Usually that kind of focus is enough. his morning, apparently, not so much.
What I’m definitely not doing is thinking about the grocery store—or the fact that I beat a man built like a loading dock in open fluorescent combat over cat food and enjoyed every minute of it.
I am especially not thinking about his shoulders straining that dress shirt.
None of that’s relevant.
The team comes out for warmups and I get to work.
Except.
No, actually, give me a second.
I’ve been covering sports for more than four years. I know exactly how good professional athletes look, especially whenthey’re stretching. I have been in press boxes and locker rooms and on sidelines with men who treat their bodies like custom-built weapons. I am not new here.
But somehow this is an active problem.
Brody comes out first and immediately drops into a hip flexor stretch that should probably require a waiver. He folds himself in half like his hamstrings were handcrafted by angels, holds it, comes back up, does the other side.
Zero strain. Zero acknowledgment that a normal person would need medical imaging after that.
I take a picture.
Professionally.
Sebastian and Caleb follow, doing something with resistance bands that I am going to classify as hockey and leave it right there because I’m a journalist and, in theory, an adult.
Liam Steele steps onto the ice and I watch him for a full ten seconds before I remember I’m holding a camera. He moves like gravity is for people with less confidence.
I take several very serious photographs of the ice.
I am checking light.
Then—
Holy shit.
How the hell is he here?
The grocery store guy comes out of the tunnel and my brain leaves the chat.
Him.
The man from the cat food aisle.
Who is he and why don’t I know about him?
He looks different in all that padding. But he has the same dirty brown hair a little longer on top. Sharp through the jaw in a way that should be illegal this early in the day. Full gear. Pads. Gloves. All that size somehow even worse on ice.
For one ridiculous second I just stare.
My camera follows him before I fully decide to let it.
He moves to the crease and drops into a butterfly stretch with the kind of unhurried ease that feels frankly disrespectful to the rest of us trapped in ordinary bodies.
His jersey lifts slightly at the back.
Just enough to be a problem.