Chapter 2
Samantha
Iwalked in at eight sharp with my camera bag and a coffee already half gone, and the room shifted toward me the way rooms do when someone enters with purpose. Not a dramatic shift. Not an ego thing. Just bodies in motion registering a new variable.
I had learned years ago that the way you entered a room determined the next thirty minutes of your life.
Hesitate, and people smell blood. Apologize for existing, and they treated you like furniture.
Walk in as if you had somewhere to be and something to do, and the room organized itself around you.
Photography taught me that. Case Whitfield taught me the opposite.
Nope. Not today.
I found an open corner near the cable machines and began setting up, mentally mapping the room the way I always did: light sources, angles, traffic flow.
The main gym was a cathedral of controlled violence.
A trainer in the back corner shouted encouragement that sounded like a threat with good intentions.
“Cole!” Brick’s voice carried across the room like it had been engineered for maximum range. He was at the squat rack, loading plates that looked like they belonged on a forklift. “Back for round two?”
“Always.”
“Impressive. Most people tap out after one day with McKinney.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
He paused mid-rep, studying me with an expression that did not match his usual grin. Something sharper underneath. People underestimated men like Brick. They saw the size and assumed the whole package was simple. It was not.
“You read people fast,” he said.
“Have to. It’s the job.”
“McKinney won’t make it easy.”
“He doesn’t have to.”
Brick nodded slowly, like I had given the right answer to a question I had not known he was asking. Then the grin returned, and the moment dissolved into the ambient noise of men lifting heavy things and pretending not to be in pain.
I got to work. Shooting a team workout was a different discipline from event photography.
Less about catching moments and more about manufacturing the illusion of energy from repetitive motion.
The trick was finding the angles that made routine look dynamic.
A low shot of a sled push turned a conditioning drill into something cinematic.
A tight crop of hands gripping a barbell told a story of effort that a wide shot could not capture.
I moved through the room, reading each player the way I read a landscape.
Who needed direction. Who performed for the camera.
Who had forgotten it existed. The rookies were easy: hungry and hyper-aware of every lens in the room.
The veterans were even easier. They had been photographed so many times they had stopped caring, which meant their candid photos were cleaner.
Brick, naturally, flexed every time I pointed my camera in his direction. I got three frames of it before he realized I was shooting his form breaking down on a clean-and-jerk. He clutched his chest in mock betrayal. I kept shooting.
A voice appeared beside me, quiet enough that it took a second to register.
“You’re Samantha.”
I turned. The man from the bleachers. The quiet observer from yesterday’s event.
Up close, he was mid-forties, fit in a way that suggested discipline rather than vanity.
His eyes were the notable feature: calm and cataloging, the eyes of someone who collected information the way other people collected stamps.
“And you are?”
“Sully Sullivan. Head coach.”
That tracked. He had the look: solidly built, eyes that measured first and spoke second.
“McKinney give you any trouble yesterday?” he asked, watching the room rather than me.
“No trouble. Just a short conversation.”
“He’s not unfriendly,” Sully said.
He watched Brick add another plate to the rack and spoke without looking at me.
“Contract year for him. Walsh has a timeline. Everybody in this building has a timeline for McKinney this summer.” The mildness in his voice did not soften any of it.
“I’ve got a defenseman I need inside his own head come October.
That’s my timeline. Keep that consideration in mind when planning his campaign photos. ”
It was not a threat. It was a head coach making sure I understood the stakes on his side of the fence before I walked any further into his building.
“Understood,” I said.
“Good.” He finally looked at me. Half a second of that measuring gaze. “For what it’s worth, he’s worth the patience.”
He drifted off toward the forward line, hands still in his pockets, and the room made space for him the way water moved around a stone.
Then the facility door opened, and every head recalculated.
Evan McKinney walked in with the contained energy of a man who carried his own weather system.
Gray workout shirt, headphones looped around his neck but not on.
He scanned the room once, the same methodical sweep I had watched yesterday, and his gaze landed on me for approximately one-third of a second before moving on.
Noted. Filed. Dismissed.
Good morning to you too, Mr. Sunshine.
The nickname had arrived in my head sometime between last night’s wine and this morning’s coffee, and it fit with the snug precision of a lens cap. Mr. Sunshine. For the man who radiated approximately zero warmth and treated eye contact like a tactical liability.
He moved to the sled push station and began warming up with the efficiency of someone who had been doing this since his tendons had formed. No wasted motion. No chatting with teammates. Just a body in controlled motion.
I shot him from three angles, keeping my distance.
Wide enough to show the environment. Tight enough to catch the details: corded forearms, perfect balance, the way his center of gravity stayed level through every push.
Technically excellent images. The kind the communications staff would approve without hesitation.
And completely dead.
That was the problem with photographing someone who knew how to control what his body communicated. Every image I captured was a press release. Correct. Careful. The man equivalent of a locked door with a Do Not Disturb sign.
I lowered my camera and considered the problem. Somewhere behind that performance was the person who had tied a five-year-old’s shoe without thinking. That man did not know he was being watched. That man existed in the unguarded seconds between one pose and the next.
I just had to find those seconds again.
When practice wound down, and players began filtering toward the showers, I intercepted Evan near the equipment rack. He was wiping down a kettlebell with the focused attention of a man who had nowhere else to be, which we both knew was a lie.
“McKinney,” I said. “I need ten minutes tomorrow. One-on-one session for the campaign materials.”
He set the kettlebell down. Straightened. Gave me the full weight of his attention for the first time, which turned out to be considerable.
“Why?”
“Because PR scheduled it. And because I’m good at my job.”
He studied me. Not a glance. An actual assessment. Eyes tracking my face the way they tracked the ice, looking for tells and patterns that would let him predict my next move.
“You won’t get what you want,” he said.
“Maybe not.” I held his gaze. “But I’ll get something.”
A muscle in his cheek moved. Not quite a clench. More like a thought his body had before his brain approved it.
“Fine,” he said, and walked away.
I watched him go while the gym emptied around me and the fluorescent lights kept up their tuneless buzz.
On the TV mounted above the treadmills, a sports anchor was talking about contract negotiations, and I caught a fragment: “…McKinney’s deal expected to be a priority this offseason… ” before someone changed the channel.
Contract year. Of course. Every move he made this summer was being measured and assigned a dollar value. No wonder he treated every interaction like a controlled substance.
I slung my camera bag over my shoulder and headed for the exit, already thinking about tomorrow’s session. Ten minutes. One reluctant subject. An empty rink lit with the kind of overhead glare that flattened everything it touched.
I would need to bring my own light.