Page 115 of Rookie Rules

The answer landed more gently than Luca wanted.

Claire turned the screen dark. "Take the deck. Talk to whoever you trust. We answer in forty-eight hours with either a counter or a no. Not an acceptance."

Luca took the printed folder.

On the cover, his proposed campaign face looked fearless.

The man in the photograph had never stood in Rowan's kitchen asking not to disappear.

He had no inconvenient private life. No need to be chosen. He smelled like vetiver and moved through hotel lobbies while women reconsidered their standards.

Easy to want.

Luca left the PR office and carried the folder through the arena corridor. Practice had ended an hour earlier. Most players were gone. Equipment carts moved behind the locker room. Somewhere near the ice, a machine started with a low mechanical hum.

Rowan had promised a conversation after the trip.

They had returned that morning. The rival game itself had produced no dramatic confrontation between Finn and Kaito. Northstar lost 4-3 in regulation, moving to 5-6, and the trip changed nothing between Luca and Rowan.

Finn had played Kaito hard and clean. They exchanged two words at a faceoff Luca could not hear. Afterward Finn joked about the flight food and gave the room nothing else.

Professionalism had held.

Luca was beginning to understand that holding was not always success.

He found Rowan in the video room alone.

Of course.

The screen showed the rival's late winning entry. Rowan sat at the console in a gray team shirt, one hand resting near the keyboard. He looked tired around the eyes, though his posture remained exact.

"You said after the trip," Luca said from the doorway.

Rowan closed the video. "I did."

No reminder required. That mattered despite Luca's decision not to inflate scraps.

"Here?"

Rowan looked at the open corridor beyond him. "My house. Seven."

Luca lifted the folder. "I have a visual aid."

"Should I be concerned?"

"Almost certainly."

At seven, Luca placed the Boreal House deck on Rowan's kitchen island between two water glasses.

The arrangement recalled the night of the four rules so precisely that Luca nearly laughed. Same stone counter. Same defensive water. Different contract.

Rowan read the offer before the creative pages. Payment. Usage rights. Exclusivity in fragrance and grooming. Appearance schedule.

"This is significant," he said.

"Claire used the same word."

"Your manager?"