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Brick threw a towel at the doorway, not hard enough to hit her. “Sandra, go run a press conference somewhere dry.”

“I am literally doing my job,” Sandra said.

“You’re part of payroll,” Brick said. “Different thing.”

Mack was at the far stall peeling tape off one wrist while Kowalski argued with Finn about whether a near-fight in an exhibition game counted as setting a tone. Ryan shut it down with one look and the room obeyed, which was how men like him earned real authority in places like this.

I moved through the room with my camera, capturing the post-game energy: exhaustion, relief, and the unguarded faces of men who had just spent two hours doing something they loved. Brick flexed for every frame. A rookie iced his shoulder with the stoic expression of someone who had been taught not to show pain and was not entirely succeeding.

I worked my way toward the far bench. Evan was there, helmet off, pulling his jersey over his head. His compression shirt was damp, clinging to him in a way that my camera appreciated on a purely compositional level.

He ran a hand through his damp hair, an unconscious gesture that had no business being as distracting as it was, and I lifted my camera automatically.

Did not shoot.

Caught myself.

Sandra materialized at my elbow. I felt her before I saw her: the shift in the air caused by a woman in heels entering your peripheral vision with an expression that was far too knowing for comfort.

“Ohhh,” she said under her breath. Insufferable. “Interesting.”

I snapped my camera up so fast I nearly clipped my own chin. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. Your face said it. Your face has no poker game, Sandra.”

“I was admiring your technique.”

“You were smirking.”

“I smirk with admiration.”

I walked away before I committed an act of violence with a telephoto lens.

Evan caught my eye as I passed his bench. He had seen Sandra’s approach. He had seen my reaction. And he was looking at me with an expression that was not a smirk, because Evan did not smirk, but contained something close. Something curious and entirely too observant.

“You played well,” I said.

Simple. The first warm words I had given him in over a week.

His eyes held mine.

“Thanks.”

I left the room with my camera bag and my dignity mostly intact. I only looked back once, which was one time too many and exactly the right amount.

The media room after eight o’clock had a different moral code.

I kicked off my shoes, pulled one knee up into the chair, and kept culling.

Three hundred and twelve scrimmage frames down to thirty selects by nine a.m. That was the assignment. Clean. Technical. Entirely normal.

Brick yelling through a regroup drill. Delete.

Finn mid-collision with the boards, all elbows and righteous fury. Maybe.

Ryan at the bench, one hand on Finn’s shoulder, steadying him without making a production of it. Flag.