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“I approved the statement. We couldn’t get a better reporter on this.” Somebody knocked on whatever door he was behind, and he ignored it. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then go run your afternoon.”

I laughed. “Text me when you’re done there.”

The text came eighteen minutes later.

Trier: Room’s told. It took four sentences. Varga has questions. None of them require a professional response.

Mark: How many questions?

Trier: He’s writing them down so he doesn’t lose his place. First question: can you get him on the Peaches list?

Mark: Tell him I don’t have that kind of authority.

Trier: Also, I called Russ. He knows. Kelsey wants a full scouting report on you. I told her she’ll have to wait for film.

I sent Leah the go-ahead. At twelve twenty, she was in my office in my visitor’s chair going over a four o’clock radio request when Trier stopped in my doorway.

He’d come straight from the shower. His hair was still damp and pushed back, darker at the temples where the gray showed, and he had his duffel over one shoulder. He wore a sweater I hadn’t seen before, deep green, sleeves shoved to the elbow.

“Leah,” he said.

“Trier.”

He looked at me. “Everything in place?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He walked around the desk and stopped beside my chair. I tipped my head back to look at him. He was examining my jacket. He picked a single orange hair off my shoulder and held it up to the light. It was a good three inches long.

“Lint roller’s by the door,” he said. “I warned you.”

He let the hair go into my wastebasket. Before leaving, he let his hand rest on my shoulder, the weight of it warm through the jacket, there for one second and then gone.

Leah started to stand. “I can give you privacy.”

“No need,” Trier said. “I was passing by.”

He tapped the doorframe once with his knuckles on the way out. I listened to his footsteps until the stairwell door closed behind him.

***

Deckert’s story played it as straight as his email. The headline said the Ironhawks’ PR director and veteran defenseman Trier were in a relationship. He said the team had confirmed the story, describing the oversight arrangement in one paragraph with Carla’s title attached.

My phone buzzed.

Leah: Radio’s confirmed for four. They also want someone to talk about the start of the season.

Mark: Send them Cross. He can cover anything in two sentences.

I’d pulled the monitoring feed onto my second screen after the story posted, the way I would for any announcement. Most of the comments were ordinary: congratulations, hearts, and a long thread arguing about whether our four-and-one record in October meant anything. A response said Rook’s last year and we’re actually good, don’t you dare jinx this.

It wasn’t all positive. One comment called it the sequel nobody asked for and one said the director had finally run out of players to pair off and cast himself.