“Give me one normal clip,” she says, camera aimed at Anthony.
Anthony immediately points at me. “Max Stevens emotionally imprinted on the compliance officer like a rescue dog.”
“Perfect,” Talia says.
I flip him off.
“Great energy,” she says.
Lucas appears out of nowhere. Too fast to be casual. “You need help with that?” he asks her.
Talia blinks at the camera in her hand. “With … holding a camera?”
“Looks heavy.”
“It weighs three pounds.”
“Still.”
I stop walking. So does Fuze beside me. We both watch Lucas McKenna, who once played an entire playoff game witha dislocated finger and called an ambulance “dramatic,” offer assistance for a camera roughly equivalent to a large sandwich.
“Oh my God,” Fuze whispers.
Lucas ignores us completely. “You get enough footage downstairs?”
Talia narrows her eyes slightly like she already suspects nonsense. “Are you trying to flirt with me?”
“No.” A beat. “Maybe a little.”
She cracks up. Actual laughter. Lucas visibly straightens like someone plugged him into a power source. Fuze looks at me. “HE’S GONE.”
“Looks like it,” I agree.
Lucas points toward the elevator. “I can show you where the players enter tomorrow. Better angles.”
Talia studies him for a second too long. “You’re extremely confident for a man who voluntarily wears suits from 2009.”
Anthony chokes somewhere behind me. Lucas looks delighted. “So that’s a yes?”
“She insulted your wardrobe,” I say.
“Which means she noticed it,” Lucas says instantly.
Fuze grabs my shoulder. “Oh he’s DOWN BAD.”
Lucas finally turns toward us. “Do either of you have lives?”
“No,” Fuze says. “This is our hobby now.”
Talia lowers the camera slowly. “Is the entire team like this?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Worse,” Fuze corrects.
And across the lobby, Toni walks in just in time to catch me laughing hard enough I have to brace a hand against the luggagecart. Her eyes narrow immediately. She suspects something. She's not wrong.
The hotel restaurant buffet is an active crime scene. That’s my first thought walking in. Not because anything is technically wrong. Everything is polished and expensive and aggressively upscale in the way business hotels become when charging twenty-eight dollars for scrambled eggs. But the Guardians have occupied approximately half the restaurant, and professional hockey players apparently approach breakfast with the tactical intensity of military operations.
