Collision Points

BRITTANY

The Hartley kitchen was beautiful in the way things maintained by staff tend to be—impeccably clean, perfectly appointed, subtly expensive. I’d been in it dozens of times. Knew where Victoria kept the good olive oil. Knew the drawer Chase always left slightly open.

Knew a lot of things about this house.

Including how to read the air in a room.

And the air in this room right now was *very* interesting.

“I love what you’ve done with the pendant lights,” I said to Victoria, because giving Chase a moment to recover was something I’d learned years ago. He processed at his own speed. Pressure never helped.

“Aren’t they perfect? I found them at this little shop in Rittenhouse—”

I listened with exactly the right amount of attention while my peripheral vision catalogued everything I needed.

The girl—Sloane—stood at the island like she’d been interrupted mid-sentence. Not flustered. That was the first thing I noted. Most people got flustered when I walked into a room. I wasn’t proud of it, but I was used to it. It was information.

Sloane wasn’t flustered. She was *recalibrating.*

Second thing I noted: the way Chase was standing. Slightly angled toward her even while looking at me. Like his body had already chosen a direction and his brain hadn’t caught up yet.

I’d seen Chase Hartley a lot of ways. After wins. After losses. After that terrible night in freshman year when he called me at two in the morning saying nothing and I knew better than to push. I’d seen him arrogant and terrified and deliberately performing both.

I had never seen him look like he’d been caught mid-fall.

“—and Richard is wonderful, I really mean it, Brittany, I think you’ll love him—”

“I’m sure I will,” I said warmly. “Anyone who makes you this happy.”

Victoria beamed.

I turned to Sloane.

“So you’re the writer,” I said. Not *just* the stepsister. The writer. I’d seen her blog—Marcus had forwarded one of her pieces last week with a one-line text: *this girl is the real deal.* Marcus’s opinion on hockey analysis was the only one besides Chase’s I trusted.

Sloane’s eyes sharpened slightly. “You know the blog?”

“Marcus sent me the power-play piece. The zone-entry breakdown was brutal.” I smiled. “I mean that as a compliment.”

Something shifted in her expression—surprise, then assessment, then something more careful. “You follow hockey analytics?”

“Oh, honey,” I said, letting the honey drip just enough to sting. “I’m friends with Marcus. That should tell you a lot. And I handle Chase pretty well—more like his unofficial sports agent, you know…”

Chase’s expression did something complicated.

“Brittany’s the one who told me to stop taking every meeting that came in,” he said. Flat. Neutral. Like he was reciting fact rather than reminiscing. “Said I was devaluing myself by looking desperate.”

“You were.” I kept my voice light. “You were taking calls from AHL affiliates in November of your freshman year. Like you had something to prove.”

“I did have something to prove.”

“You had something to *protect.* Different thing.” I glanced at Sloane. “That’s the piece most of these guys miss early. Proving turns you into a product. Protecting turns you into a person with leverage.”

Sloane was quiet for a beat. Then: “And you think there’s a meaningful distinction between the two in how scouts evaluate them?”

Direct. Fast. Not asking to be polite.

I liked her immediately.

Oh… bitch.

“Enormous distinction,” I said. “A guy trying to prove something plays desperate under pressure. A guy protecting something plays *controlled.*” I paused. “Though controlled reads differently depending on what you’re protecting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chase protects his legacy. His future. The idea of himself ten years from now.” I didn’t look at him when I said it. “That’s healthy. What’s less healthy is when protecting it means refusing to let anything *in* that might destabilize it.”

Chase’s voice came in flat and final. “We’re not doing this.”

“I’m not doing anything, Chase. I’m having a conversation with your stepsister about athlete psychology.” My tone stayed easy. Unruffled. “But if you’d like to table it—”

“I’d like to table it.”

“Consider it tabled.”

Victoria looked between us with the focused attention of someone trying to determine whether she needed to intervene.

I smiled at her. “The sushi idea sounds perfect. Can I help with anything?”

She exhaled—relieved—and started talking about the order.

I let myself glance at Sloane one more time.

She was looking at Chase.

He was looking at his water glass.

Neither of them knew what I already knew—which was that the space between two people who won’t look at each other is the loudest room in any house.

I’d walked into something.

Okay… I’m not assuming anything’s going on.

But…

Hmm…

Interesting.