CHAPTER TWO #2
“Final week is going to be different.”
“I know.”
“No.” He turns toward me. “You know it intellectually. I need you to understand it practically. The Kings aren’t a charming underdog story anymore. We’re one match from winning the Global Cup. Sponsors are calling. Tournament officials are watching. Every media outlet wants access.”
My knee pulses again, dull and badly timed.
I ignore it.
“The team can handle media.”
“The team can handle questions. The team cannot handle another week of speculation about internal relationships, medical boundaries, and whether we’re too emotionally tangled to function.”
I keep my face still.
Morgan and Colton. The staff-player line. The questions Sienna Voss has been circling since Dallas.
“She pushed that in the tunnel,” I say.
“I saw.”
“Then you saw me shut it down.”
“I also saw the clip.”
My stomach drops with the quiet precision of a missed pass.
“What clip?”
Coach takes out his phone and taps the screen. He turns it toward me.
A paused video fills the display.
Me and Sienna Voss in the tunnel.
Her microphone lifted between us. Her blazer somehow still perfect despite the chaos. My smile angled down at her like we’re sharing a joke, not standing on opposite sides of a warning.
The caption reads:
Captain Vale. Reporter Voss. Final week just got interesting.
I stare at it.
No.
Absolutely not.
Coach lowers the phone. “It’s already moving.”
“It was an interview.”
“It looks like a story.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“It becomes our problem if the network decides it is.”
I rub one hand over my jaw. “What do they want?”
Coach’s pause tells me I already know.
“A captain profile.”
My laugh has no humour in it. “No.”
“Darius.”
“No.”
“They want Final-week access. Briarwood roots. Leadership. The team’s road to New York/New Jersey. You as the emotional centre of the Kings.”
“They can use Colton. He loves cameras.”
“Colton is part of the story. You’re the spine.”
“I don’t want to be the spine.”
“You accepted the armband.”
I look at him sharply.
Coach does not back down.
That is one of the things that makes him good. Inconvenient, but good.
“I accepted responsibility for the team,” I say. “Not for handing myself to a reporter who thinks every private moment is raw material.”
Coach folds his arms. “Sienna Voss is sharp.”
“That is not a compliment in this context.”
“It is a fact. She understands the game. She asks better questions than half the analysts who get paid twice as much.”
“She also knows exactly where to push.”
“So do good midfielders.”
I give him a flat look.
He ignores it. “If we refuse access, it looks like we’re hiding something.”
“We’re protecting the team.”
“Intentions don’t control optics.”
I hate that sentence.
Mostly because it’s true.
Outside, a group of fans starts chanting something I can’t make out through the glass. One of them holds up a cardboard sign with my name on it. The letters are blue, outlined in gold.
It should feel good.
It feels like another hand on my back, pushing.
Coach lowers his voice. “A controlled feature is better than Sienna hunting from the outside.”
I look back toward the ballroom doors at the far end of the hall.
Inside, Nathan is probably making Colton re-enact the winning goal with cocktail napkins. Morgan is probably threatening both of them with ice packs. The rookies are probably posting things our media staff will regret by breakfast.
My team is happy.
For one night, they should get to be happy.
Final week is going to try to take that apart. Cameras. Questions. Pressure. Rumour. Headlines.
Sienna Voss.
That polished smile. That sharp microphone. Those eyes that noticed too much in thirty seconds.
“What are they asking for?” I say.
Coach exhales.
He knows he has me.
“Scheduled access. Training observation. A sit-down interview. Briarwood segment if you approve it. Travel atmosphere once we get to New York/New Jersey. Nothing medical without permission.”
I almost laugh again.
Nothing medical.
As if permission has ever stopped a camera from finding a limp.
“I set terms,” I say.
Coach nods. “You can request terms.”
“No medical room. No private staff spaces. No filming teammates without consent. No family questions unless I offer the subject. No ambushes. No dragging Morgan and Colton back into the frame because it makes a convenient hook.”
“That’s a long list.”
“I can make it longer.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“And if she crosses a line, access ends.”
Coach studies me.
Not as coach to captain.
More like someone who has known me long enough to see the boy under all the structure I’ve built on top of him.
“You know you can’t control every version of the story,” he says.
My jaw tightens. “I can control what I give her.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s the part I have.”
For a second, Coach looks like he might argue.
Then he nods.
“I’ll send your terms to media relations.”
“Send them to Sienna.”
“Media relations can handle it.”
“She should know exactly where the wall is.”
Coach’s mouth twitches. “You do like a wall.”
“I respect useful architecture.”
“Fine. I’ll have them send the terms.”
“Good.”
The elevator dings behind us, but neither of us moves.
Coach glances down once.
At my knee.
I stare at him.
He raises both hands. “Morgan already knows.”
“Does the entire hotel know?”
“Only the people who pay attention.”
“Wonderful. So everyone dangerous.”
Coach’s expression softens. “Be smart this week.”
“I am smart.”
“Be smarter than your pride.”
That one lands in a place I do not have time to inspect.
“Get some sleep,” he says.
“After you stop assigning me emotional profiles at midnight.”
“Leadership is glamorous.”
“So I’m learning.”
Coach heads back toward the ballroom.
I stay by the window.
For one quiet breath, I let the whole week line up in front of me.
Charlotte.
Briarwood.
New York/New Jersey.
The Global Cup Final.
Sienna Voss with exclusive access and a producer who probably has the word vulnerable written on a whiteboard somewhere.
My phone buzzes.
Again.
This time, I check it.
A message from Nathan fills the screen.
NATHAN: Coach Miller says if you don’t send a quote, he’s using “I like soccer because grass smells better than homework.” Age 9.
I close my eyes.
Then another message appears.
Media Relations.
Subject: Final Week Feature Access: Sienna Voss
Attached is the schedule request and the boundary list I approved.
Below it, a second notification slides onto the screen.
A network clip.
The same tunnel thumbnail Coach showed me.
This time it’s already been reposted by a fan account.
The comments have started.
They look good together. That reporter does NOT scare easy. Captain Vale finally met someone who can rattle him. Book the Final week drama now.
My stomach hardens.
Thirty seconds.
That is all it took.
Thirty seconds, and strangers are already building something neither of us agreed to stand inside.
My knee aches.
My phone glows.
The hallway feels too quiet.
Behind me, the ballroom erupts in another cheer, bright and careless and deserved.
I look down at the email again.
Sienna Voss confirmed.
Eight a.m. access meeting.
I should sleep.
Instead, I open the boundary list and add one more line.
No off-the-record comments may be used, implied, paraphrased, referenced, or framed without direct consent.
Then I stare at it.
Too much?
Probably.
Necessary?
Absolutely.
I hit send.
For half a second, satisfaction settles in my chest.
Then my phone buzzes again.
Not from media relations.
From Coach.
MEDIA ACCESS MEETING. 8 A.M. SIENNA VOSS CONFIRMED.
I look toward the ballroom doors, then back to the dark window where my reflection stares at me in a suit I can’t wait to take off, with a captain’s posture I don’t know how to set down.
The whole hotel knows we’re going to the Global Cup Final.
By morning, Sienna Voss will know exactly where my walls are.
And if she is as smart as I think she is, she will spend the whole week looking for the door.
***