Chapter 21
NAOMI
The Hartford arena is exactly as she remembers it. Cold. Brown. Deeply unsexy.
The exterior is all concrete and utilitarian siding, like someone asked, what if a DMV was also a hockey arena? There’s a faint scent of popcorn in the air as she steps out of the taxi and exhales, her breath fogging in front of her.
Naomi clutches her coat tighter around her ribs, like that might hold her together.
Okay.
She can do this.
She’s a competent adult. A woman who travels for work. A marketing professional here to consult on a TV spot and photoshoot for a very real, very professional hockey team.
She is also wearing flats.
That part still feels like both a betrayal and a revolution. No more aching arches. No more chasing respect in four-inch stilettos. Not today.
Today, she kicks ass in ballet flats.
And maybe—maybe—she gets her heart kicked around a little in return.
She’d stared at herself in the hotel mirror for too long this morning, toggling between a blazer that screamed trying too hard and something softer. In the end, the wide-leg navy trousers and cream sweater won. Her lip gloss, subtle. Her hair, wild but wrangled.
She had tried to strike the impossible balance between unbothered professional queen and please ruin me again, big goalie man.
God, what does someone even wear to both command respect and apologize with their entire soul?
Naomi drags in another breath, squares her shoulders, and tugs her phone out of her pocket. No messages. Not that she expected any. Not that she’s been checking every five minutes like a pathetic teenager with a crush.
Today is not about Garrett Tall.
Today is about Glen and the team’s playoff push. About getting this shoot in the can. About executing a flawless day of content capture without evaporating into a puff of longing.
She tucks her phone away, squares her shoulders, then she heads down the hall, flats thudding with quiet, non-dramatic resolve.
The faint clang of weights and the murmur of voices grow louder as Naomi rounds the corner toward the meeting room. She slows when a tall, familiar blur catches her eye.
“Naomi?”
Jesse Mitchell, in all his sweaty, golden-curls glory, jogs into the hallway, wearing a Whalers dry-fit and a grin that could power a small town.
“Oh,” she says, surprised. “Hey!”
Before she can brace herself, he wraps her in a full-body hug that’s warm and, dear god, so damp.
“Ew,” she says into his shoulder, wrinkling her nose. “You smell like gym class.”
Jesse just laughs, squeezing her harder. “Missed you too.”
She pats his back, feeling like a hostage negotiating release. “Are you leaking onto me right now?”
He pulls back and gives her a sheepish look. “Little bit.”
Behind him, she can hear the clatter of weights and other voices from the weight room—Carter’s unmistakable laugh, someone yelling about protein powder—and she has to physically fight the urge to glance that way and look for Tall.
Nope. Not doing that.
“You look good,” Jesse says, wiping his forehead with a towel slung over his shoulder. “You here for the shoot?”
Naomi nods. “Yeah. Glen roped me back in.”
“Well, we’re lucky.”
There’s a beat of genuine warmth between them, and it hits her how much she likes this.
She likes being here on the ground, not tucked in a sanitized boardroom.
She likes reading the room and figuring out how to talk to people who’d rather do literally anything than stand in front of a camera.
She likes the challenge of building trust and coaxing clients out of their shells.
“Congrats, by the way,” she says. “On the games with the Mavericks. You crushed it.”
Jesse scratches the back of his neck, suddenly bashful. “Thanks. Yeah, I got back last week. They said I’m back here for the rest of the season unless somebody else gets hurt, but…next year’s looking good.”
“That’s huge.”
He beams, and the sheer joy radiating from him makes Naomi's chest ache. His family must be so proud of him.
“Go finish being gross,” she tells him, nodding toward the weight room. “I have to find Glen.”
Jesse mock-salutes her and jogs backward, already yelling obscenities to someone inside. Before she can stop herself, she turns to scan the shadows beyond the door, then looks away.
Nope, still not doing that. Not yet.
The walls of Glen’s office are covered in memorabilia—framed jerseys, posters from seasons past, and a team photo from the early 2000s when he still had all his hair. Naomi is perched on the edge of a folding chair, laptop open, a marked-up script balanced on one knee, pen tucked behind her ear.
Glen leans back in his rolling chair, arms folded across his chest, reading over the updated shot list with a slow, thoughtful nod. His reading glasses sit low on his nose, and Naomi watches as his brows lift.
“These changes are perfect,” he says finally, tapping the page. “Feels like we actually have a personality on the team. Don’t know how you come up with this stuff so quickly.”
Naomi smiles, a little tight-lipped. “This is what happens when you write enough campaign copy at 1 a.m. with a deadline breathing down your neck.”
Glen chuckles. “I mean it. You’ve got a way of making these guys sound like humans and not robots. That’s a skill.”
Naomi shrugs one shoulder. “Just takes a little translation. Hockey-speak into ticket-selling English.”
He snorts, then sighs as he flips to the next page. “Still wild that we had to rewrite the whole damn thing.”
“Roger didn’t want the p-word in there?”
“Playoffs? Hell no. Didn’t even want it implied.” Glen rubs his temple. “Said we’d jinx the whole operation.”
Naomi raises an eyebrow, amused. “I’m starting to realize every single person in this sport is wildly superstitious.”
“You have no idea,” Glen says, shaking his head. “We had a winger once who refused to step on the locker room logo. Wouldn’t let anyone else do it either. One time a rookie forgot, and he made the poor kid run laps around the parking lot to cleanse the bad juju.”
Her mouth quirks “Okay, that’s intense. But…I sort of get it. It gives them a sense of control, right?”
“Oh, totally. Half of it’s about routine, the other half is straight-up superstitious voodoo.
Lots of players eat the same pregame meal every single time.
Keeps them regular, no nasty surprises on the ice,” he grins.
“But we had this one guy who ate an entire loaf of plain white bread before every game. No butter, no toppings. Just…slice after slice.”
She laughs, tipping her head back. “Why?”
“Said the goals lived in the slices. Swore by it.” Glen shakes his head fondly. “You don’t question it.”
Naomi feels the warmth between them settle like an old sweater.
She enjoys working with Glen. He’s sharp but unfussy, always says what he means, and actually reads the documents she sends him—rare qualities in a client.
He’s overworked, just like she is, but is also one of the few men in her orbit who treats her ideas with respect without making a show of it.
She adjusts the hem of her sweater and scrolls to the updated call sheet. “So it’s Jesse Mitchell, Trayvon Carter, Tristan Fleischer, and Garrett Tall, in that order?”
“Yep. They’ll rotate through for the solo spots and the B-roll. I’ve got them for two hours. Should be enough if no one breaks anything.” He flips to his next document. “But I forgot to tell you that Tall opted out. We’ll use Duchovny instead.”
Naomi’s head snaps up. “What?”
Glen glances over, startled by the sharpness in her voice. She coughs, forcing her expression back to neutral, smoothing the reaction from her face like creases in a shirt.
She tries again, light and easy, like it’s just a matter of scheduling. “Why not Tall? He’s their starting goalie, isn’t he?”
Glen shrugs, already flipping to the next sheet. “Said it would mess with his head. Wants to keep his focus tight. The way his play has dipped lately, I think the brass gave him what he wants. They don’t want to throw him off more than he already is.”
Naomi’s thoughts spin so fast she misses what Glen is saying to her.
He opted out.
The words echo, blunt and final.
She came all the way here, hoping for a chance to fix things, to say what she couldn’t before. To just see him.
And he opted out.
Her pen stills on the page. A slight tremor runs through her fingers, but she hides it by smoothing the paper flat, nodding like she’s fine. Like she hasn’t just had the air knocked clean out of her.
“Right,” she says again, quieter this time. “Of course. Can’t mess with the routine.”
Glen keeps talking about setup times, but the words slide past her. All she can hear is the roaring in her ears. All she can feel is the dull, hollow ache in her chest.
She swallows hard, forces her spine straight. “Let’s head down to meet the AV team,” she says finally, her voice calm and clipped in a way that fools even her. “They should be here any minute.”
She gathers her laptop and notes. She has a job to do, even if she feels like she’s quietly unraveling at the seams.