Tomorrow there was a game. Adrian would be there, filming. I would be on the ice, doing my job, being the kind of player people remembered for the right reasons.
I turned off the water and stood there, dripping, listening to the pipes settle.
Chapter four
Adrian
The mini-fridge hummed at a frequency designed to irritate. My hotel suite—"suite" being generous for what amounted to a bed, a microwave, and a kitchenette that smelled like the ghost of someone's burnt coffee—had the charm of a waiting room. Beige walls. Industrial carpet. A window that faced the parking lot two floors below.
I set up the way I always did: laptop centered on the desk, hard drives daisy-chained, backup battery charging. The ritual steadied me. When everything else felt like freefall, there was this—the quiet discipline of reviewing what I'd captured and finding the story buried in the raw material.
I'd shoot three days of footage. Maybe five, if the assignment stretched. Enough to cut a tight human-interest piece on Rhett and his packaging innovation, with the hockey boyfriend as local color. Simple. Contained.
I started with the bar footage from last night.
The Drop exploded across my screen, captured on shaky handheld. Bodies packed together. Storm jerseys.
I scrubbed forward.
Jake Riley was kissing Evan Carter like the world was ending. Good shot, but not my story.
Hog crushing Rhett in a bone-cracking embrace. Better. I flagged it.
And then: Pickle.
He careened through the frame like a pinball someone had launched without checking the trajectory first. Arms wide. Mouth open in what was probably a howl. Beer sloshing from a cup as he moved.
I watched him ricochet off three separate people, hug a fourth, nearly knock over a chair, and somehow end up exactly where he meant to be—center of the shot, grinning at someone off-camera with his whole face.
Watchable, I thought, and typed it into my notes.
I kept scrubbing.
I'd caught Pickle trying to put the dog on a barstool. Hog confiscated it, and then Pickle led a chant that made the windows rattle.
Finally: Pickle at the bar, alone for ten seconds, straightening napkin holders with an intensity that didn't match anything else I'd seen him do.
I slowed the playback.
His hands moved precisely—adjusting, aligning, and checking the spacing between each holder like it mattered. Then someone called his name, and he spun away. The moment was over.
I rewound. Watched again. TypedPickle—napkin thinginto my notes.
The practice footage came next.
I'd shot it earlier today—player intros, drills, the usual establishing material. On screen, the team moved cohesively, almost like a choreographed dance I hadn't registered in person. Even the chirping had rhythm—call-and-response.
I flagged more clips.Evan—side-eye masterclass. Jake—stick trick, use for transitions. Hog—intimidation aura, good reaction shots.
And Pickle.
Pickle—falls during intro. Pickle—water bottle incident. Pickle—Zamboni fixation. Pickle—rookie mentorship moment.
I had more footage of him than anyone else.
I told myself it was because he was magnetic on camera. The streaming firm wanted riveting footage, and I was doing my job. He moved through space like someone had forgotten to tell him about gravity. Pickle's kind of physical charisma was rare.
It was all true, but it wasn't the whole truth.
