CHAPTER FIVE
SIENNA
The problem with Darius Vale is not that he gives bad answers.
The problem is that his bad answers are better than most people’s honest ones.
I sit in the temporary media room with my laptop open, earbuds in, and a granola bar shedding crumbs across the table like it has given up on professionalism. The room is too cold, too beige, and too full of reporters pretending not to spy on each other’s footage.
Someone three tables over is playing back Colton’s post-match grin on a loop.
Someone else is trying to get a producer in New York to understand that “Global Cup Finalist” and “possible miracle team” are not the same lower-third graphic.
My screen shows Darius Vale dropping into space during the morning session.
I rewind.
Play.
Pause.
Rewind again.
He moves through pressure like he hears a song no one else can hear. One point of his finger, and Nathan shifts the defensive line. One glance, and Mateo checks wider. One quiet correction, and Colton stops trying to turn a recovery session into a highlight reel.
The camera loves Colton.
It trusts Darius.
That is harder to work with.
Colton gives you sparkle. Darius gives you structure. Viewers feel structure, but they don’t always know why. They just sit up straighter when he steps into frame.
I scrub back to the tactical block.
There.
The midfield line drops.
His shoulders open before the pass arrives. His right foot plants. His body turns.
And for one quarter of a second, not even that, his timing changes.
Not a limp.
Not a stumble.
A hitch.
I tap the space bar.
The image freezes with his weight half-loaded over his right leg, face calm, ball already leaving his foot. If I were cutting for a regular sports package, I might miss it. If I were looking for drama, I might call it gold.
My cursor hovers over the clip.
I enlarge the frame.
His jaw is set. Not pain exactly. More like refusal.
I zoom in farther.
The footage blurs at the edges.
Beside my laptop, my recorder sits dark and quiet. My notebook is open to a page of shorthand from the training interview.
WHO TAKES CARE OF YOU?
Under it, I have drawn a line.
Then another.
Then, apparently, stabbed the paper once with my pen.
I close the enlarged window.
The room hums around me. Air conditioner. Laptop fans. Coffee machine in the corner. The soft clack of keyboards from people who want the best line before anyone else finds it.
My phone rings.
Maren.
I pull out one earbud and answer. “Before you ask, I have footage.”
“That was not going to be my first question.”
“It was going to be your third.”
“It was going to be my second. My first is: why am I seeing three decent clips and not one killer clip?”
I look at the frozen frame of Darius. “Because he’s allergic to killer clips.”
“He’s handsome, disciplined, guarded, and going to the Global Cup Final. That man is a walking feature package.”
“He’s a walking media training seminar.”
“Then find where the training cracks.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. The granola crumbs stick to my sleeve when I move my arm. Wonderful.
“Maren.”
“I saw the training feed.”
Of course she did.
I glance at the clip again.
The hitch is so small it could disappear if I blink slowly enough.
“You saw what?” I ask.
“You tell me.”
A producer at the next table laughs into his headset. I lower my voice.
“I saw a captain managing a recovery session.”
“I saw a captain favouring his right side after a pivot.”
My stomach tightens.
I hate that she saw it too.
I hate more that a bright, sharp part of my brain wants to build the segment already.
Is Darius Vale fully fit for the Final?Kings captain under pressure.One week. One knee. One trophy.
The headline writes itself and does not even have the decency to look ashamed.
“It’s visual speculation,” I say.
“It’s a question.”
“It’s a body mechanics observation from a recovery session.”
“Good. Ask the question.”
“Not without confirmation.”
“Sienna.”
“Not without context.”
Maren goes quiet long enough that the air conditioner fills the gap.
When she speaks again, her voice has lost the quick edge. It has the smooth one instead. The dangerous one.
“The network is giving you access other reporters would eat their press credentials for.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you? Because I need more than polished captain says polished thing. I need Briarwood. Pressure. Team tension. The reason he looks like he hasn’t slept since the quarterfinal. And if his knee is part of that pressure, I need you to stop pretending you don’t see it.”
I stare at Darius on the screen.
He looks impossible to move.
The frozen frame knows better.
“I see it,” I say.
“Good.”
“I’m not cutting around a man’s body like it’s a crime scene.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m a broadcaster. It’s hereditary.”
That earns half a laugh. Not enough to save me.
“Send me something sharper by tonight,” Maren says. “And Sienna?”
“Hm?”
“The big desk is watching this package.”
My hand goes still on the trackpad.
The big desk.
Prime tournament profiles. Better slots. Assignments that start with people calling me first instead of asking who else is available.
On my screen, Darius’s body waits mid-pivot, caught between movement and concealment.
“Understood,” I say.
The call ends.
I sit there with my phone in my hand until the screen dims.
Across the room, another reporter swears softly because his export failed. A hotel staffer wheels in a tray of coffee refills no one requested but everyone immediately wants.
I drag the knee clip into a folder marked REVIEW.
Not USE.
Not yet.
Then I pull in the rest of the training footage and start building a cleaner sequence.
Darius correcting Mateo.
Darius pointing Nathan higher.
Darius giving Colton the kind of look that makes even Colton stop talking.
Darius answering my tactical question with actual detail because apparently the way to get past a locked door is to ask about midfield spacing.
I play the interview clip again.
“When the space is intentional, pressure becomes useful.”
He says it with the calm of a man describing soccer and accidentally confessing his entire personality.
My pen moves before I decide to write.
PRESSURE / USEFUL / CONTROL
The media-room door clicks open behind me.
Not loud.
Enough.
Voices drift from the hallway.
A younger one first.
“I sounded stupid.”
Then Darius.
“No, you sounded nervous.”
“That’s better?”
“It’s more fixable.”
I lift my head.
The media room is almost empty now. The failed-export reporter has left. The coffee tray sits abandoned. My camera operator is down the hall grabbing B-roll of the equipment load-out.
The voices stop just outside the door, half-hidden by the frosted glass panel.
I should not move.
I move.
Quietly, I stand and step near the door, just enough to see through the narrow gap where it has not fully latched.
Mateo stands in the hallway with his hands shoved into the pockets of his training pants, shoulders tight enough to touch his ears. His dark hair is still damp from the session, and his eyes keep darting toward the far end of the hall like a camera crew might leap out from behind a vending machine.
Darius stands across from him, one shoulder against the wall, arms folded. No cameras. No microphone. No captain posture for public consumption.
Still captain, though.
Some people do not need the costume.
Mateo rubs one hand over his face. “I forgot the question halfway through.”
“You answered the part you remembered.”
“I said we were excited five times.”
“You were excited.”
Mateo gives him a look. “I sounded twelve.”
“Better than sounding rehearsed.”
“I’d rather sound rehearsed.”
Darius’s mouth shifts. “No, you wouldn’t.”
Mateo exhales hard and leans back against the opposite wall. “What if I freeze in New York?”
The hallway goes still around that question.
I glance at my recorder on the table.
It is less than six feet away.
Darius with a rookie before the Global Cup Final. Young player panic. Captain steadies him. Private leadership. This is exactly the texture Maren wants.
My hand reaches behind me, fingers brushing the edge of the table.
The recorder is cool under my fingertips.
Darius says, “Then you breathe first.”
Mateo looks up.
Darius taps two fingers against his own chest. “Before you answer, breathe. One real breath. It feels like an hour. It takes half a second.”
Mateo tries it. Badly.
Darius waits.
“Again.”
Mateo does it again.
Better.
“Then answer the question you actually heard,” Darius says. “Not the one you’re afraid they asked.”
Mateo’s shoulders drop by one inch.
“What if there’s silence?”
“Let there be silence.”
“I hate silence.”
“Everyone does. That’s why reporters use it.”
My fingers tighten around the recorder.
Darius’s voice stays low. “Don’t fill it because it feels uncomfortable. If you’ve answered, stop. Look at the person. Wait for the next question. You don’t owe anyone extra words just because they’re patient.”
Mateo nods slowly.
Darius pushes off the wall. “Try one.”
“What?”
“I’m the reporter.”
Mateo groans. “Please don’t.”
“Mateo, tremendous semi-final performance from the Kings. What does this moment mean to you as one of the younger players in the squad?”
Mateo closes his eyes.
Breathes.
Once.
Then opens them.
“It means I get to learn from guys who’ve done this longer than me,” he says. “And it means I have to be ready if the team needs me.”
Darius waits.
Mateo starts to speak again, then stops.
Silence holds.
Darius nods. “There.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I can do that.”
“Yes.”
A grin breaks across Mateo’s face, quick and young and almost painful. “Okay.”
He turns to go, then stops. “Thanks, Cap.”
Darius’s nod is small. “You earned your place. Don’t walk into every room like you borrowed it.”
Mateo looks at the floor.
Then he walks away taller.
My hand is still on the recorder.
I have not pressed record.
The hallway smells like carpet cleaner, sweat, and the metallic bite of an overworked air conditioner. Nothing about it is pretty. No stadium lights. No confetti. No roaring crowd.
Just a tired captain teaching a nervous rookie how to take up space.
My hand slips off the recorder.