CHAPTER TEN
DARIUS
There are three things I should not do with Sienna Voss in my passenger seat: talk about my knee, talk about my family, or notice how the rain turns her quiet.
I’m doing a poor job with at least one of them.
The wipers drag hard across the windshield, pushing sheets of rain into silver ribbons that blur Briarwood’s streetlights. The diner disappears behind us, warm windows shrinking in the rearview mirror until the whole place becomes a smear of gold and red against the wet road.
Sienna sits beside me with her bag on her lap, both hands curled around the strap.
No recorder.
No notebook.
No microphone.
Just Sienna, damp hair loosening near her temples, blouse clinging slightly at one shoulder from the run through the storm, eyes fixed on the road ahead as if she is watching a match unfold in the rain.
The car smells like wet grass, coffee, leather, and fries.
That last one is Nathan’s fault. He shoved a foil-wrapped packet through my window before we left and told me Mrs. Hanley would haunt me if I didn’t take them. Sienna has not mentioned that she also has a sandwich wrapped in foil in her bag.
I know because Mrs. Hanley handed it to her with a look that dared her to refuse.
Briarwood wins most negotiations through food and eye contact.
“You didn’t have to drive me back,” Sienna says.
The words are soft enough to almost get lost under the rain.
“Your crew van was full.”
“Scott could have made room.”
“Scott said he would need to remove a tripod and one human limb.”
“He exaggerates.”
“He looked sincere.”
A corner of her mouth moves.
Small.
Private.
I keep my eyes on the road.
Briarwood’s main street passes in streaks. Bakery. Hardware store. Closed flower shop. Old brick bank that has been a coffee place, a tutoring centre, and briefly a candle studio that sold candles shaped like vegetables for reasons nobody has ever explained.
The storm has emptied the sidewalks. Puddles shine at the curbs. The crooked blue-and-gold ribbons on the lampposts slap wetly in the wind.
Sienna turns her head toward the window.
Not filming.
Not taking.
Just looking.
I grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
“You’re doing that thing,” I say.
“What thing?”
“Cataloguing.”
“I’m looking out a window.”
“You’re categorizing while looking.”
She glances over. “That sounds like a professional accusation.”
“It is.”
Her smile flickers and fades into something quieter. “Briarwood feels different in the rain.”
“It feels wetter.”
“Compelling analysis.”
“I save my best work for press conferences.”
She looks back outside. “The town doesn’t seem embarrassed by itself.”
The sentence lands somewhere I am not ready for.
A truck passes in the opposite lane, headlights flooding the windshield. The whole car goes white.
Then dark again.
“No,” I say.
“That’s rare.”
I slow at a yellow light, then stop because the road is slick and Morgan’s voice lives in my head now, apparently. “You spend a lot of time in towns embarrassed by themselves?”
“I spend a lot of time watching places get packaged.” Her fingers move on the bag strap. Once. Twice. “Small towns get framed as quaint or broken. Cities get framed as hard or glamorous. Athletes become heroes or liabilities. Reporters become vultures or truth-tellers.”
“And which one are you?”
She exhales, almost a laugh.
Not quite.
“Depends who you ask.”
The light turns green.
I drive.
For two blocks, neither of us speaks.
Rain fills the silence.
Not awkward.
That is the dangerous part.
I’m used to silence being something to manage. Fill it, steer it, use it, survive it. In interviews, silence is bait. In locker rooms, silence is trouble. In Briarwood, silence means someone is deciding whether to tell you what they have heard about you.
In this car, silence sits between us with its shoes off.
Comfortable.
Uninvited.
Sienna breaks it first. “The Final opponent presses high, right?”
I look at her.
She is still facing forward, but her mouth has settled into that careful reporter line again. Not cold. Focused.
Safe ground.
Tactics.
Thank goodness.
“Yes.”
“How high?”
“Depends on our first pass. If we play square into midfield, they jump the second touch. If we split the centre-backs and pull Colton into the half-space early, we can drag their six out of shape.”
She nods. “So you don’t want to bypass midfield completely.”
“No. Not unless they overload central and leave the wide switch.”
“Because if you go long too early, you give away the ball and invite another wave.”
I glance at her again.
She notices.
“Was that wrong?”
“No.”
“That sounded like surprise.”
“It was adjustment.”
“To what?”
“To the fact that you listen.”
The words leave before I can sand them down.
Sienna goes still beside me.
Not dramatic.
Just one small pause in her hands on the strap.
Then she looks out the windshield. “Occupational hazard.”
“Listening?”
“Being underestimated.”
The road curves past the old gas station. The sign still says repair bay open, even though the repair bay has been closed since I was in high school. Water pours from the roof in steady lines.
I should keep the conversation on soccer.
I really should.
“So,” she says, mercifully returning to the pitch, “if Colton checks early and Nathan holds the timing, where are you?”
I smile despite myself. “You just made half the pundit desk look lazy.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“And?”
“And I drop deeper than people expect. Not to hide. To give the first trapped player an exit. If the press comes from the side, the simple pass back through me opens the switch.”
“You make yourself the safety valve.”
“I make the ball move.”
“Captain answer.”
My smile disappears.
The windshield wipers thump once. Twice.
She turns her head, and I can feel her looking at me.
Not at my knee.
At me.
“That wasn’t for the piece,” she says.
I know.
That is the problem.
Traffic slows ahead where water has pooled near the intersection. Red brake lights smear across the wet asphalt.
I ease the car to a stop.
The movement is ordinary.
My right knee disagrees.
A tight pull runs along the outside of the joint when I shift my foot from gas to brake. Not sharp. Not dramatic. Enough that my fingers flex against the steering wheel.
Sienna looks at the dashboard.
Not at my leg.
I see the choice.
It would be easier if she looked.
Easier to be angry.
Easier to shut the door.
“You don’t have to tell me anything for the piece,” she says.
My jaw tightens.
“But someone on medical needs the full truth.”
The rain ticks against the roof.
A car horn sounds somewhere behind us, impatient and useless.
“Morgan has enough,” I say.
Sienna’s mouth tightens. “That sounded like a captain answer.”
“It was an accurate answer.”
“No. It was a tidy one.”
I look at her.
Mistake.
Her face is half-lit by the dashboard glow, eyes dark in the dim car, hair curling slightly from the rain. There is no camera between us. No red light. No producer in her ear telling her where to press.
That should make me feel safer.
It doesn’t.
“I’m managing it,” I say.
“Are you?”
“Sienna.”
Her name lands in the car differently than Miss Voss.
I hear it.
She hears it too.
Her fingers stop moving on the bag strap.
I face forward before the moment can turn into something with teeth.
The traffic inches ahead.
I follow.
“My knee is old,” I say.
The words sit in the car like something I dropped by accident.
Sienna does not move.
Smart woman.
I keep my eyes on the road. “It’s not an injury story. Not really. Load-sensitive. It flares when minutes stack up or travel gets ugly or I make a poor decision pretending I’m twenty-one.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m emotionally ancient.”
“That tracks.”
A laugh gets out of me.
Small.
Low.
Her gaze flicks to my mouth, then away so fast I almost miss it.
I do not miss it.
My grip tightens again.
“Old issue,” I continue, because talking is now somehow safer than not talking. “Managed for years. Usually predictable. Morgan knows the history. The staff knows enough.”
“Enough.”
“That word is doing a lot of work for you tonight.”
“So is managed for you.”
Fair.
Annoyingly fair.
I turn onto the county road toward Charlotte. Briarwood drops behind us, and the darkness between towns opens wide around the car. Rain blurs the trees. The headlights catch fence posts, wet grass, the occasional mailbox leaning like it has lost interest in standing straight.
Sienna shifts in the seat. The foil-wrapped sandwich crinkles inside her bag.
“Mrs. Hanley will know if you don’t eat that,” I say.
She looks down, caught.
“I was saving it.”
“For what?”
“A private moment of sandwich appreciation.”
“Those are important.”
“Sacred.”
I almost smile again.
She pulls the foil packet out, unwraps one corner, and the smell of warm bread and melted cheese slips into the car.
My stomach immediately betrays me.
Sienna looks at me. “You have fries.”
“Mrs. Hanley gave them to me.”
“That wasn’t the same as eating them.”
“She implied I was legally obligated.”
“Then you should comply.”
I reach for the packet Nathan jammed into the cup holder, but the movement makes my knee pull again. I stop.
Sienna sees it.
This time, she reaches for the fries before I can refuse, unwraps the foil, and sets them in the open console between us.
There is nothing romantic about fries.
There shouldn’t be.
But the quiet care of the motion lands too gently.
Too clearly.
She takes half her sandwich and tears it in two.
I glance at her.
“No,” I say.
“You didn’t eat enough.”
“Briarwood women have corrupted you.”
“Mrs. Hanley looked at me like she could see my future and was disappointed in my protein intake.”
“That sounds like her.”
She holds out the half sandwich.
I stare at it.
Then at her.
“You realize feeding an interview subject is a boundary issue.”
“Then consider it off the record.”
I take the sandwich.
Our fingers brush.
Barely.
Enough.
The car seems to get smaller around the place where our hands almost touched.
I look back at the road too fast.
She does not comment.