoted and pushed past. “GO, ASHFORD!” someone shouted from behind them.

Then George shot, the puck sliced across the rink in a blur, and for one suspended second, the entire stadium seemed to inhale at once.

SWISH. The red light flashed, and the horn was blown, causing the arena to detonate. Yennifer’s ears rang from the sound of it. People jumped to their feet, strangers hugged, and children screamed. The commentators nearly lost their voices over the intercom.

And George Ashford, the man who had just made half the city lose its mind, simply turned and skated back with a calm so infuriating it almost felt personal.

“Wow?” Yennifer said, still staring at the rink. Chloe laughed so hard at her reaction, causing Yennifer to scowl at her.

George skated to his teammates, who crashed into him in chaos, shouts, and hard slaps on the back. He took it all with the same quiet expression and a faint smile, as if the winning goal was merely another thing that had happened to him today.

That should not have been attractive, Yennifer thought grimly. And yet it was. Just... observing 

She looked away before her own thoughts could embarrass her further. For someone who just 60 minutes ago found hockey to be unhinged and brutal, she quite enjoyed it.

Across the arena, the final seconds ticked down. When the final horn sounded, the stadium erupted all over again, louder this time, as though the whole city had been waiting for permission to scream his name.

“ASHFORD! ASHFORD! GO RANGERS!”

Yennifer leaned back in her seat with a sigh. “I still don’t understand the obsession.”

“You don’t have to understand it,” Chloe said. “You just have to interview him.”

And that dragged her attention back to earth. Right, Interview with Ashford. “Then I need to find him.”

Checking her phone, she saw new messages from her family. Her parents had called so many times before resorting to texts, but she refused to respond to any. Instead, she deleted the messages for the sake of her sanity 

“Come on,” Chloe said, tugging her coat around her. “If you want to get anywhere near him, we need to move.”

The arena was chaotic by the time they reached the hallway leading toward the lower-level concourse. Security was everywhere, fans were being ushered out in waves, staff moved with headsets and clipboards, and somewhere nearby, a group of reporters had already started shouting questions.

George Ashford’s name seemed to follow Yennifer around like an unwanted headline. It was ridiculous. And yet, here she was, still unable to spot a single trace of him. “How does a man disappear this fast?” she muttered. 

Nervousness surged through her. She needed this interview, she thought wildly, as if repeating it inside her own skull might summon the necessary courage to not panic 

Chloe noticed the panic settling over her face and nudged her shoulder with just enough sympathy to be annoying. “He does this,” Chloe said. “Remember? He hates interviews. So he's bound to vanish. And he has a frankly alarming number of security guards to help with that.” Yennifer frowned. “Oh”

A few minutes later, Yennifer caught Chloe’s eye, already shifting on her feet. “I need to use the restroom.”

Chloe gave a quick nod while an absentminded staff member beside her jerked a hand down the corridor. 

Yennifer took it as direction and slipped out of the crowd, weaving through the crowd faster with every step, one hand pressing low against her belly. The hallway seemed to lengthen as she went. Door after door. Locked. Empty. Wrong. Her frustration mounted with the ache in her bladder. 

At last, six doors down with her bladder close to erupting, she finally found one, the door slightly ajar 

Opening the door and stepping in, Inside was a private bathroom. She didn't have the time to look around, but she could tell it was luxurious, so she speed-walked towards the toilet, her bladder hurting so bad, warning her she was seconds away from peeing herself 

She hurried in without looking farther than the toilet. If only she had. Instead, she stepped through the door, shut herself behind the half-makeshift wall, and went straight for the toilet seat, already at the edge of tears.

“Ohhh my God,” she sighed, dropping onto the toilet seat and letting her eyes fall shut in relief. For a second there was only the rush of air, the cool tile and the awful, blessed release.

Then it was over; she flushed and stepped out of the makeshift stall, still half-dazed by how good the release was and reaching for the sink.

Her fingers were still adjusting the tap when she glanced up at the mirror, expecting to see herself—flushed cheeks, slightly disheveled hair, and maybe do a quick fix before heading back to Chloe.

Instead, she went rigid. Heat crawled up her cheeks the longer she stared, her lips parting slightly as her tongue slipped out to wet them

Her breath caught as her fingers slipped from the tap, as if her body had forgotten how to function

For one long second, she simply stared at the reflection in the mirror, her brain refusing to make sense of what she was seeing.

A completely naked man in the shower!

Then it all hit at once. Breath, panic, heat, disbelief. Her eyes widened as something inside her snapped awake, and the scream burst out of her so violently it scared her too. “AAAAAAAH!”

The man in the shower jolted at the sound, his expression hardening into stunned disbelief. She spun around so quickly that her hip slammed against the marble sink.

“Ow! Fuck.” The words burst out of her as she jerked back, her hands flying to her face. The startled man reached for his towel, his jaw tightening. “Who the fuck are you?”

Her heart pounded wildly against her ribs. Her fingers trembled as she squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made the image burned into her mind more vivid.

So she turned off the tap with one hand, the other still covering her eyes and walked away so fast she nearly stumbled over her own feet.

“I’m sorry! I didn't see anything,” she cried, her voice coming out breathless and panicked. “I promise!”

Silence.

Still with both hands clamped over her eyes, she shuffled toward the door, blindly feeling along the wall. Her fingers searched desperately until—there. The door handle. 

But before she could step out and make sense of how she had gotten herself into this mess, her gaze accidentally slipped between her fingers just enough for one last glance at the mirror.

And she froze. This time there was a towel separating her eyes from his nakedness. His shoulders tense and his jaw locked hard, she feared his face would split

He was staring directly at her; his eyes seemed to pin her to the spot, and her breath caught. Those eyes…why do they look so familiar? Then her gaze slowly moved over his face, to his jaw and that unmistakable scowl

Her stomach dropped. No.

She turned and stumbled out of the bathroom, her legs suddenly feeling unsteady beneath her

Her eyes widened as the pieces slammed together. She had seen that face just last night. He is not just any man but the one man whose interview she couldn't afford to lose.

George Ashford.

“Fuuckk!!!”