She wasn't threatening me. She was telling me the truth and giving me more leeway than my actions deserved.
"Forty-eight hours," she said. "Text me when you make a decision."
The line went dead.
The worst part wasn't that the network didn't understand Pickle. The worst part was that they understood him perfectly. They saw precisely what I saw—the magnetism and the way he filled a frame without trying. The difference was that they didn't care about the rest.
Forty-seven hours and fifty-three minutes.
***
The rink smelled the same as always—cold air, rubber, and the faint chemical bite of the ice. I set up near the boards at center ice, camera on the tripod, and let the lens capture what was there without my hand on the scale.
Pickle emerged from the tunnel with Heath half a step behind him.
He looked different from the way he had when we met in the parking lot behind The Drop. Same messy hair, same bouncing energy—but something in his posture had shifted. He had direction now, and a slight edge.
He hit the ice and his whole body changed.
I'd seen it in the footage, but this was real time—Pickle carving a crossover so clean it appeared effortless, weight transferring through his hips, one movement flowing into the next.
Coach blew his whistle. The team gathered, and I watched Pickle drift to the edge of the group—not outside it, but not demanding the center either. He caught Heath's eye and tilted his head slightly.
Heath nodded. His shoulders dropped half an inch.
I'd seen Pickle do that a dozen times now. The check-in that looked like nothing. He did it so naturally, I doubted he knew he was doing it—the same way he didn't know his hockey IQ was exceptional.
The drill started. Passing sequences. Nothing fancy.
Pickle fed the puck to Jake—tape to tape. Jake one-touched it to Evan. Evan sent it back to Pickle, who'd already moved into the space where the play would develop. He caught it on his backhand and redirected it toward the net.
The shot went wide and clanged off the post.
Pickle laughed.
Not a defensive laugh. This was different. Looser. The laugh of someone who'd missed a shot and knew he'd make the next one.
"Close," Heath called.
"The post said no. I respect its boundaries."
Heath grinned—the kid who'd arrived wound so tight he could barely breathe.
This, I thought.This is what belonging looks like for him.
I thought about the network cut. The water bottle incident slowed for maximum effect. His voice—I want to be the kind of player people remember for the right reasons—spliced against footage of him falling on his face. They'd strip the context away and leave the slapstick, because it was what sold.
My anger arrived without warning.
Not at Naomi. She was doing her job. At myself—for almost letting this happen quietly. For watching Pickle sleep and thinkingI could protect him,when what I really meant was thatI could control the damage without him ever knowing how much danger he was in.
That wasn't protection. That was cowardice with better marketing.
On the ice, Pickle intercepted a pass in a way that shouldn't have been possible. He fed the puck to Heath, who buried it top corner.
I saw Pickle's face when Heath's shot went in. A flash of pride that wasn't about himself at all.
This is the story, I thought.And they'll never tell it.
