Chapter Fifteen #3
She had treated professionalism as the absence of everything personal. If she could eliminate every acknowledgment, every private glance and every trace of warmth, then she could prove the kiss had not changed her reporting.
But Matvei was not a stranger.
He had not been one before Helsinki.
She knew how he moved after a bad goal, which questions made him defensive and why he answered more carefully in English.
She knew his mother waited for him to call after losses and that his father claimed credit for a career he did not build.
She knew the scar beneath his jaw felt smoother than the skin around it.
Pretending otherwise was not professionalism.
It was another kind of dishonesty.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Tessa admitted.
Some of the anger left his expression.
“Neither.”
“But you’re acting as if we can simply keep going.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m scared.”
The words quieted both of them.
Tessa had not intended to say them.
Matvei’s face changed.
“Of me?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“Of losing everything because I wanted one thing.”
Matvei absorbed that.
His hands remained inside the pockets of his coat. For the first time since the conversation began, he looked less like someone preparing to argue and more like someone who understood that winning the argument would not make the fear disappear.
“You make me mistake before anyone knows,” he said.
Tessa swallowed.
“I’m trying to make sure it doesn’t become one.”
The words landed visibly.
Matvei looked away.
Tessa wanted to take them back. Not because they were entirely untrue, but because they reduced the night to a possible regret when it had been one of the least regrettable decisions she had made in years.
“Matvei.”
He gave a slight shake of his head.
“No.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“You say.”
“I meant the situation. Not you.”
“Same for me.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
He looked at her again.
“Why you choose?”
Tessa understood what he was asking.
Why had she waited outside the arena? Why had she entered the bar, stayed for three drinks and kissed him twice if the risks frightened her this much?
Because she wanted him.
Because for one night, wanting something had seemed simpler than planning for everything that might follow.
“I wasn’t thinking far enough ahead,” she said.
Matvei’s expression closed.
“You think now.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Tessa looked toward the arena exit.
Snow moved beyond the glass doors at the end of the corridor. Matvei would walk through it alone if he declined the team transportation again. Her hotel waited across from his. The old bar stood between them, close enough to turn one drink into three and a careful conversation into a kiss.
She wanted to walk with him.
That was the clearest answer she had.
It was also the one she could not give.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Matvei nodded once.
The movement contained no agreement.
Only acknowledgment.
He stepped around her.
Tessa turned. “Where are you going?”
“Hotel.”
“You’re walking?”
“Yes.”
“It’s icy.”
He glanced toward her boots.
“You are not walking.”
The familiar judgment should have made her smile.
It did not.
“I missed the shuttle.”
Matvei looked toward the exit, then back at her.
For one second, she believed he might ask her to come.
He did not.
“There are taxis,” he said.
The distance in his voice hurt more than it had any right to.
Then he continued down the corridor.
Tessa watched him push through the glass doors and disappear into the falling snow.
She remained where he left her.
The media room behind her was empty. Elaine had already sent a message asking whether the expanded Canada-Sweden story would arrive before Halifax’s morning deadlines. Another notification reminded Tessa that Finland’s availability began early the next day.
Work waited.
Matvei moved past the windows near the end of the corridor, dark coat visible against the white pavement. He turned toward the route they had walked together twice.
Tessa took one step after him.
Then stopped.
She could catch him. He had shortened his stride when they walked together, but alone he would move quickly.
She could call his name before he reached the next corner.
They could walk back without resolving anything, their shoulders close enough that the distance inside the arena became impossible to maintain.
Tessa looked toward the laptop bag at her feet.
She returned to the media room.
The document remained open where she had left it. Canada’s overtime goal waited in the final paragraph, followed by several notes about Sweden’s response and the absence of Viktor’s leadership.
Tessa sat and placed her hands on the keyboard.
Through the windows, Matvei passed beneath the last visible streetlight.
Then he was gone.
She began typing.
The words came slowly.
For months, Tessa had believed the hardest part of covering Matvei would be telling the truth about him when he did not want to hear it.
Now she understood there was another kind of truth she did not know how to write.
Pretending nothing had changed was not the same as remaining professional.
It was only pretending.