Chapter Seven #2
Then she looked at Tessa.
“Oh!.”
Tessa waited.
“He’s the cute one!”
The words landed with enough force that Tessa nearly laughed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve seen him play before and thought he was hot, pushing that long hair out of his face”
“You watch three games a year.”
“I retain important information.”
“He’s not cute.”
Nina turned the phone back toward her. “Are we looking at the same person?”
“Cute is not the word.”
“What word would you use?”
Tessa looked at the photograph.
She had seen the image several times. When she selected it for the article, she had evaluated whether it matched the tone of the story. When it appeared on the sports page, she had noticed the composition and the way the photographer captured Matvei’s attention on the coach beside him.
She had not looked at it the way Nina was looking at it.
Now she noticed the line of his jaw beneath the unfastened mask. The uneven curl of his hair around his ears. The fact that his serious expression did not make him less attractive, only sharper. More difficult to look away from.
She thought of him seated at his stall after practice, large enough that the space around him seemed constructed on the wrong scale. His deep brown eyes were softer up close than they appeared in photographs, though very little else about him had been soft when she introduced herself.
Tessa locked the phone and set it facedown on the table.
“Annoying,” she said.
“That isn’t a physical description.”
“It’s the most important thing about him.”
“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“I never said he was ugly.”
“You said he wasn’t cute.”
“He isn’t cute. Puppies are cute.”
“He’s hot,” Nina said.
Tessa felt warmth climb the back of her neck. “Can we not?”
Nina’s smile widened. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
“Nothing is happening.”
“I know.”
“I cover him.”
“I know.”
“He dislikes me.”
“Also clear.”
“And I don’t like him.”
Nina reached for her wine. “I didn’t say you did.”
“You’re making a face.”
“I’m enjoying yours.”
Tessa picked up her fork and returned to the pasta, though she no longer felt particularly hungry.
Nina had not revealed anything new. Matvei was objectively attractive.
Tessa had functional eyesight. She had noticed his size the first day she met him, the color of his eyes and the way the training shirt stretched across his broad shoulders.
Those had been observations.
They had not been thoughts.
There was a difference.
“I’m not allowed to think of players that way,” she said.
Nina’s expression became more serious. “Allowed by whom?”
“Everyone.”
“That sounds official.”
“It’s unprofessional.”
“To notice someone is attractive?”
“To entertain it.”
Nina nodded. “Those are different things.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“No, you’re acting like you’ve committed an ethics violation because I pointed out that a man has a face.”
Tessa looked around the patio, suddenly aware that anyone at the surrounding tables could hear the conversation.
“Could you lower your voice?”
“I’m not shouting.”
“You’re projecting.”
“I’m sitting across from you.”
Tessa reached for her water. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a source.”
“Okay.”
“And a player I cover.”
“Okay.”
“And nothing is going to happen.”
Nina’s eyebrows rose. “I still haven’t said anything is going to happen.”
The certainty in Tessa’s argument had begun to work against her.
She looked down at the condensation gathering near the base of her glass.
Nina softened. “Tess, I’m teasing you. I know your job matters to you. I’m not suggesting you climb over the glass during warmups.”
“Good.”
“I’m only saying he’s attractive.”
Tessa glanced at the phone lying facedown between them.
“Objectively,” Nina added.
“Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“He is objectively attractive.”
Nina smiled in triumph.
“But he’s still rude.”
“There you are.”
“And paranoid.”
“Probably with reason, from what you said.”
“That doesn’t make it less exhausting.”
“No. But it does explain why you keep talking about him.”
“I keep talking about him because you keep asking.”
Tessa pushed her plate away a few inches.
Nina laughed, then reached across the table and touched the back of Tessa’s hand.
“I’m not saying you like him.”
“Good.”
“I’m saying you’re interested.”
“Professionally.”
“Mostly.”
Tessa withdrew her hand, though not because she was upset. The observation was uncomfortable precisely because she could not dismiss it completely.
Matvei interested her.
He had from the moment she watched him laugh with Pat in the locker room and realized the man described in years of coverage was not the same man his teammates knew.
Every interaction had widened that divide.
He could be dismissive and unexpectedly thoughtful.
Suspicious of her, protective of Joona and self-aware enough to know when he had been rude without being willing to apologize for it.
She wanted to understand him.
That was her job.
It was also the beginning of most mistakes journalists made with sources, convincing themselves that curiosity gave them permission to cross lines they would recognize immediately in someone else.
Tessa sat back in her chair. “It has to stay professional.”
Nina’s expression lost its teasing entirely. “Then it will.”
“You say that like it’s easy.”
“Is it not?”
Tessa almost answered immediately.
Instead, she thought of Matvei asking why she had not used Joona’s first quote. The suspicion in his voice had not been hostility exactly. It had sounded closer to disbelief, as though he needed her to explain why someone would voluntarily give up the easier story.
She remembered the way he had said thank you.
The brief surprise in his face when she answered that accuracy involved more than transcribing exact words.
Nothing had happened.
Still, the moment had felt more intimate than any of their interviews should have.
“It is,” Tessa said finally. “Easy.”
Nina studied her for a second, then nodded. “Okay.”
Tessa knew she had not convinced either of them.
The server returned to ask whether they wanted dessert. Nina ordered coffee. Tessa declined both, though she checked the time and realized she had nowhere she needed to be for almost two hours.