Chapter Thirty-Six
Tessa asked Elaine for a meeting before she submitted the application.
The decision seemed obvious once she made it.
It had not felt obvious during the two days she spent avoiding it.
The internal listing remained open in a browser tab through the parade, the conversation with Frank and the night that followed. Tessa returned to Matvei’s house after filing the notebook Elaine had allowed her to delay, arriving late enough that the city’s celebration had finally begun to quiet.
Matvei waited in the kitchen with two unopened takeout containers.
He told her about the parade from the bus, the children wearing goalie masks and the moment Viktor informed the team backstage that his announcement would come at the end of the rally.
Tessa told him about Frank appearing in the press box and everything he said about covering Halifax’s first season.
She did not tell Matvei she had already decided to apply.
Not because she wanted to hide the decision.
But because she could not allow him to become part of making it.
They ate. They talked. They went upstairs and slept with their bodies wrapped together, both too tired for anything else. In the morning, Matvei drove his mother and sister from their hotel to the airport while Tessa returned to her apartment and opened the application.
She attached her resume.
She selected five work samples.
Claire Dunning’s introductory profile.
The Tides facilities story.
The franchise-name announcement.
Her Joona playoff MVP feature.
The Game 7 main story built around Matvei’s first training-camp quote.
Tessa stared at the final sample for several minutes before uploading it.
The story demonstrated the best work she had produced on the Convoy beat. It also demonstrated the conflict she had not disclosed.
Readers saw the season.
Elaine saw the reporter she had trusted to cover it.
Only Tessa knew the man at the center of the story had told her he loved her before the Final began.
The application required a cover letter.
Tessa wrote the first version around her interest in women’s hockey, the opportunity to document an expansion franchise and the Tribune’s commitment to treating the Tides as a major professional beat. Every word was true.
The letter remained incomplete.
She could not ask Elaine to move her into a new position without explaining why remaining on the Convoy beat had become complicated.
Not impossible.
Complicated.
The distinction mattered.
Tessa was not applying for the Tides job only to make her relationship easier.
She knew that now. Frank’s excitement had separated the work itself from what changing beats would solve.
She wanted the first roster, the first practice and the first game.
She wanted to watch a franchise become meaningful before anyone knew which details would last.
But Matvei remained part of the decision.
Pretending otherwise would repeat the same mistake she had made all season, finding language accurate enough to avoid telling the whole truth.
At ten-fourteen Thursday morning, Tessa sent Elaine a message.
Tessa: Do you have time to meet today? In person.
Elaine replied three minutes later.
Elaine: About the Tides job?
Tessa looked at the unfinished cover letter.
Tessa: Partly.
The typing indicator appeared and disappeared twice.
Elaine: My office at 2.
The appointment entered Tessa’s calendar.
She spent the next four hours trying not to rehearse.
It was impossible.
Elaine’s office occupied the far end of the Tribune newsroom, enclosed by glass that provided the illusion of privacy without preventing anyone from seeing who entered.
Tessa arrived at one-fifty-six.
Elaine sat behind the desk reading a printed copy of the parade story with handwritten notes in the margins. Two empty coffee cups stood near her computer. A television mounted on the wall showed another replay of Matvei’s final save, muted beneath a news crawl about the championship celebration.
Tessa stopped near the door.
Elaine looked up.
“You can close it.”
Tessa did.
The newsroom disappeared behind the glass only slightly. Desks, screens and people remained visible through the blinds Elaine had not lowered.
“Sit,” Elaine said.
Tessa took the chair opposite her.
The position felt unfamiliar.
Most of their conversations happened over the phone, inside Atlantic Centre corridors or with Elaine standing beside Tessa’s desk while another deadline waited. Sitting across from each other without an immediate story created a formality Tessa disliked.
Elaine placed the parade story aside.
“You’re applying.”
It was not a question.
“I intend to.”
“But you haven’t submitted.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Tessa rested both hands in her lap.
“Because there is something I need to tell you first.”
Elaine’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
“About the Tides job?”
“About the Convoy beat.”
The television replayed the save again. Matvei extended across the crease, blocker reaching the puck before the screen changed to the Cup presentation.
Elaine picked up the remote and turned it off.
The office became quieter.
“What happened?” she asked.
Tessa had prepared several openings.
None survived the direct question.
“I am in a relationship with Matvei Belov.”
Elaine did not react immediately.
Her eyes remained on Tessa’s face.
The silence lasted long enough that Tessa heard someone laughing in the newsroom beyond the glass.
Then Elaine leaned back.
“How long?”
Tessa swallowed.
“We kissed for the first time in Helsinki.”
“During the international tournament.”
“Yes.”
Elaine’s mouth tightened.
“When did it become a relationship?”
“I don’t know that there was one exact conversation.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Tessa looked down briefly, then back at her.
“Once we returned to Halifax, we continued seeing each other.”
Elaine’s expression remained controlled.
“January.”
“Yes.”
“And you are still together.”
“Yes.”
“How serious?”
The question felt private.
It was also professionally necessary.
“We love each other.”
Elaine looked away for the first time.
She turned toward the blank television, then back to Tessa.
“You have been dating the starting goaltender on your beat since January.”
“Yes.”
“You covered him every day.”
“Yes.”
“You wrote about his trade situation, his performance, whether he should start in the playoffs and his run to the Stanley Cup.”
“Yes.”
Each answer sounded worse in isolation.
Elaine’s voice remained level.
“Who knows?”
“My best friend. His sister and mother know there is someone, but not my name or exactly what I do. I don’t think anyone with the team knows.”
“You don’t think.”
“Matvei has not told anyone.”
“Has anyone at the Tribune known?”
“No.”
“Frank?”
“No. I did not tell him yesterday.”
Elaine looked toward the parade story again.
“Two months ago and told me there was nothing reportable you were withholding.”
The sentence arrived quietly.
Tessa had expected it.
The shame still moved through her.
“I remember.”
“You said you were not protecting a source.”
“I wasn’t.”
“No. You were protecting your boyfriend.”
“I was protecting private medical information he had not given me as a reporter.”
Elaine’s eyes sharpened.
“Medical information.”
There was no way around it now.
Tessa nodded.
“Matvei injured his hip in early March.”
Elaine sat completely still.
“The team did not announce it,” Tessa continued. “He played through it. It affected his movement for several weeks. The medical staff believed it would improve by the playoffs, and it did.”
“How did you know?”
“He told me privately.”
Elaine stood.
The movement was controlled, but anger finally entered the room.
She crossed toward the window and lowered the blinds. The newsroom disappeared one section at a time.
When she returned to the desk, she did not sit immediately.
“I assigned you a story asking whether Cole Bennett should become the playoff starter.”
“I know.”
“You argued against the premise.”
“Yes.”
“Because you knew Matvei was hurt.”
“Partly.”
“Partly.”
“The public evidence also supported waiting. Matvei had been their starter all season. Cole had earned more starts, but there were still several weeks before the playoffs. I believed the team should use that time rather than make a permanent decision during a bad stretch.”
“You also knew the bad stretch had a physical explanation.”
“Yes.”
“And you did not tell me.”
“No.”
Elaine sat.
“What did you tell Matvei about the assignment?”
“Nothing.”
“Did he know you were writing the tandem analysis?”
“He saw it after it published.”
“Did you ask him for permission to report the injury?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would not have made the sourcing ethical. He told me as the person he was dating, not as a reporter. Asking him to make private medical information public so I could resolve a problem at work would have put pressure on him.”
Elaine looked toward her for several seconds.
“That is probably the first correct decision in this entire situation.”
The words hurt because Tessa could not argue.
“I did not disclose the injury,” she said. “I did not write the original story you requested. I offered an alternative I believed was supportable from public information.”
“You also let me believe your hesitation was purely editorial.”
“Yes.”
“And when I asked whether there was context I needed to know?”
Tessa’s hands tightened together.
“I did not tell you.”
Elaine leaned back again.
“No. You didn’t.”
The silence that followed felt different from the first.
Not surprise now.
Assessment.
Elaine looked down at the desk, perhaps reconstructing the season through every interaction she had not understood at the time.
“The Montreal story,” she said.
“No.”
Elaine looked up.
“There was nothing between us then. That conflict happened before Helsinki.”
“Atlanta?”
“We were together by then.”
“You wrote that he allowed three stoppable goals.”
“Yes.”
“Did he read it before publication?”
“No.”
“Did you discuss it?”
“After I filed. He said he did not need to read it because he knew what I would write.”
Elaine’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“That did not concern you?”
“It did.”