Page 101 of Gap Control

They waited.

I stepped inside and didn’t sit.

“You left Mason’s sketch out of the final cut.”

A pause.

“Not intentionally,” said the woman next to him, adjusting her glasses. “It didn’t fit the arc we ended up using. We had to trim a lot—runtime’s tight.”

“The trailer's still the same length.”

“Yeah, we—” She hesitated. “We’re still adjusting things. Feedback’s been… mixed.”

She didn’t have to say it. I’d seen the posts. So had they.

I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t pace. I hadn't come to argue.

I looked at them and said, “If you want to tell real stories, don’t cut the parts where someone learns how to love their whole life.”

Neither of them moved.

“You show the hits. The injuries. The speeches in the locker room. But you’ve got a guy in your footage who’s learning how to show up for something besides hockey. And you’ve got a team that lets him.”

I stopped there. Let the words settle.

Marcus looked away first. The woman nodded, once, slowly.

“I’ll flag it for post,” she said.

I nodded back. Not because it was enough but because I wasn’t there to beg.

I turned to leave.

“TJ,” she said behind me. “That line—about love. Was that off the cuff?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “No. That was lived in.”

When I arrived at Mason's place for dinner, he was in the kitchen, barefoot, stirring something on the stove. The apartment smelled like garlic and canned tomatoes. He’d grabbed a loaf of day-old bread from the grocery store and stuck it in the oven.

I dropped my bag by the door and didn’t say anything at first. I watched him in the low light. No sketchbook in sight.

Finally, I spoke up: “I stopped by the media office today.”

He didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”

“They’re going to put the sketch back in.”

He glanced over. Not surprised. Not smug. Just tired.

“You didn’t have to do that."

I shrugged. “I wanted to.”

Mason set the spoon down and turned to face me fully. "You talked to them? About the sketch?"

"Yeah."

"What did you say?"

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