Chapter Thirty-Seven #4
Curious, certainly. Several players were attempting not to stare. McCrae had stopped pretending to manage the grill and openly listened. Carver smiled near the cooler.
The absence of hostility did not mean everyone would accept the situation without questions. They had trusted Tessa inside their dressing room. Some might reconsider what they told her or wonder whether Matvei had received treatment different from anyone else.
Tessa decided not to wait for rumors to fill the space.
“I should say something,” she said.
Viktor glanced toward the group.
“You do not have to give a press conference.”
“I know.”
Tessa looked at the players nearest them.
“The Tribune knows. I’m moving to the Tides beat. I understand if anyone feels strange about it. You talked to me as the team’s reporter all year.”
McCrae shrugged first.
“You wrote that I had seven goals like six different times.”
“You had seven goals.”
“I know. It hurt every time.”
Laughter broke the tension.
Joona reached for his abandoned plate.
“So now you can write good things about me only.”
“I will be covering another team.”
“Tides play Convoy?”
“No.”
“Then bad job.”
Tessa laughed.
Matvei guided her farther into the backyard.
Introductions followed.
Partners whose names she had heard through team events but never learned personally. Children who recognized her voice from postgame clips. Staff members who looked briefly surprised before accepting the new context.
Tessa entered every conversation without a notebook.
The absence felt physical.
When Viktor’s wife, Anna, asked how Tessa handled the Final travel, Tessa answered as a person rather than searching for a quote. When Megan described Cole’s inability to sleep after the deadline passed, Tessa did not connect it to the story she had written that week.
Information could simply be conversation now.
Not material.
Not background.
Not something requiring a decision.
The distinction felt freeing and slightly frightening.
Matvei remained close through the first hour.
His hand rested at the small of her back while they spoke with Pat. He brought her a drink without asking what she wanted because he already knew. When Joona began describing the moment he first suspected them, Matvei interrupted every version.
“You look at her after practice,” Joona said.
“I look at everyone.”
“No. You look special.”
“There is no special look.”
“There is,” Cole said.
Matvei turned toward him.
“What?”
Cole adjusted his daughter’s hat.
“You had one face for reporters and one for Tessa.”
Tessa looked at Matvei.
“What was the reporter face?”
Cole copied a flat expression.
“What was mine?”
He softened it only slightly.
The imitation was insulting in its accuracy.
Everyone laughed except Matvei.
“You are bad actor,” he said.
Tessa smiled into her drink.
Later, Anna drew her away from the group to show her where extra food had been placed inside the kitchen.
“You okay?” she asked after the door closed behind them.
The question caught Tessa off guard.
“Yes.”
“You look like you have been preparing for someone to throw you out.”
“Possibly.”
Anna removed a bowl and placed it on the counter.
“But Viktor trusts Matvei. He trusts you too.”
“Does he?”
“He read everything you wrote about the knee.”
Tessa’s stomach tightened.
“Not because he thought you knew something,” Anna said quickly. “Because he cared how the season was being explained.”
“Did he think it was fair?”
“He complained twice.”
“That sounds good.”
“He complained about every reporter.”
Tessa smiled.
Anna leaned against the counter.
“Matvei changed in January.”
Tessa looked toward the window overlooking the patio.
“How?”
“He was still Belly. Still quiet, still serious. But he stopped looking like he was waiting for something bad after every good game.”
The observation moved through Tessa quietly.
“I thought it was the tournament,” Anna continued. “Then Viktor thought maybe his mother had said something. Apparently, it was you.”
“Not only me.”
“No.”
Anna smiled.
“But not nothing.”
Tessa looked down.
“I did not want to make his life harder.”
“You probably will.”
The bluntness made Tessa laugh.
“He will make yours harder too,” Anna said. “That part is not avoidable.”
“No.”
“But he is happy.”
Tessa watched Matvei outside.
Joona had taken his chair. Matvei stood behind it, attempting to lift the younger winger by the back of his shirt while Joona protected his plate.
“He is,” Tessa said.
Anna returned the bowl to the refrigerator.
“And now you get to be here when he is.”
The sentence carried the same meaning as the partners joining the ice after Game 7.
Tessa had not been there then.
She was here now.
No glass.
No press-box level above them.
No recorder separating her from the person she loved.
When they returned outside, Viktor called everyone toward the long tables for food.
Tessa sat beside Matvei.
Viktor stood near the grill holding a beer.
“No speeches,” he announced.
Viktor lifted the beer.
“One thing.”
Everyone quieted.
“To one more year.”
Glasses and bottles rose.
The response came from players, partners, staff and children who lifted plastic cups without understanding why.
“One more year.”
Tessa raised her drink.
Matvei’s knee touched hers beneath the table.
Afterward, conversations separated again. Children left before the adults finished eating. Joona attempted to convince someone to enter the pool fully clothed. McCrae volunteered Matvei.
Matvei declined by pushing Joona into the water.
The splash reached half the patio.
Tessa laughed hard enough that she nearly spilled her drink.
Joona surfaced shouting in Finnish.
Viktor’s children cheered.
Matvei returned to his chair with the smallest hint of satisfaction.
“That was mean,” Tessa said.
“Yes.”
“You did not hesitate.”
“No.”
Joona climbed from the pool and pointed toward him.
“You next.”
Matvei looked at Tessa.
She understood the plan one second too late.
“No.”
He wrapped one arm around her waist.
“Matvei.”
“No recorder,” he said.
“That does not make my dress waterproof.”
“Not dress.”
She looked down at the summer dress she had chosen specifically to appear casual while meeting an entire team as his girlfriend.
“Do not.”
Matvei lifted her.
Tessa screamed and grabbed both of his shoulders.
The table erupted.
“You will die,” she said.
“Yes.”
He carried her toward the pool.
“Matvei Belov, put me down.”
“Reporter voice.”
“I am not your reporter anymore.”
Matvei stopped near the edge.
The words changed his expression.
Tessa felt it.
He lowered her feet to the patio without releasing her.
“No,” he said.
“No.”
She placed both hands against his face.
Around them, teammates shouted for him to finish the job. Joona began a countdown.
Matvei ignored everyone.
He kissed her.
The reaction from the table became louder than the kiss deserved.
Tessa laughed against his mouth.
Matvei’s arms remained around her.
No one pretended not to see.
When they separated, Joona shouted, “Finally.”
Tessa looked toward him.
“You knew, remember?”
“I know better now.”
She turned back to Matvei.
“You are still not putting me in the pool.”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her forehead.
Then released her.
Joona reached from behind and pushed Matvei into the water.
The splash soaked Tessa anyway.
She stared toward the pool.
Matvei surfaced slowly.
Water darkened his hair across his forehead. His shirt clung to his shoulders. Joona stood several feet away, already backing toward the house.
Matvei climbed out.
Joona ran.
The backyard dissolved into laughter and pursuit.
Tessa remained beside the pool, smiling hard enough that her face hurt.
Viktor handed her a towel.
“Welcome to the team,” he said.
Tessa looked toward Matvei chasing Joona across the grass.
For the first time all year, the Convoy could exist around her without becoming her assignment.
She did not need to remember who said what, identify the story or move toward the best quote. No deadline waited at the end of the afternoon.
The Tides would come soon.
A new room.
New players.
A notebook filled with firsts.
For now, Tessa watched Matvei catch Joona near the fence and lift him completely from the ground while everyone shouted conflicting advice.
Matvei looked toward her.
She did not look away.
This time, she had no reason to.