Page 5 of Unleashed

Adele grinned, picked up her walkie-talkie and plopped one hand on her hip. “Glad to see you can still spit out a little wishful thinking. Nothing will ever satisfy that man.” She waved the bright red walkie-talkie. “But I’m on it, girlfriend. I’ll be in the crowd if you need me.”

I waved her off with a smile, but beneath the surface of my amusement, a knot tightened in my stomach.

Three years. Three years since that backstabbing producer stole my show concept and left my career circling the drain.Aces Unleashedwas my baby, my ticket back to the life I understood. I wasn’t some talentless hack, even if that’s how I felt some days. I flipped through my notes on my phone, stared at the meticulously organized production notes, as if they could reassure me that I wasn’t losing my mind. That putting up with the challenges of chasing around a hockey team would be worth it in the end. That I knew how to do this job and I was damn good at it.

As if sensing my frustration, my grumpy cat stretched out, half his body covering the laptop keys as he demanded my attention.

My phone buzzed with an incoming text message. Mark Malone, the show’s producer. Mark was a cesspit of ambition, a walking, talking manipulator of the first degree. He fed on the carcasses of truth and justice with a whatever-it-took mentality to get ratings. All season we’d managed to appease the ratings beast, for the most part, but he’d recently started laying on the pressure for the show to end on a dramatic note.

Malone: Where’s the fireworks? This shit is boring. Find some conflict, something to go viral. Spectacle. Something, anything. Don’t send me another boring-ass player interview. I’m not going to approve it.

Seriously? I scrolled through the social media metrics every single day, scanning the numbers. We were consistently trending, a tiny blip on the radar compared to the behemoths of football and basketball, but a blip nonetheless. Each like, each retweet, felt like a small victory, a testament to the power of authentic storytelling.

I flipped the phone over on the picnic table with a snarl at the innocent device. “No, Mark, this isn’tKeeping Up With the Kardashianson skates.”

Even whispering to myself, my voice was laced with weariness. The sort of bone-deep weariness that a month of sleep or an arsenal of vanilla lattes couldn’t conquer.

I’d dragged Adele intoAcesto not only keep me grounded, but also because I didn’t want compromise all my values to get back on the good side of the industry. The rest of the crew were hired by Mark’s people, but between me and Adele, we did our best to avoid manufactured drama. Or chasing after contrived storylines.

I saw my first hockey game when I arrived to start production. What I knew about hockey, I’d learned over the last eight months of filming. But I knew enough to know I wanted to show the real heart of this team, as cheesy as it sounded. The grit, the determination, the sacrifices these elite athletes make day in and day out. Athletes that push their bodies to the limit, who battle through injury, who pour their heart and soul into every game. That was the story I wanted to show. That was the story that mattered.

I flipped the phone over again, on the cusp of calling Mark and ripping into him. But we needed the show to continue, needed the funding to carry the episodes through the playoffs now that the guys had clinched a spot. A knot of frustration formed in my chest, tight, squeezing the breath out of me. Mark, with his insatiable hunger for ratings would laugh. Call me idealistic.

Maybe I was.

Maybe I needed to compromise. Maybe I was fighting a losing battle.

I wasn’t about to let Mark turn these players into pawns for his televised spectacle. They deserved more than that—every one of them complex, driven, and worth seeing for who they really were.

Yeah, idealistic goals for a woman battling the shadows of her past.

I thumbed in a quick response to my boss, polite and conciliatory, assuring him that I was working on it, that the playoffs were around the corner and would be an automatic goldmine of drama.

Across the expanse of grass and gravel, players I’d spent the season getting to know interacted with fans, their genuine camaraderie and easy laughter filling the air. A pang of doubt hit me. These guys weren’t the backstabbing, ego-driven divas I’d come here expecting. They were a team, a brotherhood. The confidence with which I’d typed out my response to Mark escaped me. If I wanted to give Mark the kind of drama he wanted, I’d have to dig deep.

Movement at the furthest side of the deck caught my attention. Viggy and Adam, his constant sidekick, hauled their canoe from the water. The duo had won the water race and between sponsorships and donations, Austin Animal Allies would be set for the next year, at least.

My crew buzzed with activity, Adele barking orders into her headset while the main cameraman scurried between the fans and players to capture post-race celebrations and the inevitable shenanigans of players interacting with overstimulated dogs, a three-legged iguana and one irate parrot.

My walkie-talkie crackled to life. “Adam Riley just face-planted into the kiddie pool the organizers had set up for dogs to bob for treats and toys.” The cameraman laughed. “Gold, pure gold.”

With a grin, I searched out the familiar shaggy head of the rookie. That boy was a walking highlight reel, bless his clueless heart. He featured heavily in fan-created vids, gaining a social following at a record pace. My gaze drifted to another figure. While Adam’s social media following grew like a hungry wildfire, Jack Vignier’s held steady. Unswerving.

Everything about Jack Vignier screamed rock steady. Stalwart. A towering force of nature, with a silent sort of charisma that compelled players and fans alike. As wild as Adam’s fans were, Viggy’s took on the nature of their captain. Battle-ready, but reserved, quiet.

Riley made a quick recovery from his trip in the kiddie pool. He and Viggy pulled the canoe out of the water and hauled it overhead again to move through the crowd to deposit it back amongst the others. I flipped the monitor to the live feed from the cameraman. Riley, predictably, lost focus the second a girl in a cut-off Aces jersey walked past. He tripped over his own feet, sending his end of the canoe tipping sideways.

“Watch it, Riley!” Even through the crowd, the system picked up Viggy’s sharp bark. But it was too late. Riley, his head in the clouds, dropped his end of the canoe to chase after the girl.

Vignier wrestled the canoe until he controlled the unwieldy weight over his head. He lifted the heavy craft with effortless strength, his muscles rippling in his arms, his shoulders, along his back beneath the sweat-soaked t-shirt. He carried it as if the weight meant nothing, his movements precise, measured. Unconscious confidence radiating off him, a force as tangible as the heat of the Texas sun. Even amongst all these people he occupied his own space, an invisible barrier keeping anyone from getting too close.

Sweat clung to the back of my neck, the heat thick and unrelenting. I tightened my fingers around my wrist, pressing my thumb into the rapid flutter just beneath the skin. A low flicker of awareness settled in my belly. The sun wasn’t the problem. He was.

I reminded myself of the times he’d blocked the crew. Times he’d nixed interviews or sabotaged compelling footage. He pushed back, demanding privacy for his players. And I agreed. Of course I did. I didn’t want to compromise anyone’s privacy. But I did want to show their battles, their fight. Share their authentic stories.

I wanted Jack’s story more than anyone’s.

It showed now just as it showed in games. Chaos might be unleashed everywhere else, but Jack Vignier was the eye of the hurricane. The quiet at the center of a storm.

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