Page 1 of Crossing the Top Line

Ashiverrunsdownmy spine as I push through the doors to the arena, the air conditioning on full blast against the late New Orleans summer. Southern Federal Bank Arena is quiet, but in just a few weeks, it’ll be hockey season once again, and these empty halls will be full of fans.

Or at least I hope they will be.

Pushing the pessimistic thought aside, I stride to the Employee Only entrance and scan my worn badge before shoving through the door. It’s a short walk to the elevator, and an even shorter ride up to the third floor. There’s a distant trill of a phone in the call center as I exit the car and walk purposefully toward the Public Engagement department, adding to the ambient noise of the building. But they fade as I turn the corner and push through another door into the open-concept office space.

In the center of the room is an island of desks and computers, two rows of five, with mine in the middle facing the large plate-glass windows. My coworkers are milling around the coffee station opposite the windows, talking among themselves as they wait for the workday to begin. After I dock my laptop into my station and turn, I catch the gaze of one of my neighbors, Rachel. She smiles and waves me over.

“Hey, Tori! Did you hear?” she asks as I join the group and prepare my first coffee of the day.

“Hear what?” I ask conversationally.

“There was a huge trade, finalized just a few minutes ago. Dee is putting together the release package as we speak,” Tony, another one of my coworkers, says, sliding closer.

I look over the young beta, his mild cucumber scent getting lost in the cloud around us. This’ll be his first season with the team, and he’s been chomping at the bit for something to do. As the coffee maker does its thing, I turn to look at the only closed off section of the office. Dee—short for Demetrius—Strong is the seasoned head of the Public Engagement department. Older but incredibly tech savvy, I can see the alpha through the glass partition, typing furiously with his brow low over his focused eyes.

I’ve known Demetrius for years, ever since I moved to New Orleans and started my grad school internship with the New Orleans Mystic hockey team. The department back then was only half the size it is now, and every day was a sunup to sundown madhouse. But I paid my sweat dues, and when I graduated with my Public Relations master’s degree, I was offered a permanent position. Now I run all the social media accounts for the team. But if I play my cards right this year, I might be able to convince the higher ups to make my position into its own subdepartment with me at the helm.

The coffeemaker dispenses with its signature grinding whine, and I turn back around, tuning into the wild speculation going on around me. Tony and Rachel are in a fierce debate about which team we traded with, while everyone else chimes in. Notably, no one is speculating on who was traded, because we’d all been there to witness The Blowout just a few weeks ago.

I still shudder at the memory of that day, but push it to the side. Yeah, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind. Tristan King was traded. It’s just a matter of what we got in return.

My work phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out as I take my black coffee to my station. A new post from Mark Henderson, claiming to have insider knowledge that Tristan King is leaving New Orleans at this very moment, on a plane to Denver and possibly headed for Los Angeles.

“You’ve got the scowl. What has your nemesis said now?” Rachel asks, plopping down in her desk chair beside me.

I roll my eyes, but don’t correct her. Mark Henderson and I have a…strained relationship, to say the least. Mark works for the Times Picayune and is the top sports reporter in the city. He’s been in the business longer than I’ve been alive, and his experience alone should have landed him firmly behind a desk as the Sports Editor. But no, he instead follows hockey religiously and, when we lost the Stanley Cup Final a decade ago, his coverage of the extensive rebuilding process turned hyper-critical. His unending negativity around the team’s performance is part of the reason why we’re running such a bare bones crew. There’s hardly a public to engage with anymore, so our budget got slashed. Last season, we never came close to selling out a game, and I’ve heard more commotion in the library than from the crowds at some of those games. He and I cross paths whenever I have my turn running post-game interviews, and he’s been holding a grudge ever since I told him that his unfounded accusations of intentional tanking were out of line two years ago.

“He thinks Tristan is going to LA,” I relay, turning to my laptop to get my day started.

“Tristan could go to the fucking moon for all I care,” Rachel snorts, nose wrinkled with distaste.

I make an empathetic noise, my heart aching a little. Tristan got away with a lot while the execs tried to appease him into staying. Treating the back-office team like shit was just one of the liberties that alpha-hole took, and while I had to endure my share of abuse, Rachel got hit the hardest. He specifically didn’t want her anywhere near him because he didn’t want to be associated with “fat chicks,” saying it would “hurt his brand.” Rachel is mid-sized, but in better shape than half of the fucking security officers. I told her she should crush his skull between her “fat” thighs, but we settled for watermelons with his face drawn on them.

It's honestly for the best that this trade went through. The draft was last night, and we picked up a ton of new talent, though none of them are likely to see ice time in the big leagues this season. But if the trade was related to the draft, they would have announced it yesterday. So, if Tristan’s out, then who or what did we get in return?

“Tori, check your inbox. You’ve got five minutes to get me back the copy for the announcement posts. Aaron, I sent over the press briefing. Get it on the website by nine sharp. The rest of you, battle stations.”

Dee’s low bass echoes out from his open office door, but none of us turns to check if he’s standing there or not. Immediately, everyone is scrambling for their desks, waking up computers, and slipping into their headsets. Battle stations means time to man the phones and answer all the calls that are about to come flooding in. I click into my inbox, heart in my throat. If all of us have to be ready, then this must be huge. Someone who could completely alter the path of the team.

But when the email loads, my heart drops from the back of my throat to the depths of my gut. No. No fucking way. Not now. Not like this.

I scan the words over and over, then squeeze my eyes shut, praying that I’m dreaming. But when I open them again, the truth is right there. Black-and-white pixels on a screen show me the name I’ve tried to forget every day for the last six years.

Spencer Black.

Imissedalotof things about my hometown while I was in San Francisco. The humidity was not one of them.

From the moment I step out the door of the airport, the sticky air invades my lungs and coats my chest, a familiar sensation but uncomfortable all the same. Excitement builds like a rising tide within me. I can’t wait to see what’s changed in the Big Easy. But first thing’s first, I have to find out where I’m going to be living. I follow behind the valet my new team hired, my large stature and bulky luggage parting the crowds, as we head to the car that’s going to take me to my new digs.

The team wanted to put me up in a new apartment all by myself, but I'd asked for roommates at least for this first year. I'd spent enough time on my own in San Francisco to never want that again. Too many quiet nights after games, coming home to darkness and a twin bed barely long enough to keep my feet from hanging off the end. Yeah, I'm ready to not be a loner anymore.

The beta valet and I don't speak much as we load a huge SUV. We still barely managed to fit my gear and my suitcases, but a little bit of Tetris and we were good to go.

“So where are we headed?” I ask, trying to fill the silence as we pull out of the airport parking.

“St. Charles Ave. Most of the guys live north of the river and commute. Though you might think some of them have beds in the arena with the amount of time they spend in the training facilities the St. Clair’s paid for,” he answers, a little ironic chuckle at the end.

I grunt a response, not sure what to do with that information. I’ve heard a lot of rumors about New Orleans Mystic owner Leopold Saint Clair, the most common of which is that he gave basically no shits about his team other than their bottom line. But there’s a rumor of a silent partner that actually cares about the team and is the reason why the player contracts and facilities are some of the best in the league. Either way, my agent told me that ownership is practically hands off with the day-to-day operations. And honestly, that'll be a really nice change of pace from having to deal with the Wardens’ owner butting into team practices more often than the general manager did.

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