Chapter Twenty
Nina threatened to come to Tessa’s apartment and remove the door from its hinges if they did not have lunch before the end of the day.
The message arrived shortly after eight in the morning the day following the press conference, when Tessa was standing in the middle of her bedroom trying to decide whether unpacking counted as work.
Her suitcase remained open on the floor.
Half of Helsinki had spilled across the carpet around it.
Charging adapters, receipts, tournament credentials and a scarf that still carried the faint smell of the old bar lay tangled between clothes she had separated into piles without any clear organizing principle.
Matvei’s watch rested on the dresser beside her keys.
Tessa had looked at it three times since returning home.
She had not put it somewhere safer.
Nina’s first message read:
Lunch. Today.
The second arrived less than a minute later.
You sent me “I kissed him” and refused my call without providing one detail.
Tessa stared at the screen.
Then:
Noon. I am choosing the place because you have lost basic friendship privileges.
Tessa smiled despite the exhaustion still sitting behind her eyes.
Tessa: I technically have four days off and planned to spend all of them unconscious.
Nina: You can sleep after you tell me everything.
Tessa: That could take a while.
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
Nina: OH MY GOD.
Tessa covered her face with one hand.
She should have chosen different wording.
The phone rang.
Tessa declined it.
Tessa: Noon. Stop calling.
Tessa put the phone down.
She looked toward the suitcase again.
Unpacking could wait.
That seemed to be the rule for everything in her apartment.
Laundry waited until she ran out of socks.
Dishes waited until the coffee residue hardened against ceramic.
Mail waited in a pile near the entrance until something important became overdue.
Tessa had spent years treating her home as the place between assignments, somewhere to sleep, charge equipment and replace the clothes in her bag before leaving again.
The Helsinki hotel room had not looked much different by the end.
Notebooks across the desk. Coffee cups. Clothes on the chair.
Matvei in her bed.
Tessa picked up his watch.
It was heavier than she expected, metal cool against her palm. The face was simple and expensive-looking without displaying a brand she recognized. A faint scratch crossed one side of the band.
He had said he would come get it.
They had exchanged several messages since.
Nothing substantial.
He told her when he landed. She told him about the expansion announcement.
He told her to sleep. She told him he was bossy.
The messages stayed carefully inside the boundaries they had established, though Tessa had begun to understand how much could exist beneath a sentence that appeared harmless to anyone else.
She put the watch back on the dresser.
Then she climbed back into bed and slept until Nina called at eleven-fifteen to make sure she was awake.
Nina chose a restaurant far enough from Atlantic Centre that Tessa was unlikely to encounter anyone connected to the Convoy.
Tessa noticed that immediately.
She did not know whether Nina had considered the possibility or simply wanted Thai food. Either explanation felt equally plausible.
Nina was already seated in a booth near the back when Tessa arrived, one hand wrapped around an iced coffee and the other tapping impatiently against the table.
She wore a cream sweater, gold earrings and the expression of someone prepared to conduct an interrogation without legal representation present.
Tessa removed her coat.
Nina stared at it.
“What?”
“That’s the coat?”
Tessa looked down.
“It is a coat.”
“The one he hates?”
Tessa froze halfway into the booth.
“How do you know about that?”
“You mentioned it in one of the six messages you sent from Finland before disappearing into your secret international affair.”
“It is not an affair.”
“You slept with a Russian hockey player you cover while both of you were staying in separate hotels in Helsinki.”
Nina leaned forward.
“That is at least affair-adjacent.”
“Can you lower your voice?”
“I have waited four days.”
“It has not been four days.”
“It has emotionally been a month.”
Tessa slid into the booth and placed her purse beside her.
Nina stared at her face.
“What?”
“You look different.”
“I’m still jet-lagged.”
“No.”
“I slept for three hours this morning.”
“No.”
Tessa opened the menu.
Nina reached across the table and lowered it.
“You slept with him.”
Tessa glanced toward the nearest tables. Nobody appeared interested in them.
“You already decided that.”
“You did.”
The statement contained no question.
Tessa could feel warmth beginning near the collar of her sweater.
“Yes.”
Nina slapped both palms against the table, then immediately looked around as silverware shifted against the surface.
“I knew it.”
“You did not.”
“I knew you liked him.”
“That is different.”
“I knew he liked you.”
“You saw one photograph.”
“I have instincts.”
“You called him cute.”
“He is cute.”
“He is six-foot-four and looks like he wants to fight anyone who speaks to him.”
Nina’s expression became dreamy. “Exactly.”
Tessa laughed.
A server approached before Nina could ask anything more. Tessa ordered pad see ew without reading the menu. Nina ordered curry, then waited until the server walked away before leaning across the table again.
“When?”
“After the championship game.”
“Finland beat Russia.”
“I am aware.”
“The rookie scored on him.”
“Joona.”
“The cute Finnish one.”
“You need to stop organizing the entire Convoy by attractiveness.”
“I barely know anything else about them.”
Nina took a drink.
“So he loses the championship, you write about his teammate beating him and then you sleep together?”
“When you say it that way, it sounds unethical.”
“Tessa.”
“It was not connected to the game. He waited outside the arena,” Tessa admitted.
Nina closed her eyes briefly.
“That is so romantic.”
“It was snowing.”
“Stop making it better.”
“We walked back.”
“Under the Christmas lights?”
“Eventually.”
Nina stared.
“There were Christmas lights.”
“I hate you.”
“You demanded details.”
“I did, and every one is somehow more like a movie than the last.”
Tessa thought of the romantic comedies that had shaped her childhood expectations. None of them included the woman calculating whether kissing the man could undermine every byline she had earned.
“It did not feel like a movie the entire time,” she said.
“What happened?”
“We argued before the championship.”
“About sleeping together?”
“Before that. About the fact that I acted like he didn’t exist after we first kissed.”
Nina became still.
“First kissed.”
Tessa realized the mistake.
“There were multiple nights.”
“Walk me through the full timeline. Slowly.”
“No.”
“Tessa.”
“We kissed on Christmas.”
Nina looked toward the ceiling as though thanking someone.
“Of course you did.”
“At the hotel entrance.”
“Christmas lights?”
“Yes.”
Nina pressed one hand dramatically against her chest.
“You have spent your whole life wanting a romantic comedy and then tried to keep this from me.”
“It is not a romantic comedy.”
“Because of the professional ethics.”
“Yes.”
“That is the third-act problem.”
“It is a current problem.”
“Fine. The second-act problem.”
Tessa shook her head.
The food arrived before Nina could continue. For several minutes, they rearranged plates, accepted water and pretended the conversation had become normal.
Nina broke first.
“So how was it?”
Tessa nearly inhaled a noodle.
“Nina.”
“What? I am not asking for a technical review.”
“It sounded like you were.”
“I want the emotional review.”
“That is worse.”
“Was he sweet?”
The question surprised her.
Tessa looked down at the food.
“Yes.”
The answer softened something in Nina’s expression.
“Careful?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want it?”
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation in that answer either.
Tessa had examined the night enough to know that with certainty.
Nina watched her for another moment.
“You really like him.”
Tessa twirled noodles around the fork.
Nina ate a bite of curry and waited.
Tessa had missed this. The annoying precision of being known by someone who had seen every version of her since university, including the ones Tessa had tried to outgrow without succeeding.
“He told me about his mother,” she said.
“And?”
“His sister. His father.”
Nina’s expression shifted from entertainment toward interest.
“He doesn’t have a relationship with his father. Not really. His mother raised them.”
“That is more than most people tell someone they only want to sleep with.”
“I know.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“Things.”
“Excellent. Very specific.”
“My parents. Andrew. Why we aren’t particularly close.”
Nina nodded.
“So you talked for hours, he walked you home in the snow, kissed you beneath Christmas lights and then waited for you after losing a championship.”
“When you keep summarizing it like that, you remove all the terrifying parts.”
“I am choosing joy.”
“You do not have to write about him.”
“No. I only have to hear about him from my emotionally constipated best friend.”
“I am not emotionally constipated.”
“You texted me five words on New Year’s Eve and ignored my call.”
“I was working.”
“You are always working.”
The familiar accusation carried less judgment than concern.
Tessa ate another bite.
“I don’t know what happens now.”
Nina’s expression sobered slightly.
“Has he said?”
“He thinks he sees me when we get back.”
“That is a sentence.”
“That is basically all he said.”
“What do you want?”
Tessa stared at her plate.
The question had remained with her since Helsinki.
She wanted to see him.
She wanted another morning in which his body occupied half the bed and his clothes mixed with hers on the floor. She wanted to hear him complain about her coat and watch him cook something because he had already decided she did not feed herself properly.
She wanted the version of him nobody at the rink received.
She also wanted the Convoy beat.
Those wants did not coexist cleanly.