Chapter 60 The Termination fee

Chapter 60 The Termination fee

"Don't move your hands," Knox said, his voice dropping into a low, quiet register as he set a small plastic tub of medical ointment onto the coffee table.
We were sitting on the edge of his worn mattress, the small duplex completely quiet except for the steady thud of the heater vents. The bright studio lights of the press room were hours behind us. He had turned on only the small desk lamp in the corner, leaving the rest of the room in soft, warm shadows.
"The stinging stopped an hour ago, Knox," I whispered, though my palms still felt like they were resting against hot glass.
"The blisters are peeling, Lila. If you touch anything without a fresh wrap, it's going to get infected." Knox dropped to one knee on the floorboards right in front of me. He picked up my right wrist with his thick fingers, his grip incredibly light as he used a pair of small scissors to snip away the old, gray-stained gauze from the rink.
I held my breath as the fabric came off. The skin on my palm was a raw, angry pink, covered in small white patches. I tried to pull my hand back, a sudden wave of embarrassment hitting me, but Knox didn't let go. He didn't look grossed out. He just scooped a small dollop of the clear cream onto his fingertips and began to rub it over my skin in slow, light circles.
His hands were huge, his palms rough from the grip of his hockey stick, but his touch against my burns was so gentle it made my chest ache. I watched his face in the dim light—the tight lock of his jaw was completely gone, replaced by a deep, quiet focus.
"Does that hurt?" he asked, looking up through his dark eyelashes. His blue eyes were incredibly wide in the dark room, inches from mine.
"No," I breathed, my heart giving a heavy, uneven thud against my ribs. "It feels cool."
"Good." He didn't look back down at my hand. He kept his eyes locked onto mine, his thumb tracing a slow line down the inside of my wrist, right over my racing pulse. The heat coming off his skin was entirely different from the basement fire—it was steady, grounding, and completely real.
For three months, we had shared fake handholds in front of bleachers full of people, but sitting here in the dark apartment, with no cameras and no crowds, the distance between us felt entirely gone. He leaned forward a fraction of an inch, his quick, warm breath brushing against my lips.
"Lila," he murmured, his voice a rough scrape.
"Knox," I whispered.
He didn't wait. He set my hand down carefully on his knee and reached up, his palms framing my jaw as his mouth found mine. The kiss wasn't fast or frantic like the one at the registry desk. It was deep, slow, and quiet, his lips warm and steady against mine as he pulled me entirely off the mattress and into his lap. My wrapped arms went around his neck, my fingers digging into the thick cotton of his hoodie as the last of the outside world completely disappeared.
A sharp, violent knock on the glass window pane broke the room's silence.
Knox froze, his lips still resting against my jaw. His body went rigid as iron bands under my hands, his head snapping toward the dark glass that looked out over the woods.
"Knox! Open the door!" Miller’s voice shouted through the glass, followed by another heavy thud against the wood. "The league compliance officers just pulled into the varsity lot. They're seizing the team rosters."
Knox let out a rough curse against my skin. He set me back onto the mattress, stood up in a single motion, and grabbed his jacket off the kitchen counter. The soft look in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by that same cold, dangerous focus he had carried all week.
"Stay inside, Lila," Knox said, his hand already on the deadbolt. "Miller wouldn't come out here unless the board was trying to reverse the waiver. I'll be back in twenty minutes."
He broke through the door into the freezing night, slamming it shut behind him.
I sat alone on the edge of the bed, the sudden quiet of the room feeling massive and cold. I looked down at the coffee table, my eyes falling on his phone, which he had left sitting face-up next to the ointment tub.
The screen suddenly lit up with a bright white glare. It wasn't a text from Coach Foley, and it wasn't a league alert.
It was an automated message from a private banking application, showing an active wire transfer confirmation from three hours ago—right before the press conference started.
Transaction Complete: $15,000.00 deposited into account ending in 4022 from: Ryder Estate Legal Fund. Memo: Contract Termination Fee.
My blood turned back to ice. The numbers on the screen blurred together as my throat locked up completely. Account 4022 was my dad's old medical savings account—the one I had used to log the digital files last week.
Knox hadn't torn up the contract. He had just paid it out.
The door clicked open twenty minutes later, a gust of winter wind blowing a spray of snow across the floorboards. Knox stepped in, unzipping his jacket as he shook the ice off his boots.
"The compliance officers were just logging the signatures, Lila," Knox said, not looking at me as he hung his coat on the hook. "Ryder Senior Year is officially cleared. The Friday game is completely locked in. We're done with the lies."
I didn't move from the mattress. I kept my eyes fixed on his phone, my hands clutched tightly against my ribs.
"Why did you send the money, Knox?" I asked, my voice flat and completely empty.
Knox froze by the door, his hand still resting on the light switch. He slowly turned his head to look at me, his face going pale in the yellow glow of the desk lamp.
"Lila," he said quietly.
"You told the reporters the contract was in the trash," I said, standing up from the bed, the raw sting in my palms returning all at once. I pointed my wrapped arm toward the flashing screen on the table. "You told me it wasn't a game anymore. But the second the Dean went down, you wired the termination fee to my dad's account anyway. Was this whole morning just you making sure I didn't ruin your brother's clearance before the segment aired?"
Knox took two steps into the room, his jaw clenching tight. "The lawyers said if the university tried to audit your finances after the arrest, any unsigned agreement would look like blackmail. I transferred the money to protect your father's estate, not to buy you out."
"I don't care about the lawyers, Knox!" I yelled, my voice cracking as a hot tear spilled over my lower lid. "You looked me in the eye and told me we were a couple. You kissed me five minutes ago. Was that part of the legal protection too?"
Knox stopped three feet away from me. He didn't reach out to touch my face this time. His blue eyes went completely dark, his shoulders slumping as he looked down at the floor between us.
"The dean is gone, Lila," Knox whispered, his voice dropping into a tense, heavy rasp that made the room feel freezing cold. "My brother is clear. Your dad's name is clean. There is no reason for you to be in this apartment anymore. If you want to pack your bags and leave, the car keys are on the counter."