Chapter Fifteen #2
She also watched him lift his mask during a stoppage and drink from the bottle resting on top of the net.
She watched his hair fall across his forehead before he pushed the mask back down.
She watched him speak to one of the defensemen after a missed coverage and briefly place one glove against the player’s shoulder.
Those details did not enter her notes.
Russia took its first lead with three minutes remaining.
A shot from the blue line changed direction in front and slipped beneath the American goaltender. The Russian bench erupted. Players struck sticks against the boards while the scorer disappeared beneath his teammates near the corner.
Matvei remained in his crease.
His head lifted toward the scoreboard.
Then, for the briefest moment, toward the press box.
Tessa told herself he could not see her from the ice.
The United States pulled its goaltender. Matvei stopped one final shot through traffic and held it until the whistle.
Russia won 3-2.
Tessa sent a breaking update to Elaine, rewrote the top of the game story and closed the laptop with less than two minutes before the mixed zones opened.
She walked to Russia’s side of the arena with the other English-language reporters.
Matvei answered in Russian first.
He sounded lighter after a win, though not as open as he had during the first availability. Tessa understood none of the words but heard enough of the rhythm to recognize when he made a joke.
The group laughed.
Matvei did not look toward her.
When the English questions began, reporters asked about the late goal, the United States’ pressure and whether Russia had begun finding its identity after two wins.
Tessa waited until the questions narrowed toward his performance.
“You seemed to stay deeper on several of their cross-ice entries,” she said. “Was that connected to how long their forwards held the puck before passing?”
Matvei’s eyes met hers.
“Yes.”
“Was the adjustment something you planned going in, or something you made after the first period?”
“Planned.”
The answer ended there.
She could have asked a follow-up.
She did not.
Tessa thanked him and moved away.
The exchange had been clean. Professional. Entirely appropriate.
She felt worse after it than she had before.
Tessa remained at the arena after most of the other reporters left.
Elaine wanted the Canada-Sweden story expanded for the morning edition and a second piece on Russia’s position in the standings. Tessa returned to the media room, transcribed the remaining quotes and began working through a calculation involving regulation wins and goal differential.
The tournament’s tiebreaking procedure appeared designed by someone who resented clarity.
She had been staring at the same paragraph for nearly five minutes when she glanced at the shuttle schedule taped beside the door.
The final departure was at eight-ten.
“I’ll make it.”
She returned to the story.
The media room emptied around her. Cleaning staff moved through the rows outside the glass. Tournament volunteers gathered abandoned credential guides and empty coffee cups from the desks.
Tessa finished the Russia piece at eight-six.
She sent it to Elaine, closed the laptop and shoved it into the bag without waiting for confirmation.
The corridor outside the media room was nearly empty.
Tessa hurried toward the shuttle exit.
Matvei stood near the intersection leading to the team areas.
She stopped.
He wore his winter coat over the Russian tracksuit, one hand inside a pocket and the other holding his phone. No teammates or staff members stood nearby.
For a second, Tessa wondered whether he had been waiting.
Then she rejected the assumption as arrogant.
Matvei looked at her laptop bag.
“You finish?”
“Yes.”
“You make bus?”
“I’m about to.”
He glanced toward the exit.
The silence stretched.
Tessa adjusted the strap on her shoulder.
“Good game.”
“You write?”
“Yes.”
“Good?”
“The story?”
He nodded.
“I think so.”
Matvei slipped the phone into his coat pocket.
“You are angry.”
Tessa blinked. “What?”
“You are angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Then why you act like first day?”
The question arrived without accusation, which made it more difficult to dismiss.
“I don’t.”
“Yes.”
“I asked you questions.”
“Like first day.”
“I did not ask what you worked on during the summer.”
“You know what I mean.”
Tessa looked toward the exit. The shuttle would leave in less than three minutes.
“This is not the place.”
“Nobody here.”
“That does not make it the place.”
Matvei’s jaw tightened.
“You do not look at me.”
“I looked at you.”
“Once.”
“I was covering another game.”
“You leave when I answer.”
“That’s usually what reporters do when an interview is over.”
“You did not before.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Tessa had spent the entire day trying to prove she could restore the boundaries that existed before the bar.
Matvei had noticed every effort.
“I’m trying to do my job,” she said.
“You did job before.”
“Before was different.”
“Why?”
She stared at him.
Matvei held her gaze.
He would not allow her to hide the answer inside general statements about professionalism.
“Because Christmas can’t come into the rink,” she said.
“I did not bring it.”
“You looked at me.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Tessa heard how unreasonable they sounded.
Matvei’s expression changed.
“I look at you every day.”
Her breath stopped.
He said it simply. Not as a confession or an attempt to make the moment romantic. As though it were an obvious fact she had somehow failed to notice.
Tessa thought of morning skates, locker-room scrums and the press box windows. The small acknowledgments that began long before Helsinki. The way he noticed when she was late, when she missed practice and when her recorder was absent.
The kiss had not created his attention.
It had only given it another meaning.
“That is exactly the problem,” she said.
Matvei’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because now I notice.”
“You notice before.”
“Not like this.”
He looked away briefly, toward the corridor leading to the arena doors.
Tessa heard the distant sound of a vehicle pulling away outside.
The shuttle.
She had missed it.
Again.
The recognition barely registered.
“I need to know I can still do this,” she said.
“You do.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You write game.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“Then say.”
Tessa drew in a slow breath.
“I need to know I can ask you a question without thinking about kissing you.”
Matvei’s attention returned to her immediately.
The honesty left nowhere to retreat.
His voice lowered.
“You think about?”
“That is not the part you were supposed to focus on.”
“But you do.”
Tessa looked toward the floor.
“Yes.”
The word felt reckless inside the arena corridor.
Matvei stepped closer.
Not enough to touch her. Enough that she became aware of how easily he could.
Tessa stayed where she was.
“I think too,” he said.
Her pulse shifted.
“That doesn’t help.”
“I do not try help.”
A laugh almost escaped her.
She stopped it.
“This is serious.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Matvei’s expression hardened. “You say this always.”
“Because you keep acting as if wanting something is enough.”
“It is reason.”
“It is not a solution.”
“I do not ask solution today.”
“You waited for me in the hallway.”
“You wait for me yesterday.”
Tessa felt the comparison strike.
“That was Christmas.”
“It is one day.”
“It was one night.”
“No.”
The certainty in the word frightened her.
“What do you mean, no?”
“It is not one night.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You kiss me.”
“I know.”
“Twice.”
“I remember.”
“You wait outside rink before. You come bar. You kiss again.”
Each statement stripped another layer from the explanation she had built around the night. Circumstance, holiday, cold and drinks had played a role.
None had forced her to do anything.
“You decided too,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And you don’t have the same consequences.”
Matvei became still.
The ethics conversation from the bar returned between them.
Tessa lowered her voice further.
“You go back to Halifax and play hockey. Maybe people question your judgment if they find out, but you keep your job. I could lose the beat.”
“I know.”
“No. You heard me say it. That is not the same as understanding what it means.”
His jaw shifted.
“Then tell again.”
“I spent years trying to get that job. I spent training camp proving I deserved it. Every day, I sit in Frank’s chair knowing half the city still compares everything I write to him.
” Her voice tightened despite the effort to keep it controlled.
“If this becomes something and anyone finds out, none of that matters anymore. I become the reporter who got involved with a player she covered.”
“You are more.”
“I know that. You know that. They won’t.”
Matvei looked toward the empty media room behind her.
“You think I make you less?”
“No.”
“Then why act like?”
“Because I need to protect what I built.”
“From me.”
“From the situation.”
“Same.”
“It isn’t.”
“For me, yes.”
The hurt beneath the words made Tessa pause.
She had expected anger. Resistance. Perhaps the usual impatience when a problem could not be solved through will.
She had not expected him to take the distance personally.
“I am not rejecting you,” she said.
“You act like first day.”
“I’m acting like your reporter.”
“You were reporter yesterday.”
“Yesterday I kissed you.”
“Yes.”
“That is why today had to be different.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed proof I could still enter this building and do my job.”
Matvei looked at her for a long moment.
“You ask if I am angry after Montreal,” he said.
The reference caught her off guard.
“That was different.”
“You say truth is not betrayal.”
“It isn’t.”
“You pretend I am stranger. That is truth?”
Tessa had no immediate answer.
The question reached exactly where she had not wanted to look.