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“Addie, you'll take it?” Hank looked at me expectantly with his dry-erase marker ready and waiting to scrawl my name next to the piece’s title.
I chewed my bottom lip for a second, trying to choose my words wisely. “I think there are other more important preseason stories that I should be working on,” I urged. “What about that ref piece I was telling you about? No one ever pays attention to the refs, but they’re banking like six figures and traveling all over the country. I’d love to write a profile piece on some of the industry’s big wigs. Maybe that’d inspire kids to dream of becoming refs. Like shoot for the moon, but land among the stars type a deal. Yeah?”
Hank arched an eyebrow at me.
“No?” I asked weakly. I did not want to bring up the fact that writing this story would be a conflict of interest for me. It broke the journalistic code of ethics to write about anyone you had connections with.
“No. I want Jettersen. Top of the fold story as soon as you get it done. You’ve been begging for this kind of exposure formonths,” he said, pinning me with his eyes. “Plus, this Tyler kid hasn’t given anyone an interview yet, not even the Detroit News. You could be the first.”
I sucked in a quick breath of air. “I might have a conflict,” I said in a rush.
He motioned to his ear.
“I know his brother,” I said, feeling my face heat up as everyone in the office stared at me. “I feel like it’s a conflict of interest for me to write it.”
He looked at me skeptically. “You still know the brother? Still in contact?”
“Well, no, but–”
“Write it. Could be a big opportunity for you, Addie,” he said pointedly. “Okay, and onto the sports news pieces for the week, Brandon…”
I stopped listening. I was wide awake now. I took a shaky breath before closing my laptop. I needed to get home to process this new dilemma.
_________
I tossed and turned in my bed all night.
I could’ve blamed it on the fire truck sirens– my new apartment was down the street from the fire station– but that’d be a lie. The truth was that I kept thinking about facing Tyler in the morning.
By 5 a.m. I decided it didn’t matter. I was placing way too much stress on the situation. I tried to reframe the whole thing in my mind. If I told my brain not to treat it like a big deal, then it wouldn’t be. I’d simply write the piece as quickly as I could. It’d be one week of hating a story. That was it. That was nothing. I typically hated every single second I had to sit through a baseball game and every single story I had to write afterwards– and trust me, there were a lot of baseball games this past summer. So, at least I was back on the hockey beat. I’d do whatever I had to in order to keep my role as the lead writer for the Crewmen.
I loved covering Detroit hockey. There was nothing else quite like it. The game day atmosphere was amazing, the fans were amazing, and on top of that, Duke, my brother-in-law, played for the team, which always gave me a bit of an inside scoop before stories were even pitched… But now that Tyler was playing here, I wondered if I’d even enjoy covering the team…
It was my job to be at every single game and analyze the hell out of each play, and I always thought I was pretty good at it. But I needed a clear head to be able to do this. I worried that Tyler’s presence would distract me…
I already skipped the games against Boston. During those weekends, I conveniently traded Brandon hockey for basketball, claiming that we could both use the practice writing on the other sport, which was definitely not true. Both of us could write any kind of game recap with ease. Brandon was practically a walking stats book. He explained to me once that he was sick a lot growing up, so he never got the chance to play sports. Even when he was healthier, he only reached around 5’7 in height and was always on the skinny side. Pairing that with an overprotective mom meant that he never touched a field on his own, which only grew his obsession with sports. He spent his entire childhood just watching and analyzing ESPN, and you could tell after having one conversation with him.
Brandon never questioned me when I wanted to swap sports, but I think he started to notice that these offers always came around when the Boston Badgers were in town.
The real reason, which I never ever admitted aloud, was that Tyler’s brother played for the Badgers…
And I couldn’t handle even knowing that I was in the same building as him.
I was already awake before my alarm sounded in the morning. I sat there watching the morning light stream in from my broken bedroom shades. I added bedroom curtains to my mental list of things that needed tending to. I wasn’t the best with upkeep and homey things, especially when I was in a good work groove. Claire was the one who always cleaned and made things look nice. We were opposites that way– I looked like I had it together, but was kind of a wreck, where she looked like a wreck, but was very organized and tidy. I mean, she was a frickin meal-prepper. I usually completely missed meals by accident and worked until my stomach was angrily growling– something I knew I needed to change. My pantry currently had one box of Cheez-its in it and my fridge housed a single bottle of wine, compliments of Brandon when he heard I’d moved. Yeah, I was definitely going to miss living with Claire.
I pushed out of bed and started getting ready. I knew I’d need some extra time trying to cover the bags under my eyes from not sleeping. I usually just ran a straightener through my hair a bit and put on leggings and a jean jacket when I went to the Crewmen practice facility. The players all knew me by now from pestering them for interviews, and I’d noticed over the past couple years that looking more low-key always put them at ease for said interviews… But for some reason, I felt the need to look extra professional today.
I parted my hair down the middle and went with a sleek, half ponytail look, and I dressed in a plain black, long sleeve t-shirt, a black skirt, some off-black tights, and flat boots.
I quickly threw my laptop in my fake-leather backpack– a steal from Marshalls– and booked it to the Crewmen’s practice at the stadium which was about ten blocks down the road from my apartment.
Despite the slight chill in the September air, I was breaking a sweat as I walked up the concrete steps of the arena.
I flashed my badge to Davey, the old dude manning the arena’s door, and walked in. There were a few people milling about the stadium’s rotunda, so this must’ve been an open practice, meaning the public was allowed to watch.
There was still a little chunk of time before the players were expected out on the ice, so I entered the elevator and made my way down to ice level to try and catch Tyler before he filed onto the ice.
I took a deep breath as I watched the elevator’s electronic numbers go down, making my anxiety go way up.
