My phone buzzed against my thigh.
I knew it was Juno before I checked. In the same way I knew when a pass was coming before the puck left the stick.
Jake clocked my shift instantly. "What?"
I pulled out the phone. Juno's name.
"It's Juno."
"Answer it," Evan said.
I swiped.
"Hey." My voice came out almost normal. "What's up?"
"Pickle." Her tone was wrong. "I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me."
The cheese puffs turned to concrete in my gut. My grip on the phone was tight enough to ache.
Jake watched with laser focus.
"Okay," I said.
"I've been hearing things. Through my podcast network. Industry gossip. The kind of stuff that filters through when people are excited about a project."
"What kind of project?"
"A documentary. Coming out of Thunder Bay." She cleared her throat. "There's buzz about viral potential. A hockey player they're positioning as—" She paused. "They're calling it meme-ready content. A relatable disaster angle."
There it was again.
Relatable disaster.
Meme-ready.
I realized I'd stopped breathing and made myself inhale.
Jake was on his feet, hovering at the edge of my vision, radiating the kind of protective energy that usually preceded someone getting their teeth rearranged.
"Pickle." Juno's voice softened. "Have you seen the footage they're using?"
"No."
The word came out hollow.
Adrian had filmed me for weeks—at practice, at The Drop, in my apartment with the camera supposedly off—and I never got to see what existed. What he'd captured. What he'd sent.
He told me about the Zamboni and the chair at the Drop.
The armchair no longer felt comfortable. It felt like something I was trapped in.
"Pickle?" Juno's voice cut through. "You still there?"
"Yeah. Sorry. Just—" I laughed in a slightly demented tone. "I'm thinking about every embarrassing thing I've ever done on camera. I once taught Hog's dog to howl along to Bonnie Tyler. That's probably going to be a meme. That's my legacy now."
"I don't know exactly what's happening," Juno said. "Right now, it's whispers, but they are specific enough that I wanted to warn you. I think you need to ask direct questions of the person with the camera."
Adrian. She meant Adrian.
