The Article
1185 Words
The article was due at 5 p.m.
My first real byline as an embedded reporter. Not a tweet. Not a fluff PR piece. A real feature for Metro Sports that would live on the internet forever and decide if I kept this job.
Working title: Inside The Rivalry: What It Really Means To Wear Two Jerseys.
My editor Karen wanted blood.
"Give me Maddox vs Carter. Give me why the two best enforcers in the league hate each other. Give me the girl in the middle. Give me why you're living with one while writing about the other. Give me clicks, Reyes."
I had clicks. I had too many. I had a photo of Cole kissing me under mistletoe that had 3.2 million views overnight. I had a secret kiss with Jax on a frozen pond at 6 a.m. I had Jax's hair tie in my drawer and Cole's shirt on my body and a blank Google doc that blinked at me like it knew I was a fraud.
I sat in Cole's kitchen at 2 p.m., three empty coffees around me, cursor blinking.
Cole found me there after practice. Wet hair, finally wearing a shirt — my tiny Columbia Rowing tee stretched across his chest.
"You stole my shirt again," I said, not looking up.
"You stole my life again," he said, sitting across from me, reading my empty doc. "Hockey is a game of inches and grudges. I know because I'm living in one. That's good."
"It's terrible."
"It's honest." He closed my laptop gently. "Hey. Look at me."
I looked. His stitched lip was almost healed.
"You don't have to make me look good," he said quietly. "I know what Karen wants. She wants you to pick. Make me the villain or him the hero. Don't. Make us both human. That's better journalism anyway."
"How do you know what Karen wants?"
"Because Diane told me to tell you that if you make me look bad, I'm traded to Alaska and you're homeless."
I laughed despite myself. "Alaska doesn't have a team."
"They will, just to punish me." He pushed the laptop back. "Write the truth. Not PR truth. Real truth. You can do that. That's why I—"
He stopped.
"That's why you what?"
"That's why I like having you on my couch, even when you're stressed and mean."
My throat tightened.
He stood. "I'm going to shower. Write your article, Goldilocks. Make it hurt a little. Good stories hurt."
He left. I opened the laptop. And I wrote.
Inside The Rivalry: What It Really Means To Wear Two Jerseys
By Ella Reyes
Hockey is a game of inches and grudges. I know because I'm living in one.
Three weeks ago I was fired from my internship for asking a question a male reporter would have been praised for. I was broke, my apartment flooded, and the only job that would take me was as the first female embedded reporter with the Frost Wolves.
The captain of the Frost Wolves is Jax Carter. He was my first love. At seventeen, he gave me his varsity jacket and promised me forever under the bleachers at Sapele High. At eighteen, he stopped answering my calls. I kept his jersey in my mom's closet for five years anyway.
The enforcer of the Steel Hawks is Cole Maddox. He is 6'3, tattooed, sleeps shirtless, makes terrible tacos with too much garlic, and leaves the hallway light on because he knows I get scared in big houses. He offered me a fake-dating contract to fix his image after a PR scandal. I said yes because I needed housing. He said yes because he needed a good girl.
Rule number one of fake dating: No feelings.
We broke it on day three.
Cole Maddox is not the villain the league thinks he is. He scores when someone needs a reason. He hits because it's his job, not because he likes it. He bleeds and smiles with blood on his teeth and looks for one person in the glass seats.
Jax Carter is not the cold captain the league thinks he is. He keeps a faded hair tie from high school in his letterman pocket. He still skates on the pond behind our old school at 6 a.m. because it's the last place someone was honest with him. He loses games and drives to empty apartments in the rain.
They hate each other because three years ago, Jax hit Cole's best friend on a bad angle. Accident or not, the friend limps. Grudges like that don't die in hockey. They get passed down like jerseys.
And I am in the middle, wearing both their hoodies in my bag because I can't choose which one keeps me warmer.
People ask me which team I root for. The answer is both. And neither. I root for the boys under the helmets. The ones who taught me that falling on ice hurts less if someone teaches you how to fall, and that getting up is the whole point.
This isn't a love triangle. It's a story about coming home.
I sent it at 4:59 p.m.
At 5:03, Karen replied: HOLY s**t. REYES. THIS IS GOING TO BREAK THE INTERNET.
At 5:10, Diane replied to Cole: SHE DIDN'T MAKE YOU A VILLAIN. SHE MADE YOU HUMAN. KEEP HER.
At 5:15, my phone buzzed.
J: I read it. You kept the jersey? - J
C: You called me terrible at tacos. I make great tacos. - C
I found Cole on the couch, reading the article on his phone, my Columbia tee riding up his stomach. He looked up.
"You called my tacos terrible," he said.
"You put garlic powder AND fresh garlic. That's a war crime."
"They were made with love. Love covers garlic." He patted the couch next to him. "Come here, Goldilocks."
I sat. Not in his lap. Next to him. Our knees touched.
"You wrote that I leave the hallway light on," he said quietly.
"You do."
"I didn't think you noticed."
"I notice everything about you. It's my job. Embedded."
"Is that all it is? Your job?"
The house was quiet. No cameras. No mistletoe. No fake snow. Just us and the article that made both boys human and made me look like I was falling for both of them — because I was.
"What if it wasn't?" I whispered.
He turned, his hand finding my cheek, same way Jax did, but warmer, bigger.
"Then rule five is officially dead," he said.
"Which one was rule five again?"
"No kissing unless cameras."
"There are no cameras," I said, same line as always.
"I know," he said, same as always.
And he kissed me. Not like the mistletoe kiss for show. This was slow, in his kitchen, in my tiny shirt, with no one watching. His stitched lip soft against mine, his hand sliding into my hair, my hands fisting in his — my — shirt.
My phone buzzed again. Jax. Cole's phone buzzed. Diane. The internet buzzed. The article was already at 100K views.
We didn't stop kissing.
- Writer
