He was looking at me now. Our eyes met across the ice.
Something passed between us. I felt it all the way down my spine.
He's gonna leave eventually.
Jake's voice. The warning I'd been successfully not thinking about for three periods of hockey.
That's his job.
Adrian's camera was trained on me. His face was unreadable from this distance, but I imagined the expression—a careful stillness that cracked open when he wasn't expecting it.
He shows up, he films the small-town hockey story, and then he goes back to wherever guys like him go back to.
I knew. He was temporary. This was borrowed time. I knew that wanting something didn't make it stay. Joy always had an expiration date, and the smart thing was to protect myself before the leaving started.
I knew all of that.
I chose to ignore it.
Right now, I was happy.
I wasn't going to apologize for that or brace for the crash before I'd finished flying.
The future could wait.
I skated harder into the celebration. Found Jake, Evan, and Hog. Let them pull me into the noise and the chaos and the joy.
Just before I turned away, I looked back at the tunnel.
At Adrian and the camera. I smiled straight into the lens.
See me, the smile said.I dare you.
The shutter clicked. Or maybe I imagined it.
Either way, something had been captured that couldn't be taken back.
Chapter eight
Adrian
Ihad a problem.
I sat in my hotel room at 6 a.m., scrubbing through all of my footage. The Drop erupted in celebration. Jake's arms windmilled. Pickle careened through the frame like a pinball with a death wish. Good footage. Energetic.
I could use some of it, but I needed balance.
There was too much noise. Too much crowd. The Storm played to their audience even when they didn't know they were being filmed—filling the silence before it could get uncomfortable.
I needed something quieter.
The thought had been rolling around in my head since the car. Since Pickle's mouth on mine and the fog on the windows.
I'd seen him. All of him. And now I couldn't unsee the fear under the jokes—not fear of being known, but fear of being dismissed. Of being only the chaos. Of never being taken seriously by someone who got to keep all of him.
I wanted to capture that.
Professional justification,I told myself.Emotional specificity. Controlled environments.
