“Then we’ll figure it out.”
Something moves across her face. Not the press conference smile. The real one — the one that means something.
“Okay,” she says.
We find a corner.
She tells me about the offer. Documentary series. Full season. Personal angle included — the journalist and the goalie, it writes itself, the network’s words not hers.
I listen.
All of it.
“What do you want to do,” I say.
“I want to write the real story.”
“Which is.”
“The team. The Cup run. The city. The people who built this from nothing.” She holds my eyes. “That’s the story worth telling.”
“And us.”
She doesn’t flinch.
“That’s not the network’s story.”
“What is it.”
“Mine.”
Then, quieter, “Ours. If that’s—yeah.”
I look at her.
She looks back.
“They can have the team,” she says. “The city. The Cup run. They don’t get you that way.”
Something in my chest goes very still.
“That’s a lot to say in four words,” I say.
“Five.”
“Yeah.” I take her hand. “Five.”
She calls her editor from the hall.
I stay close enough to hear but not close enough to crowd her. She’s calm on the phone — professional, direct, the specific Nova Shaw who knows exactly what she’s doing. She declines the personal angle. Takes the team documentary. Hangs up.
Turns around.
I’m already looking at her.
She looks — different. Lighter maybe. Like she put something down.
But she looks good like that too.
