Breeding My Stepsister on the Ice novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: Press Conference

Tate read the email twice.

Then he set the phone face down on the nightstand, very gently, the way he'd set down the scan in his father's office.

"Concealing an injury," he said. "From the club."

"From the club that injected it six times."

"Yeah." He rubbed his face with his good hand. "That's the joke, I guess."

I was still standing between his knees.

He looked up at me.

"You told me to ask you something."

"I did."

"I can't hear the answer tonight, Lainey. Not with that on the screen. I'll make it about this. I'll make it about the money."

"Then ask me tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he said.

I went back to my own bed.

Neither of us slept.

I knew because every time I rolled over, the shape by the window was sitting up.

At eight we walked two blocks to a diner with red booths and a counter full of men in convention lanyards.

Tate ordered pancakes and didn't touch them.

"Is that one scared?" I asked, pointing my fork at his stack.

He looked at it.

"That one knows," he said, and almost smiled.

The TV over the counter was on a Milwaukee sports channel with the sound low.

At nine the picture cut to a podium with the Ironmen logo behind it.

Doug stood at it in a navy suit.

Dunne stood beside him in his white coat, hands folded.

The waitress turned it up without being asked. She'd seen Tate.

"It's with real regret," Doug said, "that we've learned one of our players concealed the extent of an injury from our medical staff."

Tate put his fork down.

"Tate Haverly is a son to me as well as a player," Doug said. "That makes this harder. Not easier."

Then Dunne stepped up.

"Our protocols depend on honest reporting," he said. "When a player sees outside providers without informing us, and withholds those results, we can't protect him."

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