Page 18 of Home of the Brave

“Sure.” I waited until they passed before sliding in and pressing the button for my floor.

“I’m serious,” Hartman glowered. “We’re talking about this, or I’m bringing it up with Abrams.”

I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. Of course, that was his go-to threat.

“Fine, Dad!” I called as the doors slammed shut.

5

VICTORIA

“That was weird,” Miles whispered as the Utah players strode away.

“Really?” I tried to sound nonplussed, but doubted I’d pulled it off. “They answered all the questions.”

“Hartman and Schultz did. It was like Henson flipped a switch or something. He’s usually pretty quiet, but he’s never been rude.”

“How do you know?” I asked, surprised.

“I did my research before I got here,” he eyed me.

“Well, I didn’t notice.” A flat-out lie. It took all my self-control not to demand an explanation for his blatant rudeness. This wasn’t our first-time meeting. I’d interviewed him during the Olympics—hadn’t I?

I stopped and pulled out my phone, scrolling through my notes from that time period, before stopping and searching for his name.

Nothing.

How had I forgotten him? Or had he avoided me?

My focus had been on the women's team, but I could have sworn I interviewed all the men. Especially their starting goalie.

But now that I was thinking about it, I hadn’t even seen him there. Hartman had been around, but Henson seemed to have managed to avoid me.

Why?

I wished my friend Darcy was here, but she didn’t get this assignment. She was put on World Cup duty, so I couldn’t turn to her and lament about how poorly this was going.

I was on my own and needed to turn things around.

“Let's work on a game plan for tomorrow through the week.” I hoped he wouldn’t press and go along with my topic change.

He put his camera away as I opened my folder and slid out a paper with the teams’ schedules. “Practices start tomorrow, but we should be able to squeeze in a few short clips in passing.”

“Do you have questions ready for those, or are we trying to get clickbait videos?”

I cringed, wishing we could forget about that entirely. “I have questions prepared for the players.”

“Sounds good.”

He twisted, adjusting items in his camera bag, while I watched the entrance for other players.

“Do you want to go grab dinner?”

It was the norm for when working on assignments, especially longer ones, to eat meals together when we had time, and I didn’t have much work to catch up on, so holing up in my hotel room when it wasn’t even seven would make for a long night.

“Yeah, do you know of any places around here?”

“There’s a pretty good pizza spot just up the road. We can head up to our rooms and drop off our stuff, then walk over.”