Colder.
"Okay," he said. "Now, show me the rest. Show me everything."
Not a request. An inventory demand.
"Emails. Notes. Whatever they asked for." Pickle stood from the bed in one smooth motion—no bounce or fidget, efficient transfer of weight. "What you gave them."
His tone was calm. Administrative.
I'd heard Pickle loud. Heard him manic, heard him spiraling, and heard him fill every silence with jokes. I'd heard him whisper against my neck at 3 a.m. and shout across a rink and laugh until he couldn't breathe.
I'd never heard him like this. This was who he was in a hockey game. The man who read plays before they happened and noticed when a rookie was drowning before anyone else saw the surface ripple.
I crossed to the desk. Opened the laptop. The login screen glowed, and my fingers moved through the password automatically.
The desktop loaded. Folder grid. Color-coded organization.
I stepped back.
"It's yours," I said.
Pickle took the chair.
He didn't hesitate. His fingers moved across the trackpad with the same quick precision I'd watched on the ice—no second-guessing and no wasted motion.
I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed.
Not close. Half the mattress between us—enough space that we weren't touching. The distance felt vast. Two days ago, he would have climbed into my lap without asking. Now six feet of beige carpet stretched between us like a border I didn't have papers to cross.
I was used to being behind the screen. Used to narrating what someone else was seeing. Used to being the one who decided what mattered, what got cut, and what version of the truth made it into the frame.
Now I sat on a hotel bed, watching someone else use my tools.
Pickle found the email folder without asking for directions. NETWORK. He clicked it open.
Two weeks of correspondence. Subject lines appeared and disappeared as he scrolled backward through the timeline of my choices.
He didn't look at me.
He read.
The earliest emails looked almost benign.
Looking for more personality beats—anything that shows who he really is off the ice.
Great energy in the bar footage. Can we get more candid moments like this?
I remembered receiving those requests. Remembered thinkingthis is normal. Networks always wanted personality. Human interest.
I hadn't seen the trap being laid.
Or maybe I had, and I'd told myself I could navigate around it.
Pickle scrolled forward. The dates ticked upward. The language shifted.
The water bottle clip alone could carry the whole segment. Viral potential is significant.
Meme-able. That's the word marketing used. They're very excited.
