Ryan
The flight from Dallas to San Antonio is under an hour.
I spend the first twelve pretending not to watch the aisle.
We beat Dallas in overtime, three-two. I had the second assist on the game-winner, a clean feed to Colt who found Zach backdoor. The team should feel light. Road win. Two points. Playoff race tightening in our favor.
Instead, I sit near the back of the team jet with a towel still damp in my bag, my ribs sore from a blocked shot, and Peyton’s article sitting in my head where the win should be.
The guys are loose in the restless way players get after a close win.
Colt and Finn argue over whether cereal counts as soup because “milk is broth if you’re brave.
” Roman plays cards with Kowalski and loses with quiet dignity.
Evan lounges across the aisle with his headphones around his neck, watching the cabin like he is waiting for someone to do something interesting enough to mock.
Peyton boards after the coaching staff.
Hair down this time. Mouth set. The kind of face a woman wears when she has already chosen trouble and is waiting for trouble to notice.
Her eyes find mine.
She can sit anywhere.
She walks straight to the empty seat beside me before anyone can redirect her.
“Taken?”
“Now it is.”
She sits.
She has no notebook out, no recorder, nothing that looks like armor except the way she keeps her hands folded in her lap instead of touching me.
Across the aisle, Evan looks from Peyton to me, then lifts both brows.
I give him a flat stare.
Evan smiles like Christmas has come early and puts his headphones on without starting any music.
The plane lifts.
Team noise settles into cards, headphones, half-sleep. The cabin lights dim. San Antonio waits somewhere beyond the black window and the thin line of wing light.
Peyton keeps her hands in her lap, as if distance has helped either of us so far.
She looks straight ahead.
“I wrote it,” she says.
My chest tightens. “The article.”
“Yes.”
“When does it run?”
“Tuesday morning.”
“Did you send it?”
“Earlier today.”
I turn my head. “And you sat beside me anyway?”
“You deserved to know.”
“Before or after you used me?”
She flinches.
The hurt on her face gets there before satisfaction does.
I drag a hand over my jaw. “That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
The question is quiet enough to bruise.
I look at her hands. The right thumb worries at the edge of her nail. She is scared. Not of me. Of the thing already in motion.
“What did you write?” I ask.
“The true version I could prove.”
“That’s different from the truth?”
“Sometimes it’s the only part of the truth a lawyer lets you keep.”
I nearly smile.
Peyton sees it. Does not reward me for it.
“Does it include my family?” I ask.
She turns to me then. “Only where leaving them out would make the piece dishonest. I did not quote your mother. I did not quote your father. I did not write about anything private for texture.”
“But the farm is in it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the organization used the farm. If I leave that out, I protect the mechanism. If I write it wrong, I exploit you. I tried to do neither.”
I stare at the seat back in front of me.
I hate this.
I hate that she sounds right.
“The organization is going to come for you,” I say.
“I know.”
“And me.”
She turns.
“Not because you lied. Because you didn’t give them what they thought the access bought.”
Her mouth tightens. “I told them I would write my own piece.”
“You did. They heard profile. Brand story. Captain with a farm and a mother everyone can feel good about. Not a map of how they use him.”
She looks ahead.
“They will say you violated the spirit of the access, even if you never agreed to their version of it. Credentials. Legal. Jennifer saying you turned cooperation into an accusation. Ownership calling your editor. People asking when the reporter got too close to the subject.”
“And you?” she asks.
I look toward the dark window. “They will say I compromised the room by letting you in.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Peyton breathes in slowly. “Because I bent once. I know what it feels like to choose proximity and call it context. I know what it costs after. I am not doing that with you.”
With you.
Two words, wrong place, wrong altitude.
“Do you regret the article?”
“No.”
“Do you regret me?”
Her face changes.
There it is. The line under the line.
“No,” she says.
My hand tightens on the armrest.
The plane hits turbulence. Her shoulder bumps mine. Neither of us moves away fast enough.
Heat flashes through me, stupid and immediate.
Peyton looks down at where our arms touch, then back to my face.
“We cannot do this here,” she says.
“We cannot do this anywhere.”
“That did not stop you last time.”
My mouth goes dry.
I deserve that.
“I should not have left like that.”
“No.”
“I did not know how to stay.”
“That is not an apology.”
“I know.”
Her eyes stay on mine. “Are you offering one?”
“Yes,” I say.
Peyton’s breath changes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For leaving. For making you carry the part I didn’t know how to handle.”
She blinks once, fast.
“Thank you.”
I am not done.
“You don’t owe me a softer story,” I say.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know that too.”
For the rest of the flight, we sit close enough that I can feel the heat of her through two layers of clothing and far enough apart that the distance becomes its own confession.
When the plane lands, the team files into the aisle.
Evan pauses beside our row. “Great talk, whatever this was.”
“Move,” I say.
“That’s the tender tone I come to work for.”
Peyton looks down, but not before I catch the corner of her smile.
Evan moves on.
Peyton waits until the others are ahead. “Nothing from tonight is in the article.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“If you were that kind of reporter, you would have already used better material.”
Her smile nearly breaks loose.
“Ryan.”
“Yeah.”
“When it runs, do not defend me publicly.”
My mouth sets. “You do not get to ask me to hide.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I.”
“They will use it against you.”
“They already use my quiet against me.”
Her eyes search my face. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
It is the most honest answer I have.
At the exit, she turns toward the rideshare pickup. I watch her walk away until Zach bumps my shoulder.
“You good?”
“No.”
Zach blinks.
I adjust my bag and head for the truck.
For once, I do not take it back.