CHAPTER SEVEN #2
The real one.
For one sharp second, I feel the click of being moved from one category to another.
“Following the runner opens the central lane,” he says.
“And the Final opponent uses that lane better than Atlanta.”
Coach, who has been checking his phone, looks up.
Darius’s mouth flattens, but he answers. “Yes.”
“So Nathan’s timing becomes the hinge.”
Nathan, from the second row of the film room, turns around. “I heard my name and the word hinge. I object to being hardware.”
“You are load-bearing,” Darius says.
Nathan grins. “Better.”
A few players laugh.
Darius does not, but his eyes warm by half a degree.
I catch it.
Then do not write it down.
He sees that too.
He steps back from the doorway. “That’s enough film room.”
“Because I asked a good question?”
“Because you’re standing in a restricted zone.”
“My toes are behind the line.”
“Your curiosity isn’t.”
I look down.
My shoes are, in fact, exactly behind the threshold.
I look back up. “Is curiosity listed in Morgan’s medical privacy restrictions?”
“Give her time.”
Morgan, from behind us, says, “I can add it.”
Scott’s shoulders shake behind the camera.
Darius leads us away.
The tour continues past the equipment room, where staff are packing crates for New York/New Jersey. Boots. Training kits. Sponsor gear. Recovery bands. Cold tubs broken down for transport. The Final is stacked in labelled plastic containers and zippered bags.
Then we reach the trophy wall.
There are framed photos from the Kings’ earlier seasons, a few tournament plaques, and a temporary display titled ROAD TO THE FINAL. Houston. Dallas. Atlanta. Each stop has a photo cluster beneath it.
And beside those, almost hidden near the edge, are older pictures.
Not professional ones.
Briarwood FC.
I know it before I read the small label. The field gives it away. Patchy grass. Leaning goalposts. A clubhouse that looks like it has survived storms through pure stubbornness.
In one photo, a much younger Darius stands in a faded kit beside Nathan and an older man I assume is Coach Miller.
Darius can’t be more than fourteen. His hair is too long, his limbs not yet sure what to do with themselves, his expression far too serious for a boy holding a soccer ball with muddy hands.
Beside him, Nathan is grinning.
I step closer.
Darius stops moving.
The hallway noise carries on around us. A cart wheels past. Someone calls for extra tape. A ball thuds against a wall in the distance.
But Darius goes still.
I keep my eyes on the photo.
“Briarwood,” I say.
“Yes.”
“That’s Coach Miller?”
“Yes.”
“He looks exactly like someone who owns a whistle and uses it indoors.”
Darius’s mouth twitches.
“Accurate.”
I look at the younger version of him again. “You always that serious?”
“No.”
I glance at him.
He doesn't elaborate.
The answer was too fast.
Too polished.
Too false.
I could ask again.
I don’t.
Not here.
Instead, I nod toward the photo. “This is why I want to go.”
“Because I looked tragic at fourteen?”
“Most people did.”
“You?”
“I had bangs and ambition. It was a dangerous year.”
Scott lowers the camera slightly, smiling.
Darius does not smile, but something in his face loosens.
Briefly.
Then he looks at the display and the door closes again.
“Briarwood isn’t a backdrop,” he says.
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep needing to hear it.”
His gaze cuts to mine.
There he is.
I tuck my pen into the spiral of my notebook. “If this story only shows the polished facility and the Final stadium, it’s incomplete.”
“You want the muddy field.”
“Yes.”
“The old clubhouse.”
“Yes.”
“Kids in jerseys.”
“Yes.”
“So viewers can feel like the Kings came from somewhere humble and pure.”
“No.”
His eyes sharpen.
My pulse does too.
I choose my next words carefully.
Not polished.
Careful.
“There’s nothing pure about a small town expecting one of its kids to carry everyone’s dream.” I look back at the photo of fourteen-year-old Darius. “But it matters. And I think viewers will understand the Final differently if they see what followed you onto the pitch.”
No one speaks.
Behind me, Morgan shifts her weight.
Nathan, somewhere down the hall, calls to someone about cones, but the sound feels far away.
Darius’s fingers tighten once around the folder in his hand.
Then release.
“You think you know what followed me?” he asks.
“No.”
That answer is easy.
His gaze holds mine.
“I think you do,” I say. “And I think you’re deciding whether I’m allowed to ask.”
A muscle moves in his jaw.
There is the wall.
There is the door.
There is my hand on the knob when I have absolutely not been invited to turn it.
I step back first.
“I know what it feels like to make yourself impressive because being overlooked feels worse,” I say.
The words leave my mouth before I can sharpen them into something safer.
Darius looks at me.
Not like a subject.
Like a man who has just heard a sound from a room he did not know I had.
I hate how exposed that feels.
So naturally, I pick up my notebook and pretend to check my schedule.
“Briarwood segment,” I say. “Controlled. Parent consent for kids. No private family history. No tragic violin. No painting the town like a prop.”
Morgan’s gaze shifts from me to Darius.
Darius looks at the photo one more time.
At his younger self.
At Nathan grinning beside him.
Then at me.
“One Briarwood visit,” he says.
My pen stills.
“Before New York/New Jersey,” he adds. “Youth club only. Community send-off if Coach approves. Small crew.”
“Scott and one audio tech.”
“No full production team.”
“Fine.”
“No filming kids without parent consent.”
“Of course.”
“No digging for childhood wounds from Coach Miller.”
“I don’t dig.”
Darius gives me a look.
“Fine,” I say. “I dig professionally. But not through Coach Miller.”
Morgan mutters, “That man would tell his bank password if someone asked kindly.”
Darius points at her. “Exactly.”
I write it all down.
Not because I need the details.
Because he needs to see me treat them like they matter.
“One Briarwood visit,” I repeat. “Respectful crew. Consent first. No using your town as a hook.”
His eyes narrow.
“Those were your words,” I say.
“And yours?”
I lift my gaze. “Show me what it means to you, and I won’t have to fake what it means to the story.”
The facility keeps moving around us.
Cleats on rubber. Staff voices. The low thud of a ball. Morgan’s tablet chiming once with some medical reminder. Scott adjusting his camera strap.
Darius says nothing for long enough that my palms start to feel warm around my notebook.
Then he nods once.
“Fine.”
Victory should feel cleaner.
This feels like being handed something breakable.
I close my notebook. “And New York/New Jersey?”
His eyebrows lift.
“I know, there’s more.”
“The Final atmosphere matters,” I say. “The media village. Fan zones. Official training. Stadium arrival. The scale of it. If Briarwood is where the story starts, the Final bubble is where it gets tested.”
“You can film tournament-approved areas.”
“I need team atmosphere too.”
“No private rooms.”
“I didn’t ask for private rooms.”
“No medical.”
“I didn’t ask for medical.”
“No turning every player glance into a hidden-drama teaser.”
“That feels specific.”
“It is.”
The words should sound cold.
They don’t.
Not entirely.
I think of the tunnel clip. The comments. Strangers building a story out of two smiles sharpened into weapons.
“I don’t control every edit the internet makes,” I say.
“No. But you know which moments you hand it.”
That one lands.
My fingers press into the notebook cover.
Morgan watches me from the side.
Darius watches harder.
I nod. Once. “Fair.”
The word hangs between us.
No argument.
No defense.
Just fair.
It changes the air more than I expect.
Darius shifts the folder to his other hand. “Official media windows. Training from approved lines. Fan zone under tournament rules. One scheduled sit-down before New York/New Jersey, one after official training.”
“And if something happens off schedule?”
“You tell me what you want to ask.”
“And you decide whether to answer.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like a wall.”
“Maybe the wall is part of the story.”
The line returns from yesterday, but it doesn't feel like repetition.
It feels like a challenge he did not mean to offer twice.
I step closer without deciding to.
Not too close.
Enough.
“Then show me where it starts.”
His eyes drop to my mouth for half a second.
Or I imagine it.
No.
I don’t imagine things on assignment.
Usually.
Darius’s gaze returns to mine. “Briarwood first.”
“Briarwood first,” I agree.
He holds my gaze.
The training facility noise fades in the strange way it does when a room gets smaller without moving an inch.
Then Colton’s voice echoes from down the hall.
“Darius, Morgan says if you’re done intimidating the journalist, we need you in recovery.”
Morgan closes her eyes.
Nathan adds, “He said journalist. Not menace. Growth!”
Scott coughs into his shoulder.
The moment breaks.
Darius looks toward the hall. “I’m surrounded by children.”
Morgan passes him without sympathy. “Recovering children. Move.”
He gives me one last look.
Professional again.
Mostly.
“Briarwood first,” he says. “But if you turn my town into a hook, Miss Voss, the story ends there.”
I should give him a polished answer.
Something easy. Something reassuring. Something that sounds good on camera.
Instead, I look back at the photo of fourteen-year-old Darius with muddy knees and a face already trying too hard to be steady.
Then I meet the man’s eyes.
“Then I’d better get it right.”
He doesn’t smile.
But the wall gives an inch.
And I feel I’ve made the first real doorway into Darius’s inner world: Briarwood.
***