CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
The team starts moving again, slower than Coach would like and exactly as slowly as Briarwood intends.
Near the media van, Sienna checks her phone.
Her face changes.
Maren.
I know before I know.
The warmth around me thins.
The cameras near the barrier feel heavier. The morning feels sharper. The note I have not seen and the story I do not understand move between us like something already in motion.
I need to know.
Now.
Before the airport.
Before New York/New Jersey.
Before the Final bubble eats whatever is left of trust.
“Sienna,” I say.
She looks up.
Relief crosses her face for one unguarded second.
Then she sees mine.
The relief disappears.
“Darius,” she says.
No Captain.
No Miss Voss.
No armour strong enough.
I keep my voice low. “Did you leak it?”
Her face goes still.
“What?”
“The note. The knee. Whatever they have.”
Her hand falls from the van door. “No.”
The answer is immediate.
Clean.
I want to believe it so badly it makes me angrier.
“Did you use it?”
“No.”
“Did Maren?”
“Not yet.”
The not yet hits like a shove.
I look away toward the fans, where Tyler is now attempting a penalty shot behind the barrier, while his cape drags behind him.
Not yet.
Sienna steps closer. “I found out this morning. Maren sent it to me. I locked it out of the shared edit. I warned Morgan because the team deserved to know a story might be moving.”
“You warned Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“Not me.”
Her eyes flash.
Maybe I deserve flash.
“I couldn’t tell you without crossing a professional line I may not be able to uncross,” she says. “And when I tried to warn you in the only way I could, you made it very clear official settings were cleaner.”
The word comes back between us.
Cleaner.
It sounds worse now.
“I saw the cameras watching my knee.”
“So did I.”
“You knew why.”
“I knew there was a leak. I didn’t know who else had it. I didn’t know whether the reporters were guessing, briefed, or circling because that is what hungry reporters do when they smell a pattern.”
“And you expect me not to wonder?”
“No.”
Her answer stops me.
Not because it is soft.
Because it is fair.
She swallows, but her chin stays lifted. “No, Darius. I don’t expect you not to wonder. I have earned some of that distrust.”
The noise of fans and players stretches behind us.
A whistle.
Laughter.
Coach Miller saying something about napkins.
Sienna’s voice lowers. “But understanding why you wondered does not make it painless that your first instinct was to believe I would use you.”
The sentence hits exactly where I do not want it.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You asked if I leaked it.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is when you look at me like that.”
I have no answer.
Worse, I have several, and all of them are defensive.
She steps back, the media van at her side, string lights behind her making the moment look softer than it is.
“I am trying,” she says. “Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But I am trying to keep this from becoming the smallest possible version of the truth.”
My mouth tightens. “Maren still has it.”
“Yes.”
“And she wants to use it.”
“Yes.”
“And if you don’t?”
Sienna’s phone buzzes in her hand.
She doesn’t look.
But the answer is on her face.
If she doesn’t, maybe someone else will.
If she doesn’t, maybe her producer takes the story away.
If she doesn’t, maybe the better piece dies before the Final bubble even starts.
The phone buzzes again.
She looks down this time.
Her mouth tightens.
“Maren?” I ask.
“Yes.”
The Briarwood fans continue around us like none of this matters.
Like kids are not still cheering.
Like the bus is not waiting.
Like the Final is not three days away.
Like last night did not happen.
Like fear is not getting a vote and trying to stuff the ballot box.
Sienna locks her phone and looks back at me. “The network wants my final decision. If the new package does not test strong, the injury angle goes forward.”
My chest hardens.
Not at her.
At everything.
At the machine. The cameras. The source. The fact that my body has become leverage in rooms I cannot enter.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
Her eyes move past me, toward the street barrier with fans.
Tyler’s cape flies crookedly as he runs up to a ball.
Nathan and Colton are making three kids laugh.
Morgan crouches to check a little girl’s ankle with the same focus she gives professional players.
Coach Miller stands under the lights, one hand on his clipboard, face turned toward the whole messy, loving group.
Sienna looks at all of it.
Then at me.
“I’m going to tell the best story,” she says. “I just hope your version of trust survives long enough to see it.”
The words land and stay.
She opens the van door, then pauses.
For one second, I think she might say more.
For one second, I think I might apologize.
Neither of us does.
She climbs into the van and closes the door.
Scott appears from the side of the field with his camera bag and gives me a look that says he saw enough to judge me and is choosing professional silence.
Excellent.
I stand in the parking lot while Sienna’s van pulls away, leaving behind gravel dust, string-light glow, and the sickening knowledge that relief and shame can arrive in the same breath.
Nathan steps up beside me.
I don’t look at him.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I was going to say nice weather.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Across the way, Coach Miller calls for the team photo before we leave. Kids rush toward the banner. Parents lift phones. Colton waves us over with both arms like an enthusiastic traffic hazard.
Nathan’s shoulder bumps mine.
“Whatever you’re about to apologize for,” he says, “do it before it gets heavier.”
I look toward the road where Sienna’s van disappeared.
Then toward the town folk that raised me.
“I know.”
“Great. Because knowing and doing are famously different sports.”
He walks away before I can tell him to stop being right.
I follow him.
The team gathers under the banner. Briarwood fans presses in around us, loud and warm and impossible to disappoint. A little boy shoves a hand-lettered sign into mine for the photo.
brING IT HOME.
I hold it because there is no polite way not to.
Morgan stands on my other side. Her arm brushes mine.
“She told you,” I say quietly.
Morgan looks straight ahead. “She warned me.”
“Do you believe her?”
A camera flash goes off.
Morgan’s voice stays low. “I believe she’s making choices that are costing her.”
I look at her.
She doesn’t look back.
“Pay attention to that,” she says.
Another camera flash.
Someone tells us to smile.
I do.
The photo catches all of us under the lights outside the hotel entrance. The team. The fans. The crooked banner. The sign in my hand.
If pictures told the whole truth, this one would say we’re ready.
Instead, I stand there smiling while Sienna drives away to fight a story I accused her of wanting.
And for the first time all week, I understand that carrying everything is not only exhausting.
Sometimes it makes you drop the thing that matters most.
***