“It was inevitable,” I say.
We get everything we need in five minutes. Deacon hoisting Savannah in his arms near the glass, Claudia looking at them like the world might be okay for once, Paul clapping from the tunnel, grumpy and proud.
I’m about to call it when the in-house media coordinator, a harried man with a headset, touches my arm.
“Ms. Fairfax?” he asks. “Our postgame player for the charity spot had to hit treatment early. You want Kilovac?”
I open my mouth to say absolutely not, but instead hear myself say, “Yes.”
Of course.
“Great,” the coordinator says, relieved. “You’ve got two minutes. We’ll feed it to the jumbotron and save a clean file for your people to pull.”
My people. Right.
Noelle gives me a look. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” I say. “Gotta go.”
Aleks appears a moment later, helmet off, hair damp, face still flushed from the fight and the game. He’s in a half-undone jersey, pads visible, one hand taped. There’s a smear of blood on his knuckles and a bruise already blooming along his jaw.
He sees me, and something flashes in his eyes. Recognition. Amusement. Annoyance.
“Of course it’s you,” he says under his breath as he steps into the taped-off interview spot.
“Try to sound less thrilled,” I reply, plastering on my professional smile as the red light on the camera blinks on.
“Fairfax Media with Bears defenseman Aleksandr Kilovac,” I say smoothly, mic steady, posture broadcast perfect. “Aleks, walk us through that win. What clicked for you guys out there?”
He stares at me for a beat too long. Not blank. Assessing. Then he looks straight into the camera.
“We decided we were done letting them fuck around.”
In my head, I’m already dragging the bleep over the word like it’s a crime scene tarp.
We decided we were done letting them screw around.
“Language,” I whisper-hiss, just for him, smile still locked in place. “Family feed.”
He shrugs, unapologetic. “They’ve been chirping all week. All season, really. Rivalry games don’t need speeches. They need answers.”
Okay. Not worse. Not better. Moving on before he digs in further.
“So, you felt this one differently?” I ask. “Because it looked intense from puck drop.”
He nods once. “We won the rivalry tonight. Flat out. You win in our barn, you own it. They came in loud, left quiet. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
That is absolutely a headline.
“Second period got heated,” I say. “That exchange after Deacon was clipped. Walk us through what happened there.”
His jaw tightens like someone flipped a switch. “They ran our goalie. That’s not hockey. That’s dickless desperation.”
Another edit… “And your response?”
He looks at me again. This time, there’s something almost amused in his eyes. Dangerous, but amused. “I corrected the situation. You touch Moretti, you answer to me. That’s not emotion. That’s policy.”
The way he says policy like it’s written in blood does something deeply inconvenient to my pulse. I keep my face neutral. Broadcast neutral. Ice cold. “So, no regrets?”
