Icebound Rivalry

Chapter 6- Preparation and Distraction

Chapter 6

Maya reached the small conference room on the second floor at ten minutes before seven.

The hallway carpet muffled her steps. She unlocked the door with the key card the team assistant had given her and turned on the lights.

The space held a long table and eight chairs.

A whiteboard stood against one wall. The window looked out over the hotel courtyard where a few outdoor lights were already on.

She set her bag on a chair and arranged her materials at one end of the table.

Notebook. Pen. Two printed sheets with the evening drills.

The air in the room felt cooler than the hallway.

She left the door open and sat down to wait.

Her hands rested flat on the table while she reviewed the sequence one final time.

The words on the page were familiar but the setting was not.

Everything about the hotel made the session feel less formal and more exposed.

Footsteps approached at exactly seven. Alex entered and closed the door behind him.

He wore a dark team hoodie and joggers. His hair was still damp from a shower.

He took the chair across from her without comment and waited for her to begin.

Maya slid the first sheet toward him.

“We are continuing from the last session. This sequence adds longer recovery intervals. I want to see how you handle the reset when the pressure is only in your own head.”

Alex picked up the paper and read it in silence. His free hand rested on the table with the fingers slightly curled.

“You brought the same approach to a different city.”

“The work does not change because the building does.”

He gave a short sound that was not quite a laugh. “Fair enough.”

They started the drills.

Alex followed each instruction with the same controlled precision he always showed.

Maya watched the way his shoulders rose and settled between sequences.

She noted the small pause he took before every reset.

The hotel room around them stayed quiet except for the low sound of the air system and the occasional distant voice from the hallway.

After the third round Alex set the paper down and leaned back. “You are quieter tonight.”

“I am focused on the work.”

“That is new.”

Maya met his eyes. “I have been focused since the first day. You simply were not looking.”

The statement landed between them. Alex’s jaw tightened once. He did not look away.

The scar through his eyebrow caught the overhead light when he tilted his head slightly.

“You talk like you have already decided what I am,” he said.

“I talk like someone who pays attention. There is a difference.”

He held her gaze longer this time. The silence stretched until Maya could hear her own breathing.

She kept her posture steady and her hands still on the notebook.

The air in the closed room felt closer than it had a few minutes earlier.

Alex leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table.

“The team plays tomorrow night. I do not need distractions.”

“This is not a distraction. This is preparation.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it is true.”

He studied her face as if searching for a crack in her composure.

Maya gave him none. Her pulse moved faster in her throat but her expression stayed even.

She waited for the next challenge. It came in a lower voice.

“What happens when the tools stop working, Reyes.”

“Then we find better ones.”

Alex sat back again. The chair shifted under his weight.

He looked at the second printed sheet still sitting untouched near her elbow.

“We are done for tonight.”

Maya closed her notebook.

“We still have fifteen minutes on the schedule.”

“I said we are done.”

He stood and pushed the chair in. The movement was deliberate.

Maya rose as well and gathered her papers.

The space between them felt smaller now that they were both on their feet.

Alex walked to the door and paused with his hand on the handle.

He turned back just far enough to see her face.

“Same time the day after the game,” he said.

“Do not change the approach just because we are on the road.”

“I will not.”

He opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

The door closed with a soft click.

Maya remained standing beside the table and listened until his footsteps faded.

The printed sheets still lay where she had placed them.

She stacked them neatly and slid them into her bag.

The hotel room key card sat in her jacket pocket.

She pulled it out and turned it over once in her fingers before putting it back.

The evening session had ended earlier than planned.

The charge in the air had not. Maya switched off the lights and left the conference room with steady steps.

The corridor was empty. The elevator doors opened on the first call.

She rode up to the twelfth floor alone. The hallway on her floor was quiet.

She unlocked her door and stepped inside.

The room looked exactly as she had left it. She set her bag on the desk and sat on the edge of the bed.

The notebook rested in her lap. She opened it to the page from the evening and wrote one line.

He left early. But he stayed long enough to ask the question that mattered.

Maya closed the book and stared at the dark window.

The game was tomorrow.

The next session would come the day after. The closed walls of the hotel had already changed the shape of every conversation.

She could feel it. And she was no longer certain either of them could step back from whatever had started in that small conference room.