Chapter 20 Adrian
Chapter twenty
Adrian
Thunder Bay was still dark outside the window, Lake Superior black in the distance. My voice was too loud in the hotel room as I laid out every piece of leverage I had, like playing cards on a table.
The documentation. The emails. The pattern.
She'd listened without interrupting. That was worse than yelling. Naomi yelling meant she thought you were salvageable. Naomi's silence meant she was calculating how much of the wreckage she'd have to step over.
I'll see what I can do.
She'd hung up without saying goodbye. That was fine. Goodbye would have felt like a funeral.
Now it was early afternoon. Thunder Bay light slanted through the gap in the curtains—pale, unconvincing, the kind of sun that showed up to work but didn't put in effort. The mini-fridge hummed its irritating frequency.
I hadn't slept. Not really. A few minutes here and there, my body shutting down involuntarily before my brain jerked it back awake with another catastrophic scenario.
Pickle's face when he sees the footage.
The network releasing it anyway.
Naomi calling back to say she couldn't hold them.
Pickle never speaking to me again.
That last one wasn't a scenario. That was already happening.
I'd texted him twice since the storage alcove. The latest at 7:17 a.m:
Adrian: I understand if you need space. I'll be here when you're ready.
No response. The message showed delivered, not read.
That hurt more than anger would have. Anger meant he still cared enough to feel something. Silence meant I'd become someone not worth the energy of a reaction.
I sat up slowly, every muscle protesting.
My back ached from the hotel mattress—two weeks of sleeping on it, and my spine had started filing complaints.
My eyes felt like someone had sandpapered them while I wasn't looking.
I was still wearing yesterday's clothes—jeans and the sweater Pickle had once said made my eyes look like "sad lake water, but in a hot way. "
I'd laughed at that. Called him ridiculous. Kissed him until he forgot whatever point he'd been trying to make.
That was four days ago. It felt like a different lifetime.
My phone sat on the nightstand, screen dark. No new disasters. That almost felt suspicious—like the universe was holding its breath, waiting to see what I'd do next.
I knew what I had to do. I'd known since 5 a.m., since Naomi's silence gave me permission to blow up my own life.
The question was whether I could get to Pickle before the wreckage landed.
My phone rang at 2:47 p.m.
Not Naomi. Not Pickle.
Lenny. The name sat on my screen for two full rings before I remembered how to answer a call.
"Adrian." His voice was warm, unhurried—the same tone he'd used more than a decade ago when I was a film student who didn't know the difference between a story and a subject. "You sound like hell."
"I've had better weeks."
"I imagine." A pause. I heard the creak of his office chair, pictured him leaning back in that cramped editing suite in Brooklyn where he'd built a career out of stories nobody else wanted to tell. "I've been making calls since we talked. Calling in favors I didn't know I still had."
I sat on the edge of the bed. My free hand pressed flat against my thigh, steadying.
"And?"
"And I think there's a path."
I exhaled.
"Tell me."
"A counter-documentary. The real story—not the one the network's trying to sell.
" Lenny's chair creaked again. "The Thunder Bay Storm.
The team, the community, the queer hockey angle that's actually interesting, not the cheap-shot viral bullshit they're packaging.
We'd need the players on board. Full cooperation. Interviews, access, the works."
"That's—that's what I've been shooting. The footage I kept trying to send them."
"I know. I've seen some of it. The clips you sent me." His voice shifted—softer, more careful. "Including the kid with the Zamboni. The one you're worried about."
Pickle. He meant Pickle.
"He's not a kid," I said. "He's twenty-three. He's a professional athlete. He's—"
"He's the one you're in love with."
Silence.
Lenny didn't push. He never had. That was what made him dangerous—he created space and waited for you to fill it with truth.
"Yes," I said finally. "He's the one I'm in love with."
"Then you understand why this matters. Why we can't half-ass it."
"I understand."
"Good." The chair stopped creaking. Lenny's voice turned professional—still warm, but with edges now.
"Here's what I need. The raw footage. Everything you shot, not just the highlights.
I need to see what the network has, what they're planning to use, and what we can build a counter-narrative around. "
"I can get you that."
"I also need the team's consent. Real consent—not releases signed under pressure, not agreements made without full information. They need to know what they're signing up for. What the network already has. What we're trying to do about it."
My stomach tightened. "That means telling them everything."
"That means telling him everything." Lenny's pause was deliberate. Pointed. "The player. The one in the footage. He needs to know what exists, what's been sent, and what choices have been made about his image without his input. Before he agrees to anything."
I closed my eyes.
Figure out what you're actually willing to tell me.
Pickle's voice in my head. The storage alcove. The fluorescent light flickered while I stood there with my hands in my pockets, shaking too hard to hide it.
Not what you think I can handle. The real thing. All of it.
"Adrian." Lenny's voice pulled me back. "This isn't a rescue mission where you swoop in with a solution, and everyone thanks you for saving the day. This is a collaboration. It only works if everyone involved has agency over their own story."
"I know."
"That means no more solo crusading. Making decisions for people instead of with them."
"That's fair," I said quietly.
"It's not about fair. It's about what works." Lenny exhaled. "You're a good filmmaker, Adrian. One of the best I've trained. But you've always had this thing—this need to control the narrative. To protect people by managing what they know."
I flinched.
"This is your chance to change your approach," Lenny continued. "It requires the one thing you've been avoiding. Full transparency. No more strategic timing. No more waiting for the right moment to deliver the truth."
"What's the timeline?" I asked.
"If we move fast—and I mean fast—we can have a counter-proposal to the network within seventy-two hours. Something compelling enough that releasing their version becomes more trouble than it's worth. But that clock doesn't start until I have footage and consent."
Seventy-two hours. Three days. It felt like nothing and everything at the same time.
"I'll get you what you need," I said.
"Tonight?"
"Tonight," I said. "I'll tell him tonight."
"Good." Lenny's voice warmed again. "And Adrian? The stuff with him, your guy and the rookie. The mentorship stuff."
"Yeah?"
"That's the documentary. That's the story that matters. Don't let the network convince you otherwise."
He hung up.
I sat there holding the phone, staring at nothing, feeling something unfamiliar settle into my chest. Not hope. Not yet. It was a faint outline of a future where I hadn't ruined everything.
It required one thing.
The truth. All of it. Tonight.
I didn't let myself sit back down. It was a trick I'd learned early in documentary work. The moment you stopped moving, doubt crept in. It whispered reasonable things.
Wait until you have more information. Wait until the timing is better. Wait until you're sure.
Waiting had nearly lost me everything.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of the desk chair. Shrugged it on.
My laptop sat open on the desk, the footage folder still visible from the morning's review. I'd watched it three times since the storage alcove—not the network's cut, but my own raw files. Everything I'd captured over two weeks in Thunder Bay.
Pickle laughing at something Jake said, head thrown back, that full-body joy he couldn't contain.
Pickle on the ice, reading a play two beats before anyone else, his whole body anticipating something that hadn't happened yet.
Tonight, I would show him everything. The network's cut with its cartoon sound effects. The emails pushing for funnier content. The documentation of their pressure tactics.
And then—if he was still willing to listen—I would tell him about Lenny. About the counter-documentary. About the chance to reclaim his story.
I rehearsed it while I checked my pockets for keys.
The network wants to turn you into a meme.
I've been fighting them since the second week.
I should have told you sooner. I should have told you the moment I realized what they were planning, but I thought I could fix it first. I thought if I could just solve the problem before you had to see how bad it was—
No. That was still an excuse. Still trying to explain my way around the core failure.
I tried again.
I filmed your anxiety and sent it to people who wanted to weaponize it.
I didn't understand what I was capturing at first, but once I did, I kept the camera rolling.
I told myself it was for the documentary.
I told myself I'd protect you in the edit.
I was wrong about everything except one thing: I love you.
And I should have trusted you with the truth.
Better. Worse. Both.
I caught my reflection in the window—a man in a dark jacket, face drawn with exhaustion. That was appropriate.
The Adrian who'd arrived in Thunder Bay two weeks ago wouldn't have risked his career for a hockey player he barely knew. He protected himself first and called it professionalism.
This Adrian was about to walk into a conversation that could end everything, and he was going anyway.