Chapter 6
Chapter six
Adrian
Iwoke thinking about his hands.
Not a useful or professional thought. Still, there it was, waiting for me before I'd opened my eyes—the image of Pickle's fingers wrapped around that plastic cup at The Drop, gesturing while he talked, nearly knocking over someone's beer.
They'd gone still, just once, when our knees almost touched under the table.
I stared at the ceiling. The hotel room was gray with early light, early snow pressing against the window in soft, persistent layers. The mini-fridge hummed at an irritating frequency.
My flight was in nine hours.
I should have been packing. I needed to review footage, organize files, and draft the preliminary notes Naomi would want by Monday. Instead, I lay there thinking about what I'd learned about Noah Piatkowski in four days.
His energy shifted when he thought no one was watching. I thought about how he'd pulled Heath into the group last night. I remembered him fixating on the napkin holders, chair, and Zamboni blade.
He'd looked at me in the booth like I was a door he wasn't sure he was allowed to open.
Stop.
I sat up. Reaching for my phone, I intended to check my flight confirmation. I placed a call instead.
Naomi picked up on the third ring. "It's six in the morning, Adrian."
"I know."
"On a Saturday."
"I need two more days."
Silence. I heard her shifting—probably reaching for coffee, because Naomi didn't function without it, and I'd committed a cardinal sin by calling before she'd had any.
"You said three to five," she said finally. "You've had four, and your flight is today. You told me yesterday you had what you needed."
"I thought I did."
"And now?"
I glanced at the snow accumulating on the windowsill. Thought about how to explain in a way that sounded like a strategy.
"There's something here," I said. "Not only the Shark Tank angle. The team—there's a dynamic I wasn't expecting. It's more than local color."
"Adrian." Her voice sharpened. "We talked about this. The human interest part. It's five minutes, max. The boyfriend's the hook, and the hockey's the backdrop."
"I know what we talked about."
"Then why do you sound like you're pitching me a feature?"
Because I was. Somewhere between the parking lot and the booth, and thinking about Pickle, the scope of my time in Thunder Bay had shifted without my permission.
I chose my words carefully. "There's emotional access here I don't usually get."
The phrase hung in the air. I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it.
"Emotional access," Naomi repeated. Flat.
"The footage is different. These people aren't trying to be interesting—they just are. That's rare. You know it's rare."
Another silence. I pictured her face—the slight narrowing of her eyes.
"This isn't about the team," she said.
"It is."
"Adrian."
I insisted, "It's about the documentary."
"Which part of the documentary? The part with the packaging innovation, or the part with the hockey player you can't stop filming?"
My jaw tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You sent me forty-three minutes of footage yesterday. Nineteen of them were the same guy." She paused. "The one with the weird fixations. Pickle."
I didn't have a response to that. The number was accurate. I'd counted.
"Two days," I said. "That's all I'm asking."
"Budget's tight."
"I'll cover the hotel difference myself."
That would rivet her attention. I never offered to cover costs. It was a point of pride—I didn't blur the line between personal investment and professional work.
I'd just wiped a big smudge across that line.
"Something's happening here," Naomi said slowly. "And I'm not sure it's about footage."
"It's always about footage."
"Is it?"
"Two days," I said again.
She exhaled. "Fine. Two days. But Adrian, you know how this goes when you let it get personal."
"I know."
"Two days," she said. "Then I need you back in Chicago with something I can use."
She hung up.
I sat there holding the phone, staring at the dark screen. My reflection looked back at me—unshaven, tired, wearing yesterday's shirt because I'd fallen asleep without changing.
I'd gotten what I wanted.
I had no idea why I wanted it.
The morning unfolded like a thousand mornings I'd spent on assignment. I did my best to be invisible in Thunder Bay—quietly watching.
The discipline felt good. Necessary. I shot the hockey arena from three angles—the peeling paint on the south wall, the hand-lettered sign that said GO STORM in letters faded to the color of old bruises, and the parking lot where someone had scraped a heart into the frost on a windshield. B-roll.
By noon, I'd driven most of Thunder Bay's main streets. The city was smaller than I'd expected and stranger than the research had suggested.
Thunder Bay wasn't quaint. It was stubborn. Built by people who'd looked at this frozen edge of Lake Superior and decided, against all evidence, that it was a reasonable place to live.
I parked near the waterfront and walked.
The cold was different from than in Chicago. Drier. Cleaner. It didn't seep through your jacket so much as announce itself, immediate and honest. My breath fogged in front of me, and I shot a few frames of the lake—gray water and grayer sky.
And beyond it, always, the Sleeping Giant.
I'd read about it before I came. A peninsula that looked, from certain angles, like a massive figure lying on its back. The Ojibwe called it Nanabijou. The tourist brochures called it Thunder Bay's most iconic landmark.
I raised my camera and framed the shot. The Giant filled the viewfinder, ancient and indifferent to the cold, the clouds, and the small human problems happening in its shadow.
What do you see when you watch me?
Pickle's voice. Last night. The booth.
I lowered the camera.
Emotional access, I'd told Naomi. I don't usually get this.
The truth was uglier and simpler: I didn't usually want this.
I walked until my feet went numb and then found a coffee shop—The Common Thread, the one I'd noticed on my first day.
Rainbow flag in the window. Local art on the walls.
A community board cluttered with flyers for queer book clubs and craft nights and something called "Stitch their hands gripped each other with the easy practice of people who'd stopped being self-conscious about it.
Evan and Jake came out together. Jake spoke with his entire body while Evan listened with his face. They moved like an integrated unit. Like two people who'd figured out how to comfortably occupy the same space.
I didn't see Pickle.
Good, I told myself. That's good. You don't need to see him.
I started the car and pulled out of the lot.
The Sleeping Giant watched me go, silent and unimpressed.
***
I told myself I wouldn't return to The Drop for another night. Instead, I'd order room service, review footage, and prep for tomorrow's shoot at a Storm game. Told myself the smart thing was keeping my distance.
Snow started falling again around five. By six, it was coming down hard enough to blur the streetlights.
By seven, I was parking outside The Drop, camera bag on my shoulder, telling myself I was doing bonus work.
The lie was a hard sell.
I stayed until The Drop began to wind down.
I'd spent three hours nursing two beers and pretending to review footage on my laptop.
The team had cycled through in waves—Jake holding court at the pool table, Evan watching with that quiet intensity that never quite relaxed, and Heath hovering at the edges until Pickle physically dragged him into a conversation about something that involved a lot of hand gestures and at least one impression of Coach Rusk.
I'd filmed maybe twelve minutes total. The rest of the time, I watched.
Him. I watched him.
Not constantly or obviously. Still, I watched how he threw his head back when he laughed. Examined the way he touched people when he talked to them, casual and constant. He froze once when he caught me looking.
We hadn't spoken directly all night.
By eleven, the crowd had thinned. Jake and Evan left first, with Jake's arm slung over Evan's shoulders. Hog followed with Rhett, pausing at my table long enough to nod—not unfriendly, but watchful. Still measuring.