We pull up to a stoplight, and the laughter I expected never quite comes. Nora's looking at me, and I'm looking at her, and Harper's babbling in the backseat, completely oblivious.
"Why did you do it?" I ask quietly. "Really. You could've gotten hurt. Banned from the arena. Made things worse for me."
"Because you matter." Her voice is fierce, protective. "You matter to me. And to Harper. A lot."
My chest tightens. "How much?"
"So much it scares me." She reaches across the console, and our hands link automatically. "So much that watching you hurt makes me hurt."
I stare at our joined hands—her small pale fingers threaded through my larger tanned ones, the silver bracelet I gave her catching the dashboard light, and the casual intimacy of it.
We agreed to keep this quiet. To be together in private butmaintain distance publicly. To protect Harper by keeping things professional.
And she just threw all of that out the window to defend me.
"Red—"
"I know." She squeezes my hand. "I know we're supposed to be careful. But Tyler, I can't watch someone hurt you and not do anything."
The light turns green, and I have to let go of her hand to drive, but the phantom feeling of her fingers in mine stays with me the rest of the way home.
Harper's fussy when we get inside, teething and cranky, and we fall into our usual routine. Nora handles Harper while I shower, trying to wash away the practice, the confrontation, and the lingering adrenaline.
When I come downstairs, Nora's got Harper in the high chair, and she's made dinner like nothing happened. Like she didn't just walk into a professional hockey arena and slap my captain.
My phone has been buzzing since we got home. I'd put it face-down on the counter when I came in. I look at it now.
Twenty-three missed calls. Forty-something texts. The team's PR person. My agent. A reporter from the Athletic. Danny. Liam. Emma.
"Tyler?" Nora is watching me. "How bad is it?"
"It's out." I scroll through, my stomach sinking with each notification. "Someone leaked it. The Falcons captain was slapped at practice by a player's nanny. There’s no name. But there's a photo from the parking lot of you walking out with Harper."
She closes her eyes.
"Right," she says. Quiet. "Okay. So that happened."
"I'm calling my agent."
"Eat first."
"I can't?—"
"Eat. The damage is done. Five more minutes won't change it."
She's right. We sit at the kitchen table, Harper between us inher high chair, and force ourselves through pasta and garlic bread that neither of us tastes. Nora's quiet. I can see her recalibrating, working out what this means, what she'll have to absorb.
I call my agent at eight, after Harper's gone down. He's somewhere between furious and impressed, and doesn't try to hide either. He spends fifteen minutes telling me what Puck Daily is going to do tomorrow, what the team's PR person will want from me, and what statements to make and not make. Don't apologize for her. Don't disavow her. Don't say a single thing on social media. Don't talk to a reporter unless I clear it. We'll get ahead of this.
I tell him she's not my nanny, technically, she's my girlfriend, we've just been keeping quiet about it.
There's silence on the phone.
"Jesus Christ, Tyler."
"Yeah."
"How long?"