Page 17 of The Off Limits Captain
Silas’s mouth flattens. “We’re offering a sit-down.”
“You’re offering me.”
“We’re offering access.”
“Funny how often those sound the same in here.”
“She’s smart,” Silas says. “High-profile California outlet before she landed here. We do not know why she left.”
I hear the space Silas leaves around the sentence.
“But you looked.”
“Of course we looked.”
Marc leans forward. “She’s looking for a narrative. If we refuse, denial becomes part of the story. If we cooperate, we shape the frame.”
“You want me to perform.”
“I want you to be yourself,” Silas says. “Maybe the version that does not scare sponsors.”
I smile without humor.
I have learned to give less.
Peyton Hayes looks like she would hate less.
I take the tablet from Silas and scroll past her byline photo to the game recap. Two lines are highlighted in yellow by someone in PR.
I ignore both and read the sentence about Finn.
Then the sentence about Evan.
She has seen the play beneath the celebration.
“McKinney is not part of a captain profile,” Silas says.
I look up. “Then you do not understand my room.”
“We’re asking you to help protect the team,” Marc says.
The team.
There is the lever.
The room full of guys trying to make an expansion franchise matter in a city that loved them fast and loudly.
I look through the glass toward the rink below.
Peyton Hayes stands in the conference room above practice, chin lifted, notebook open, posture too rigid to be relaxed.
She would hate being managed.
That makes two of us.
“When?” I ask.
Relief crosses Marc’s face.
