CHAPTER 3
EMILY
I prepare for the defender panel like it’s a match.
This is not dramatic. It’s practical.
A match has opponents, pressure, cameras, and consequences if you lose track of the obvious danger.
So does media.
I stand in front of the hotel mirror in my Team Canada media jacket, smoothing the sleeve for the third time even though there is nothing wrong with it.
Navy pants. Red jacket. Hair pulled back.
Mascara that says awake, not desperate. Lip colour that will survive terrible coffee and worse questions.
My smile needs work.
I try it once.
Too friendly.
Again.
Too dead-eyed.
Third time gives me captain at an approved public appearance, which is about as warm as I am prepared to be this morning.
The bathroom still smells like shower steam, citrus lotion, and the hair product Ava borrowed because she claimed hers made her look like “a Victorian orphan in a wind tunnel.” Traffic hums below the hotel windows.
Somewhere down the hall, a door closes, followed by a burst of laughter from one of our midfielders.
I look composed.
Good.
Composed is a useful lie.
My left side aches beneath my jacket, not sharply enough to earn my full attention, just enough to keep raising its hand like an annoying student. I ignore it. The support wrap sits flat under my shirt, hidden from the world and therefore not available for discussion.
Today is simple.
Defensive communication. Youth development. Ocean Cup pressure. Leadership. Smile. Answer. Leave.
All tasks I know how to complete.
Nathan Bellows sitting beside me for any portion of it is a footnote.
A loud, inconvenient, six-foot-plus footnote with excellent timing and a history of making terrible decisions on my behalf.
Still a footnote.
A knock hits my door.
“Come in.”
Ava enters backward, wrestling with the lanyard of her media badge. “Okay, two questions. One, does this jacket make me look like I stole an adult’s job? Two, is Nathan Bellows as funny in person as he seems online?”
The universe is petty.
I turn from the mirror. “Your jacket makes you look like an athlete fulfilling a contractual media obligation.”
“So, yes?”
“So, you’re fine.”
She steps farther into the room and turns to the mirror, badge twisted halfway around her neck. “And the Nathan Bellows question?”
“What Nathan Bellows question?”
“The one I just asked with my mouth.”
“I was hoping if I ignored it, the question would develop manners and leave.”
Ava grins at me through the mirror. “That usually work for you?”
“More often than you’d think.”
She laughs and finally untangles the lanyard. Her smile is quick and bright, but I see the nerves underneath. She keeps smoothing the front of her jacket too. Same motion as mine. Less practised.
I step behind her and straighten the badge so it lies flat. “You don’t have to be charming today.”
“I don’t?”
“No. You have to be clear. Charming is optional and usually dangerous.”
“That sounds like personal experience talking.”
“It sounds like captain experience talking.”
Ava’s eyes narrow at me in the mirror. “You know him.”
Not admiration now. Curiosity. Worse.
“We played in some of the same development programs.”
“That is the most boring way anyone has ever answered that.”
“It was a boring time. Very little happened. Grass grew. Balls were kicked. Coaches yelled.”
“And Nathan Bellows?”
I lift one eyebrow.
Ava holds up both hands. “Okay. Dropping it. Mostly. For now.”
“Excellent life choice.”
She turns toward the door, then stops. “I’m nervous.”
That is better.
That is something useful.
“About the panel?”
She nods. “I know it’s not a big media thing, but there are kids in the audience, and some of them are defenders, and I don’t want to say something stupid.”
“You probably will.”
Her eyes widen.
I pick lint off my sleeve. “Everyone says something stupid eventually. The trick is not building a house there.”
Ava stares at me for one second, then laughs. “Do you give normal pep talks?”
“No.”
“Good. That would be alarming.”
I soften because she needs it, and because I remember being twenty-two and trying to look like I belonged in rooms that still felt rented.
“You know the game,” I say. “If they ask something, answer the part you understand. If you need time, take a breath. If you panic, look at me.”
Ava’s shoulders drop half an inch. “Okay.”
“Also, never say anything is a dream come true unless you want that clip to follow you forever.”
“Noted.”
My phone lights up on the bathroom counter.
I glance down before I can stop myself.
Memory notification.
One of those cheerful little ambushes from the past, dressed up as nostalgia.
Seven years ago today.
The thumbnail is muddy and grey-green.
I should ignore it.
I do not.
My thumb opens the photo.
Regional development camp. Briarwood field after rain. My hair is shoved under a hood. My socks are streaked brown up to the knee. I am standing with one foot on a ball, pretending not to smile.
Nathan is beside me, grinning like the rain personally invited him to cause trouble. His arm is almost around me but not quite touching.
Almost.
That was the shape of us, even then.
Ava leans slightly. “Is that you?”
I lock the screen so fast my thumb nearly slips.
“Old camp photo.”
“Cute.”
“It was muddy.”
“Cute and muddy.”
“You have a panel to be nervous about.”
She studies me for another beat, too perceptive for someone whose badge was upside down ninety seconds ago. Then she nods.
“Right,” she says. “Clear answers. No dream-come-true quotes. Look at you if I panic.”
“Exactly.”
“And don’t ask about muddy Nathan.”
“Especially that.”
She zips her jacket halfway, squares her shoulders, and heads out.
I stay in the bathroom for one extra breath.
The phone is dark again.
I don't delete the photo.
I also don't look at it again.
Both things are victories of a sort.
By the time I reach the media green room downstairs, my captain face is locked back into place.
The room is too bright, too cold, and full of people pretending they're relaxed. There's a coffee table with fruit no one will eat, pastries everyone wants but no one wants to be photographed eating, and a metal urn of coffee that smells like burnt ambition.
A makeup station glows in the corner. Cables snake across the floor, taped down in thick black strips. Production assistants move with clipboards and the wide eyes of people whose morning depends on adults staying on schedule.
Nathan Bellows stands near the coffee table in navy Kings media gear, holding a paper cup.
Of course he’s already here.
Of course he looks calm.
Not untouched, though.
That’s the first thing I notice despite myself.
There are shadows under his eyes. A fading bruise peeks near the collar of his shirt, likely from the Global Cup Final. His hair is still doing that irritating thing where it looks better when it hasn’t been fully managed.
He turns as I enter.
His gaze goes to my face first.
Good.
Then, for one fraction of a second, to my stance.
Not good.
Then away before I can accuse him of noticing the thing he has no right to notice.
Better.
Still annoying.
“Captain Smith,” he says.
“Bellows.”
A production assistant glances over at the tone, then glances away like she has wandered near a fence with electricity running through it.
Nathan lifts the paper cup. “Coffee?”
“I don’t accept peace offerings in paper cups.”
“It’s not a peace offering. It’s terrible hotel coffee and therefore an act of shared survival.”
The rhythm lands before I can brace for it.
That is the problem with Nathan. He was always too easy to answer.
“Shared survival has higher standards than this urn.”
“Fair. This is more like shared endurance.”
“Shared punishment.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
A laugh comes from the makeup station.
Small. Interested.
I straighten because the laugh reminds me where we are. Cameras nearby. Staff with curious eyes. A room full of people who would love an easy story: Global Cup champion and Ocean Cup captain with old development-camp history and suspiciously good banter.
No, thank you.
Nathan notices me noticing.
His smile dims, not all the way. Enough to tell me he understands the adjustment.
He sets the cup back on the table. “How’s Ava?”
That is unfairly smart.
Asking about my teammate instead of my side. Redirecting to safe ground while still giving me something I care about.
“She’s nervous,” I say.
“She’ll be good.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I watched her drill yesterday. She reads well once she trusts the first step.”
I hate that he is right.
“Careful,” I say. “That almost sounded like professional analysis.”
“It was.”
“And here I thought you only texted unsolicited medical commentary.”
His mouth tightens.
Good.
Maybe not good.
But something in me wants the hit to land, and that is not my most evolved quality.
Before he can answer, the moderator steps into the room with a headset and a smile polished smooth from practice.
“Emily, Nathan, we’re ready for you.”
The panel setup is cleaner than I expected.
A small stage at the front of a hotel ballroom. Three chairs. A banner behind us with both tournament logos. Rows of youth players sitting in front, their club jackets unzipped, cleats tapping the floor, phones tucked away under the watchful glare of coaches.
Ava sits with two other Canadian players in the front row. She catches my eye, then immediately sits straighter like I have pulled a string through her spine.
Good.
The moderator introduces us with the right blend of enthusiasm and restraint. Nathan gets Global Cup champion defender and Briarwood hometown favourite. I get Team Canada captain and Ocean Cup defensive anchor.
I can work with that.
The first questions are safe.
How do you communicate across a back line when the crowd is loud?
“Early and specifically,” I say. “Late panic is usually just poor planning with volume.”
The kids laugh.
Nathan adds, “Also, if your goalkeeper is yelling at you, assume she’s right until proven otherwise.”
More laughter.
What makes a great defender?