Page 161 of Full Contact

“I won’t.”

“You did last time.”

“That was the croutons.”

“Same principle.”

He hugged me at the door with the grocery bag still crumpled in one fist, and left.

***

The team flew home overnight. By midmorning I was at the office, and the building had the hum it only got before a Game Seven.

An email landed in my inbox with two forwards stacked on top of it. A Dallas station wanted to swap camera positions with an Austin crew for Game Seven. Tasha, our credentials coordinator, had sent it to Devin with “Fine by me.”

Devin directed it to me with one word: “Okay?”

I typed “Yes” and stopped with my finger over send.

Either of them could have answered it. I’d trained them not to.

I scrolled back through my sent folder. There was a question about a podcast start time I’d answered near midnight, and a second microphone I’d approved at a red light. Most of the decisions hadn’t needed me. I’d answered anyway, because it was quick, and I had the authority.

All season I’d given work the extra half hour, and then another. Then I’d gone home and guarded whatever hours in the evening were left. Trier had gotten the part of me that was finally ready to say no.

I opened Leah’s production calendar. The Peaches series had the next three shoots crossed out. Trier had declined each one through Leah, without a reason. The fans had noticed. The comments under the last episode had decided that Peaches was resting up for Game Seven and couldn’t be disturbed.

That afternoon I wrote Carla a proposal. Leah would get real authority over routine decisions, every game would have a named lead and a backup, and Leah’s title and salary would match the work I was handing her.

Leah read it standing beside my desk, clicking her pen. She’d come in on four hours of sleep, still wearing the trip’s lanyard. On page two she drew a line through half a sentence.

“Why do you still approve rebroadcast requests?” she asked. “They’re in the contract.”

“I’ve always approved them.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”

She kept reading. On page three she made a small check mark next to the compensation paragraph and didn’t comment on it.

“Are you getting ready to leave, or getting ready to let go?”

“Ask me after New York.”

She handed the pages back. “Add one thing. If a player calls you directly, you route it to the lead on duty first, unless it’s personal.”

I wrote that down and sent the proposal to Carla before I left, with a note saying I wanted to discuss it.

***

Game Seven was the next night. I put Devin’s name beside “game lead” and Tasha’s beside “backup,” and I told them both what they could decide without me.

During the game, my phone buzzed twice in the third period. Both times it was Devin, telling me something he’d already handled. We won two–one. Rook would get another series.

Twelve days later, we won the conference final at home, in six games, against Edmonton.

I spent the third period at the end of the corridor where the media room met the tunnel. My job was watching the door.