Chapter Five: The Assignment Begins

POV: Ray

Monday came like a punishment. I stood outside the athletics media room with my hands in my jacket pockets, telling myself I was calm. I was not calm. I'd barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the photograph on Hartwell's desk, the girl with the laughing eyes and the swinging hair, and then I'd remember that girl was now my job.

I rolled my shoulders and pushed the door open.

The room smelled like coffee and printer ink. Long tables ran down the middle, covered in equipment cases and camera bags. A few people were already seated, student photographers mostly, scrolling through phones or testing lenses. I recognized one of the team's media coordinators, a tired-looking guy named Pete, setting up a projector at the front.

I had absolutely no reason to be here. My reason walked through the door four minutes later.

Riley Ashford didn't rush. She came in with her camera bag on one shoulder and a small notebook tucked under her arm, her dark hair pulled back, wearing a grey sweater that looked like she'd grabbed it without thinking but somehow made her look completely put together. 

She scanned the room once, quickly, the way someone does when they're preparing for resistance. Then she picked a seat at the middle of the table, not too close to the front, not hiding in the back, and set her bag down with quiet confidence. She looked like she belonged there. That was the first thing that threw me.

I'd expected her to look nervous. A professor's daughter walking into a hockey team's media room for the first time. I figured she'd be stiff, uncertain, maybe a little wide-eyed. Instead she opened her notebook, uncapped a pen, and started writing something down before Pete had even called the room to attention.

I pulled out the chair two seats down from her and sat. Pete started talking about the season's media schedule, shot requirements, deadlines for the team's official accounts. I nodded in the right places and understood nothing. My attention kept sliding sideways to Riley, who was taking actual notes, underlining things, writing questions in the margin of her notebook.

She raised her hand. "Are we expected to shoot both home and away games, or is there a rotation?"

Pete blinked like no one had ever asked him a prepared question before. "Rotation. We'll sort it by availability."

"And for the portrait series you mentioned, what's the turnaround time between shoot and final edits?"

"Uh, usually a week."

She nodded and wrote that down too. I watched her from the corner of my eye and felt something shift quietly in my chest. She wasn't performing. She wasn't trying to impress anyone. She was just genuinely interested.

That made my job significantly harder. When Pete wrapped up and people started breaking into smaller conversations, I made my move. I leaned slightly toward her, casual, easy.

"First time shooting a hockey team?"

She didn't look up from her notebook right away. Just finished her sentence, capped her pen, and then turned her head to look at me like she'd known I was going to speak and had been deciding whether to bother responding.

"First time shooting any sports team," she said. "But I've done event photography for two years so the pace won't be the issue. Getting sharp shots through plexiglass might be."

I nodded. "The reflection's the problem. You need to get your lens basically flush against the glass and cut the arena lights out of your angle."

She looked at me for a second. Actually looked, not the dismissive glance she'd given me in the hallway after the game.

"That's actually useful," she said. "Did you just know that or did you look it up?"

"Little of both."

The corner of her mouth moved. Not quite a smile. More like she was deciding whether I'd earned one.

"Ray Collins," I said, extending my hand.

"I know who you are." She shook it anyway. Her grip was firm. "Riley."

"I know."

Something flickered across her face. Too quick to read.

"Right," she said. "Coach Hartwell's team. Of course you'd know."

I kept my expression easy. "Small campus."

She turned back to her notebook. I thought the conversation was over, but then she said, without looking up, "You don't usually come to media meetings."

It wasn't a question.

"I try to stay connected to all the team's departments," I said. The lie came out smooth and I hated how smooth it was.

"Mm." She wrote something down. "And you just happened to sit near me."

"There were limited seats."

"There are eleven empty chairs."

I had nothing for that. She said it without any edge, just a simple, accurate observation, which somehow made it worse than if she'd been sarcastic about it.

I tried a different angle. "How do you know your shots through the glass will be an issue? Have you been to a game before?"

"I was at Friday's game actually."

"I know. I saw you in the stands."

She stopped writing. Put her pen down slowly and looked at me, and this time the look was different. Measured. Like she was sorting through something.

"You saw me specifically," she said. "In a packed arena."

"You were wearing an Eagles jersey in a Falcons arena. You stood out."

It was true enough. She held my gaze for a moment, then nodded once and picked her pen back up.

We sat in silence for a minute. Around us people were trading lenses, arguing about editing software, laughing about something I wasn't tracking. I watched Riley flip to a new page and start sketching what looked like a diagram of the arena's seating layout, marking angles.

"Are you mapping shot positions?" I asked.

"I like to prepare."

"For a first practice meeting."

"For everything." She said it simply, without apology. I almost smiled, I stopped myself.

Pete started handing out equipment access forms and the room got louder. Riley gathered hers, glanced it over, and started filling it in. I reached for my own form, which I didn't need, and pretended to read it.

Then she leaned slightly toward me. Her voice dropped. Not loud enough for anyone else.

"I know you're watching me," she said. Quiet. Completely calm. "The question is, who asked you to?"

The room kept going around us. Pete was still talking. Someone laughed across the table. Everything continued exactly as it had been.

My hand went still on the form in front of me. I didn't move. I didn't look at her. I kept my eyes forward and worked very hard to keep my face from doing anything at all. She went back to filling in her form like she hadn't said anything.

Like she hadn't just reached into my chest and stopped my heart..