Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~12 min read
Chapter 2: The Assignment
POV: Rory
Rory – THE ASSIGNMENT
Rory walks into the Chicago Tribune sports department on Monday morning with a coffee that’s ninety percent caffeine and ten percent optimism, ready to start her first official day as the newest beat reporter on a team that’s been dominated by men for decades, and she’s determined to prove that she earned this position through talent and dedication and not because they needed to fill some diversity quota, which is absolutely what some of the older reporters are going to think regardless of how good she actually is at her job.
Her editor—Jim Martinez, fifty-something, gruff in the way that career journalists get after years of dealing with athletes who give non-answers and coaches who speak exclusively in clichés—waves her into his office before she even makes it to her desk, and Rory follows with the sinking feeling that whatever assignment he’s about to give her is either going to make or break her entire career here.
“Castillo,” Jim says, gesturing to the chair across from his desk that’s covered in file folders and what appears to be a half-eaten bagel from sometime last week. “Welcome to the chaos. Hope you’re ready to hit the ground running because Thompson quit last week—family emergency, moved to Boston—and I need someone on the Frost beat immediately.”
Rory’s heart does something complicated in her chest because covering the Chicago Frost means covering NHL hockey, means access to practices and games and locker room interviews, means the kind of high-profile assignment that could launch her career into the stratosphere if she does it right and tank it completely if she fucks it up.
“The Frost,” she repeats, trying to sound professional and confident instead of terrified and thrilled in equal measure. “I’m familiar with the team. Current season record is strong, they’re projected for playoffs, center line is their biggest asset—”
“Save the analysis for the articles,” Jim interrupts, but he’s smiling like he approves of the fact that she came prepared, that she knows the stats and the storylines without needing a briefing. “You’ll be covering practices, home games, occasional away games when budget allows. Locker room access, player interviews, the whole package. Can you handle professional athletes without falling for their bullshit?”
“I was married to a professional baseball player,” Rory says flatly. “I’m immune to athlete bullshit.”
“Perfect,” Jim says, handing her a folder thick with media credentials and team information. “Practice starts at eleven at their training facility in the West Loop. You’ve got two hours to get familiar with the roster and get your press badge sorted. Welcome to the NHL beat, Castillo. Try not to piss off any players in your first week.”
Rory takes the folder and escapes back to her desk before Jim can see the way her hands are shaking with adrenaline and nerves and the overwhelming realization that she’s actually doing this, she’s actually covering professional hockey, and if she can prove herself here then maybe—just maybe—she can rebuild the career that got derailed when her marriage imploded and she had to start over in a new city with a new job and a carefully constructed emotional wall around anything resembling vulnerability.
She spends the next ninety minutes memorizing the Frost roster—thirty players including Henrik Andersen who plays center and is Swedish and definitely not the same Henrik from Friday night because what are the actual statistical odds of that coincidence, basically zero, and she’s clearly just paranoid because she slept with a hockey player once and now she’s seeing connections that don’t exist—and by the time she’s driving to the practice facility with her press badge clipped to her jacket and her notebook full of potential interview questions, she’s convinced herself that the universe wouldn’t be cruel enough to make her one-night stand the same person she has to professionally cover for her new job.
The training facility is impressive in the way that professional sports complexes always are when they’re funded by wealthy owners and corporate sponsorships—all gleaming glass and expensive equipment and the kind of pristine ice surface that makes Rory wish she’d learned to skate properly instead of just stumbling around public rinks a few times as a kid—and she makes her way to the press box overlooking the main rink where a handful of other journalists are already set up with cameras and laptops and the bored expressions of people who’ve covered a thousand practices and know exactly what to expect.
The team files out onto the ice in groups, and Rory watches them warm up while taking notes about their formation and skating patterns and trying to identify players by their jersey numbers since most of them are wearing helmets that obscure their faces, and she’s so focused on watching number 71—the rookie everyone’s been talking about—that she almost misses when number 19 glides past the press box and looks up directly at her with ice-blue eyes that she recognizes instantly because she saw those exact eyes in the dark on Friday night when he was moving inside her and making her forget every promise she’d ever made about staying away from athletes.
No.
Absolutely not.
The universe cannot be this actively cruel.
Henrik—because of course it’s Henrik, of course the Swedish hockey player she had drunk sex with is Henrik Andersen, star center for the Chicago Frost, the team she has to cover professionally for her career-defining assignment—freezes mid-stride when he sees her, and even from this distance Rory can see the exact moment recognition hits him, can see his expression shift from concentration to shock to what looks like panic, and she feels the same panic rising in her chest because this is bad, this is so incredibly bad, this is a conflict of interest that could get her fired before she even properly starts if anyone finds out that she slept with one of the players she’s supposed to be covering objectively.
Practice continues around them—drills and plays and the sound of skates on ice that Rory should be paying attention to, should be taking notes about, should be analyzing for patterns and storylines—but all she can focus on is the way Henrik keeps glancing up at the press box like he’s trying to figure out if this is actually happening or if he’s hallucinating from too much time in the cold, and by the time the coach blows the whistle to end the session, Rory’s filled exactly zero pages in her notebook and her panic has evolved into full-scale crisis mode.
She should leave.
She should absolutely leave right now, should go back to Jim’s office and request a different assignment and claim that there’s a conflict of interest without specifying what that conflict is, but before she can move, one of the other journalists—Dave Something, been covering the Frost for a decade according to his press badge—leans over with a friendly smile that suggests he’s either very nice or very condescending, hard to tell which.
“First day covering hockey?” Dave asks, and yep, definitely condescending based on the tone. “Don’t worry, the players get used to having press around. Just stay professional, don’t ask stupid questions, and for God’s sake don’t sleep with any of them. That’s a career-killer.”
“Noted,” Rory says faintly, resisting the urge to laugh hysterically because it’s too late for that advice, approximately three days too late, and now she has to figure out how to navigate this situation without destroying her career or her sanity.
Practice ends, and the team files off the ice toward the locker rooms, and Rory knows she should go down there for the post-practice interviews that are standard protocol for beat reporters, knows she needs to do her job and act professional and pretend that she didn’t see one of the players naked on Friday night, but her feet won’t move and her brain is stuck in a loop of this cannot be happening this cannot be happening this cannot be happening.
Her phone buzzes with a text from Jim: *Locker room interviews mandatory. Get down there.*
Fuck.
Rory makes her way down to the media area outside the locker rooms where several players are already standing in various stages of undress giving standard athlete answers to standard sports questions, and she’s trying to blend into the background and figure out which player she can interview that isn’t Henrik when someone taps her shoulder and she turns to find him standing there in practice gear with his hair still damp from exertion and an expression that suggests he’s as horrified by this situation as she is.
“You’re a JOURNALIST?” Henrik says, and he’s keeping his voice low but there’s an edge of accusation in it like she deliberately lied to him, which is unfair considering she told him exactly what she did for a living even if she wasn’t specific about which team she’d be covering. “You said you worked in sports media!”
“I do work in sports media!” Rory hisses back, glancing around to make sure no one’s paying attention to them having what definitely looks like a personal conversation instead of a professional interview. “You’re the player I have to cover? Out of every hockey team in every city, you play for the Frost?”
“This is bad,” Henrik says, running a hand through his hair in a gesture that Rory recognizes from Friday night when he was nervous about whether she’d actually come home with him. “This is so bad. If anyone finds out we—”
“No one can find out,” Rory interrupts firmly, because that’s the only option here, the only way forward that doesn’t result in her losing this job before she even properly starts. “We pretend it never happened. Complete professional distance. You’re a player, I’m press, that night was a mistake that we both agreed to forget.”
“Right,” Henrik says, but he’s looking at her with an intensity that makes her nervous, like he’s not entirely convinced that forgetting is possible when they’re going to be seeing each other at practices and games and press conferences for the foreseeable future. “Professional. Done. I can do that.”
“Good,” Rory says, straightening her shoulders and pulling out her notebook like she’s actually going to conduct an interview instead of flee to the bathroom to have a quiet breakdown. “Then let’s start over. Henrik Andersen, center for the Chicago Frost—how did you feel about today’s practice session?”
Henrik stares at her for a long moment like he can’t believe she’s actually going to pretend they’re strangers, like he’s trying to figure out if she’s serious or if this is some kind of test, and then something shifts in his expression—goes carefully neutral in a way that Rory recognizes as his media face, the mask athletes wear when they’re giving interviews they don’t actually want to give.
“Practice was good,” he says, and his voice has lost all the warmth it had on Friday night, gone flat and professional in a way that should make Rory feel relieved but instead makes her chest ache for reasons she refuses to examine. “Team’s working well together. We’re focused on the game this weekend.”
Standard athlete answer.
Safe, boring, completely uninformative.
Exactly what he should be giving her if they’re going to maintain professional boundaries and pretend they don’t know what each other looks like naked.
“Great,” Rory says, scribbling notes she doesn’t need because she’s already memorized every word. “Thanks for your time.”
She escapes before he can say anything else, before the careful professionalism cracks and someone notices that there’s history here, tension here, something definitely unprofessional happening between the new beat reporter and the star center, and by the time she makes it back to her car in the parking lot, she’s shaking so hard she has to sit with her hands on the steering wheel for five full minutes before she trusts herself to drive.
Her phone buzzes with a text from Margot: *How was day one?????*
Rory stares at the message, considers how to explain that she accidentally had a one-night stand with the exact player she now has to cover professionally, decides that conversation requires alcohol and in-person friendship and possibly a time machine to go back and stop herself from going home with Henrik in the first place.
*Complicated,* she texts back. *Tell you tonight. Bring wine.*
*That good huh?* Margot responds with a string of laughing emojis.
*That bad,* Rory corrects, and starts the car before she can do something stupid like go back inside and apologize to Henrik for the awkwardness or ask him if he remembers how good it was or admit that she’s been thinking about Friday night in ways that are definitely not professional and absolutely not appropriate given their current circumstances.
Professional distance.
That’s the only option.
She can absolutely maintain professional distance from a man she’s seen naked, who’s made her come, who looked at her this morning like forgetting isn’t nearly as simple as they both pretended it would be.
She’s a professional.
She can do this.
She has to do this.
The alternative is losing the best job opportunity she’s had in years, and no hockey player—no matter how good the sex was, no matter how attractive he is, no matter how much she can’t stop thinking about the way he touched her like she mattered—is worth destroying her career.
She just has to keep reminding herself of that every time she sees him.
Every practice.
Every game.
Every interview where he looks at her with those ice-blue eyes and she remembers exactly what it felt like to have his attention focused entirely on her.
Completely professional.
Absolutely manageable.
She’s so fucked.
🔥
END CHAPTER 2
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