Page 118 of Top Shelf

Silas’s words deflate my sail even further.

“Maybe it’s better if I never know. It’s what I’d decided I wanted, anyway,” I say. “To not know.”

If finding him is what you want, if it’s something you feel you need, then we willdo everything in our power to find him. We can ask the team. Talk to players on the BSU team.We will do whatever it takes.

With a lump wedged in my throat, I give Silas a soft smile. Just knowing he—they—would do that if I asked means more than he can ever know. Simply no longer feeling alone in all of this makes it infinitely easier to deal with.

“It’s information I feel like I need, but nothing is going to change what happened. Knowing who it was. Why he did it. Why he chose me.” I shrug because what the fuck is there to do at this point? “Those are questions I’m always going to have, but their answers won’t ever change the fact that something precious was taken from me that night. No amount of psychoanalyzing it negates what happened.” Sighing heavily, I finish, “The best thing I can do is find a way to cope with it and figure out how to move forward.”

Silas turns the coin over once between his fingers before writing?—

Then we’ll figure it out with you. Every part of it. Lean on us, Wren.

30

RONAN

A dozen rookiefiles are spread across the long oak table in the conference room, along with scouting reports stacked in uneven piles and game footage looping on the projector screen at the front of the room. The smell of stale coffee and printer ink hangs in the air.

Coach Wexler sits at the head of the table with his reading glasses perched low on his nose, while Dean Carver occupies the seat beside him like he owns the damn building. Which, considering his role as Team Operations Manager, he practically does.

I lean back in my chair, one ankle hooked over my knee, only half paying attention as another grainy highlight reel flickers across the screen.

“Kid’s got speed,” Wexler mutters, scribbling something onto the file in front of him.

“Terrible defensive awareness,” Dean counters immediately. “He’ll get eaten alive at this level.”

The room hums with various opinions. Scouts argue. Analytics staff pull up numbers. Through all of it, my attentionkeeps drifting to Wren. She’s seated farther down the table with her laptop open, fingers moving quickly across the keyboard as she takes notes for Dean. There’s a small crease between her brows while she concentrates.

Today, she is wearing indigo-framed glasses, which slip slightly down her nose every few minutes before she nudges them back up absently. The corner of my lips tilt upward as I think about how far she has come in the past month. How much better this team is because of her.

She has organized half the internship department, streamlined player travel reports, fixed the scheduling disaster for rink time with the ice skating team, and somehow convinced Wexler to modernize the post-game recovery tracking system after pointing out that three teams with higher player longevity all used the same setup.

Not that Dean gives her credit for any of it. The asshole seems physically incapable of acknowledging her competence, going so far as to take any opportunity to shoot her down, even when she notices something others have missed.

Just last week, one of the admin staff accidentally sent the wrong travel itinerary to half the team before an away game. Flights were double-booked, hotel check-in times were wrong, and two of the rookies had somehow ended up assigned to a room that didn’t even exist. Wren caught the mistake before the team boarded the bus and stayed three hours late helping fix it, reorganizing the entire schedule before anyone higher up even realized there was a problem.

What did Carver have to say about it? “She only caught it because she grew up around NHL operations. Monkey see, monkey do.”

Condescending asshole.

Meanwhile, Wren stood there quietly, swallowing the insultlike it was just another day for her. That pissed me off. Still pisses me off.

On-screen, another rookie takes a hit into the boards before recovering possession.

Wexler grunts. “Thoughts?”

A scout across the table shrugs. “Good hands. Weak under pressure.”

“He folds too easily,” Dean agrees. “We need players with composure.”

Wren’s fingers still over her keyboard. I notice it immediately. That slight pause she gets when she has an opinion but isn’t sure she’s allowed to voice it.

Coach notices too. Ever since she pointed out the flaw in his 1-2-2 play, he’s gained a newfound respect for her. I’ve caught him including her in his game plans and the two of them knocking heads during our last few games.

“You got something to say, Winslow?”

Her head snaps up. Like a deer caught in headlights, she points at herself. “Me?”