Page 2 of The Grumpy Defenseman

He had positioned himself at the intersection of shadow and sight line, where someone could see every door in the room without being in anyone’s direct path. His body angled toward the exit, his posture carrying the tension of a person who had calculated his escape route before the event started. Arms crossed. Jaw set. Eyes moving in a methodical sweep that reminded me of a lighthouse. Steady. Missing nothing.

Through my viewfinder, he read like a threat assessment in a team polo.

Evan McKinney. Shutdown defenseman. Nine years in the league, all with San Antonio. Just over six hundred career games. Contract year coming. Public persona: a man who would rather be anywhere else.

The team photographer before me had apparently described him as “photographically hostile.”

Well. That sounded like a challenge I had not asked for and was absolutely going to accept.

I approached along his peripheral vision rather than head-on. Straight approaches spooked subjects like him. They locked down, gave you the media face, and left you with images that had all the warmth of a passport photo. But an angled approach lets them track you and decide you are not a threat before you arrive.

He tracked me without turning his head. I noted that. Athlete’s awareness. Always knowing where everybody was in the space.

“Mr. McKinney.” I stopped at a comfortable distance. “Samantha Cole. I’m the photographer for the summer campaign.”

His eyes moved from my camera to my face. The assessment took about two seconds: long enough to be thorough, short enough to be dismissive.

“I know who you are,” he said. His voice was lower than I expected, with a roughness that suggested limited use. “You’re the reason I’m stuck here instead of training.”

“Actually, that would be PR. I’m just the one who has to make you look good.” I kept my tone professional. Light. The voice I used on skittish subjects and hostile clients. “Mind if I take a few shots?”

“It’s fine.”

Two words. No inflection. The verbal equivalent of a closed door.

I raised my camera. He stiffened, not dramatically, but enough that I caught it in his posture. A micro-flinch. Most people would not notice. I was not most people.

“You could try not looking like I’m pointing a weapon at you,” I said.

“Could you try not pointing a weapon at me?”

“The camera’s not the enemy.”

“That depends on who’s holding it.”

The weight of the answer did not match the conversation. I filed that away: the specificity of it, the brief hardening around his eyes, the sense of personal experience rather than general philosophy. Someone with a camera had hurt this man. Not physically. But the flinch was real.

Before I could recalibrate, a wall of blond energy materialized at Evan’s elbow. Zach Novak, Brick to everyone in the building, threw an arm around Evan’s shoulders with the ease of a man who had long since stopped asking permission.

“McKinney! The kid over there wants to meet you. Says you’re his favorite player.”

Evan’s posture tightened. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“You’re hiding by the exit.” Brick was already steering him away. He shot me a grin over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, photographer. He’s always like that.”

“I’m not worried,” I said.

“You should be. He’s allergic to fun.”

“I’ve worked with worse.”

Brick laughed, a sound big enough to turn heads across the gym, and disappeared into the crowd with Evan in tow. I watched them go. Evan moved like a man being led to something he had agreed to in theory and resented in practice.

Near the bleachers, an older man had planted himself in the way. He looked built from decades of standing between chaos and the people who caused it, tracking the room with the patience of someone who only stepped in when it mattered. Head coach, probably. Sandra’s briefing had not included photos of the coaching staff, but I had been in enough buildings to know what a head coach looked like from across a gym. He caught me noting him and did not pretend he had not. He held my look for a measured second before his attention moved on.

I filed the face and kept working.

The event ran another ninety minutes. I gathered everything Sandra would need: players engaging with the community, families smiling, and the Stampede brand looking warm and accessible. Aspirational authenticity, delivered on schedule.