The Off-Ice Agreement

At 6:40 in the morning, I stand in front of my closet and choose a suit the way a general chooses terrain.

Charcoal wool crepe. A skirt that stops exactly at the knee and invites no commentary. The cream silk blouse, the pearl studs my father gave me at eighteen with a card that said Presentable, and the black heels with the red soles that add three inches and subtract any chance of being talked over.

Hair pinned, not a strand left to chance. Lipstick in a shade the counter girl called Verdict.

The woman in the mirror looks like she has never cried in a stairwell.

That's the point.

My phone buzzes on the vanity. One line from my father's assistant: Mr. DuBois will meet you at Apex at 8:45. Do not be early. Do not be late.

In the back of the car, I read the article with my thumb hovering over the screen, as though speed might soften the headline.

Heir and Spare. Seven photos of me at the Heritage lunch, under a line that makes my molars ache: Sources close to DuBois Sports Agency say its golden boy and its crown princess are "more than business partners."

I wasn't laughing in the third photo. I was exhaling.

Pierce has posted it with a heart. Of course he has. Beneath it sits a link to his breakfast-show appearance, and I press play before I can talk myself out of it.

On the screen, Pierce Montgomery lounges on a studio couch in a jacket the exact blue of his eyes. The host asks about his love life.

He glances at the camera with a boyish wince. "Scarlett? She's my favorite distraction."

The audience coos.

I could issue a statement. I could have my own team draft one before we reach the tower. But a denial from me dignifies it, and a denial from me contradicts the agency's own account, which, I discover when I scroll down, shared the article at 6:58 this morning with no comment at all.

An intern, I tell myself. The verified account takes two passwords and a director's sign-off.

I set the phone face down on my knee and watch the city slide by in wet gray panels. There is no one in the car to say any of this to, and I say none of it for eleven blocks.

Apex Athletics keeps its headquarters in a glass tower with a lobby designed to make visitors feel temporary. My father is already standing in it, because he is always already somewhere.

Christian DuBois, sixty-one, Hall of Fame defenseman, founder of the agency that carries his name, still moves like a man expecting a hit from the blind side and planning to return it. He has never raised his voice to me. He doesn't need to.

He simply withdraws, and I spend years trying to earn the temperature back.

"You're pitching the wrong athlete," he says, instead of hello.

"I'm pitching the best forward in the league."

"Montgomery photographs like a promise. Knox photographs like a restraining order." He checks his watch without looking at it. "Apex wants a face for the autumn campaign. I would send Pierce. I am letting you send your project because I would like you to learn what being wrong costs in front of people who matter."

"And if they say no?"

"Then his file goes to Pierce's team, and you spend the winter on the foundation's gala committee choosing centerpieces." He adjusts a cuff that doesn't need it. "Your title is mine to give, Scarlett. I have not forgotten that. I hope you haven't."

"And if they say yes?"

For the first time he almost smiles. "Then you will have bought yourself a very large problem, and I will enjoy watching you carry it."

The boardroom on forty-one overlooks the river. Apex's CEO sits at its center with reading glasses pushed into silver hair and a face that has outlasted three CEOs. I give her eleven slides and no adjectives.

Knox leads the league in goals and in minutes played shorthanded. His fan sentiment, once you strip out the highlight-reel brawls, is warmer than any forward in the conference. I show her the footage everyone else cuts: the nineteen-year-old rookie getting flattened last spring, Liam Knox arriving on the scene before the whistle.

"He's been suspended twice," the CEO says, not unkindly.

"Both times in defense of a teammate. The league didn't dispute either hit he was answering." I click once. "He doesn't get angry at the game. He gets angry when someone smaller is being hurt. We can build a campaign around the difference."

"Or he can hurt someone and we can build a lawsuit around it."

"Then you walk."

"And how exactly do you intend to manage a man like that?"

"Schedule, supervision, and a story. Ninety days of mornings he can't skip: media training, hospital readings, sponsor lunches. Nothing on his calendar goes unaccounted for. Boredom is cheaper than a lawsuit."

I do not mention that the last time I spoke to Liam Knox, I was seventeen and sitting across a disciplinary table from him, telling the truth. "If he refuses, he forfeits the contract himself, and your lawyers can stop reading."

Her glasses come off. She looks at me for a long moment, the way you look at a horse before a bet.

"Ninety days," she says. "No incidents. No suspensions. You manage him personally, I'm told that is the arrangement. One violation and we leave, and so does the money."

"Agreed."

"Good." She almost smiles. "Your father said you'd lose."

I keep my face perfectly still. "My father says a lot of things when he hasn't read the numbers."

On the forty-first floor, in front of two vice presidents and a woman with a tray of untouched pastries, I shake her hand like I was born holding it.

My father is waiting by the elevators.

"Congratulations," he says. He sounds like a man reading a weather report. "He's yours. Entirely. The contract carries your signature as the responsible party. If Knox fails, the loss goes in your column. If he succeeds, the credit goes to the agency." He presses the call button for me, a small courtesy that feels like a door closing. "He will be waiting at your office this afternoon. Try not to enjoy it."

The doors slide shut on his reflection.

In the polished brass, my face is exactly as composed as I trained it to be. A vote of confidence, I tell myself as the floors count down. He gave me exactly what I asked for.

He gave me a leash, and he printed my name on both ends.