"Good." He pulled me back down against his chest and wrapped both arms around me.
His grip stayed firm. His fingertips pressed into my back. His body still held some tension, like he was bracing against something I couldn't see.
I thought about the phone he kept checking. The shadows behind his smile. And now this—how he held on, afraid to let go.
Tomorrow. I'd push tomorrow.
For now, I let Adrian hold me, and I held him back just as tightly.
Whatever you're not telling me, I thought,we can figure it out. Just stay.
Outside, Thunder Bay hummed its midnight hum. The streetlamp flickered once, then held steady.
I fell asleep in Adrian's arms, dreaming of breakaways and bar-down goals and a version of the future where the other shoe never dropped.
Chapter fourteen
Adrian
6:00 a.m. My phone buzzed against the nightstand—not a text this time, but a call. Naomi's name on the screen. She only called directly when she wanted answers before you'd had time to compose them.
Beside me, Pickle was still asleep, one arm flung across my chest, face pressed into the pillow. He made a small sound when I shifted—something between a mumble and a protest—and burrowed closer.
I slipped out from under him carefully, grabbed the phone, and padded barefoot to the kitchen. The linoleum was freezing.
I answered before it could buzz again.
"Adrian." Not a greeting. A statement.
"Naomi."
"Your email. The one where you tried to explain why the network's angle was reductive." A pause. "The network reviewed your full footage library overnight. All of it."
I braced myself.
"They love him."
The word love landed without joy. It signaled viral potential. Engagement metrics. Shareability. Pickle reduced to his loudest, messiest moments—a highlight reel of pratfalls with the humanity edited out.
"What they're seeing is selective," I said. "He's more than—"
"I know what he is. I've watched the footage too. The mentorship stuff. The hockey IQ." She exhaled. "It's compelling work, Adrian. It's also not what they paid for."
"Then they paid for the wrong story."
"They paid for a story. You're the one who thinks it should be a different one."
She was right. I'd known the assignment from the beginning, and somewhere between the parking lot and the fogged windows of a rental car, I'd started filming a documentary the network never wanted.
"You're compromised," Naomi said. It was a diagnosis, not an accusation. "I can hear it in your voice. You're not thinking like a documentary filmmaker anymore. You're thinking like someone with a personal investment."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to deliver something usable. Forty-eight hours. Loud. Chaotic. The angle they're asking for." Her voice didn't waver. "Or I pull you and send someone who'll get what we need without the complications."
"And if I can't?"
"Then you lose any leverage you might have had over the final cut. Someone else steps in, and they won't care about context. They'll take what's there and build the version that sells."
