The roar hits him like a body check.

“JAMES! JAMES! CORRIGAN!”

The chant stacks and swells, voices overlapping until it becomes a single, pounding thing. Fluorescent lights hum above the lower concourse of Republic Bank Arena, bleaching the concrete to a harsh, unforgiving white. His head throbs. He shouldn’t have walked this way. Should’ve taken the tunnel—garage to locker room, clean and quiet.

But his agent’s voice had been relentless. Engage with the fans. You’re the face of the franchise. Build the brand.

So here he is.

Navy Wranglers quarter-zip. Designer jeans. Fresh fade. Expensive cologne. James Corrigan, assembled. The smile slides into place—polished, practiced, familiar. Camera flashes crack like fireworks. Posters and jerseys surge toward him, Sharpies already uncapped. Someone shrieks his name with devotional intensity. A phone is shoved inches from his face, red recording light blinking.

He signs. Nods. Holds eye contact just long enough to seem real.

It feels like watching himself through frosted glass.

There was a time this filled him up. When the noise was fuel, the attention a drug. Nineteen, first overall, thinking he’d never get used to it—thinking it would always feel electric.

That was eight years ago.

Now he’s twenty-seven, and hockey feels less like a calling and more like a job with golden handcuffs. The burnout didn’t arrive all at once. It crept. A missed morning skate here. A hollow goal celebration there. Maybe it started in Dallas. Maybe earlier. He can’t remember when the color drained out—only that one day he noticed it was gone.

To Dallas, he’s a traitor. To Houston, he’s a savior. The Texas Showdown guarantees the boos follow him everywhere. Fresh start, they said. Clean slate.

Coach has already pulled him aside twice this week. Get your shit together. Not unkind. Accurate. Ben tried the gentler version—You good, man?—which somehow cut deeper. Ben’s known him since they were kids, grinding through the USNTDP, daring to believe the NHL might open its doors.

They made it.

James can’t remember why that mattered.

On paper, he’s thriving. Career-best numbers. Ninety-point pace. Leading the team in assists. Skating like the guy everyone expects him to be.

Inside, he’s drowning.

The league keeps getting younger. Faster. Lukas is nineteen and fearless, all sharp edges and hunger. There’s always another kid. Always someone who still believes hockey is magic, who hasn’t learned it’s also a machine that devours you the second you slow down.

His agent keeps floating the idea—sports psych, confidential, routine—but James can’t shake the superstition that asking for help is the same as admitting he’s broken. And broken players don’t get max contracts.

He’s so deep in his head that he doesn’t notice he’s stopped moving.

The noise dulls, as if someone’s turned the volume knob down. His vision narrows. That familiar dissociation creeps in—the sense that he’s watching himself from a few feet away, frozen mid-scene.

Not here. Fuck. No.

Then—pressure. A hand on his forearm. Small. Steady.

He blinks.

It’s a woman—early twenties—clutching printouts with his badly Photoshopped face. A custom navy shirt drapes her arm, embroidered text he can’t read.

But he knows that shirt style. He’s seen it in screenshots from the team’s social media monitoring briefings. The account handle flashes in his mind: @CorriganCorner, huge following for a niche hockey stan page, obsessive edits that turn every goal clip into a cinematic love story, slow-mo montages of him and Ben on the ice set to dramatic soundtracks, shipping threads that make PR twitch and security flag her as “high engagement, non-threatening but intense.” The girl who defends his every slump like it’s personal, who probably has a folder of meta-analysis on why his forehand pass has lost its snap this season.

And now she’s standing three feet away, not screaming, not filming, not asking for a selfie or a follow-back. No hearts in her eyes in the hysterical way. Just… concerned.

“Are you okay?” she asks.