I watched him scramble up.
Heath didn't look around to see who'd noticed. He just got his feet under him with fierce efficiency and immediately reset for the next pass. He set his jaw, and something in his posture saidI will do this until I get it right or die trying.
I thought about Pickle crouching beside him during the water break, saying something that made Heath's death-grip on his stick loosen. Pickle had drawn the Coach's fire to give the kid room to breathe.
Another thread, I noted.File it away.
A text message came at 12:47 a.m.
Naomi:Things going okay?
Adrian:Fine. Got footage.
Naomi:And? The hockey gremlin. Is he as good on camera as the bar clips suggested?
Hockey gremlin.
I looked at the phrase, and something twisted in my chest. It was accurate—I'd used similar language in my own notes. Chaos agent. Disaster.
Adrian:He's watchable.
Naomi:Watchable is good. Watchable, we can use.
Adrian:There might be more to him than the comedy angle.
The three dots pulsed for a long time.
Naomi:More how?
Adrian:Still figuring that out.
Naomi:Okay. But Adrian—he's our hook. See if there's depth, but don't lose the funny.
Don't lose the funny.
Naomi was practical. She told me what I already knew: the streamer had paid for a specific product, and that product was Pickle as a punchline.
They hadn't paid for a profile of a talented athlete. They hadn't paid for the story of a player whose brilliance kept getting underestimated.
Adrian:Understood.
Naomi:Get some sleep. You sound like you're overthinking.
Adrian:Working on it.
Naomi:Don't fall in love with your subject, Richter. We've talked about this.
She meant it as a joke. Mostly. The reference was to a conversation we'd had years ago, back when I was recovering from Theo, and she was pretending she didn't know the details.
The problem with documentary, she'd said,is that you have to care enough to see people clearly, but not so much that you lose the shot.
I'd told her I had it under control.
Adrian:Goodnight, Naomi.
I thought about Pickle's face in that three-second clip. The exhaustion. The unguarded softness. I thought about orange Crocs in dirty snow, a broken karaoke microphone, and"It's not what it looks like,"delivered with a grin.
I thought about his hands and his mouth—how he'd looked at me across the ice after Hog walked away—that long, uncertain stare.
