Maya POV

By the end of the week, Maya had developed a new and deeply frustrating problem.

The more time she spent around Noah Hayes, the less she understood him.

Which wasn't supposed to happen.

People usually became easier to read once she spent enough time observing them. That was one of the reasons she'd become a journalist in the first place. She enjoyed studying people. Patterns emerged. Contradictions revealed themselves. Eventually the carefully crafted public image cracked, exposing the real person underneath.

Noah Hayes, however, seemed determined to remain an exception.

The elevator doors opened onto the Titans' executive floor, and Maya stepped out clutching a notebook and a coffee she desperately hoped would survive the day. Her official access had begun three days earlier, and already she'd attended two practices, one team meeting, and an endless parade of media obligations that had somehow taught her absolutely nothing useful.

At least nothing she could write about.

What she had learned was oddly specific.

Noah arrived before everyone else.

He was usually the last player to leave.

He thanked arena staff by name.

He always carried extra hockey tape because younger players constantly forgot theirs.

And despite his reputation for being distant, he spent an alarming amount of time helping rookie players adjust to professional hockey.

None of that fit the image she'd built in her head.

Which was annoying.

Because Maya preferred her assumptions to be correct.

"You're frowning again."

Maya looked up to find Sophie Bennett falling into step beside her.

"Am not."

"You are."

"I'm thinking."

"That's usually when the frowning happens."

Maya ignored her.

Unfortunately, Sophie knew her too well.

The lifestyle reporter grinned as they walked toward the media offices. "Let me guess. Noah Hayes."

Maya nearly groaned.

"You need hobbies."

"I have hobbies."

"Mocking me doesn't count as a hobby."

"It absolutely does."

Sophie laughed before lowering her voice dramatically. "So how's your favorite hockey player?"

Maya stopped walking.

"He's not my favorite hockey player."

"You talk about him constantly."

"I literally have to cover him."

"You know that's not what I mean."

The worst part was that Maya couldn't entirely disagree.

She did think about Noah more than she should.

Not romantically.

Certainly not romantically.

Professionally.

Purely professionally.

Because the man made no sense.

The Noah Hayes she had expected and the Noah Hayes she kept encountering seemed like two completely different people.

The first was arrogant, detached, and obsessed with his own image.

The second quietly picked up pucks after practice because arena staff were busy preparing for another event.

One version felt manufactured.

The other felt real.

Maya just wasn't sure which one.

The morning passed quickly. Players drifted through interviews while public relations staff coordinated schedules and attempted to keep reporters from causing problems. Maya spent most of her time observing, scribbling notes, and trying not to draw attention to herself.

Not that Noah made it particularly easy.

She noticed him long before he noticed her.

Or at least before he pretended to notice her.

He was standing near the far side of the arena talking to one of the rookie forwards. The younger player looked frustrated about something. Noah listened patiently for several minutes before demonstrating a movement with his stick, explaining something Maya couldn't hear from where she stood.

The rookie immediately relaxed.

A few seconds later, both players laughed.

Maya stared.

Then blinked.

Then stared again.

Because she had never seen that version of him before.

The cameras weren't rolling.

There were no sponsors nearby.

No reporters were paying attention.

Yet Noah was still doing it.

Helping.

Teaching.

Leading.

The realization unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.

"Interesting."

Maya jumped.

Sophie appeared beside her like an overly curious ghost.

"What?"

"You're staring."

"I was observing."

"Right."

"I was."

Sophie followed her gaze toward the ice.

"Oh."

Immediately, her grin became unbearable.

"No."

"Oh, absolutely."

"No."

Sophie looked delighted.

"Maya Kapoor."

"What?"

"You are so confused."

Maya hated when people were right.

Because she was confused.

Every day she spent around Noah Hayes seemed to raise more questions than answers.

And the journalist in her found that impossible to ignore.

Across the arena, Noah glanced up unexpectedly.

For one brief second, their eyes met through the glass.

Maya expected him to look away.

Instead, he held her gaze.

Not long.

Just long enough to acknowledge her.

Then he returned his attention to the rookie player.

The moment lasted less than two seconds.

Yet somehow it lingered.

And for the first time since accepting this assignment, Maya found herself wondering something she hadn't considered before.

What if she'd been wrong about Noah Hayes?

The thought followed her for the rest of the day.

And somehow, that possibility was far more dangerous than anything she'd imagined.

By the following week, Maya had reached a conclusion she didn't particularly like.

Noah Hayes was becoming a problem.

Not because he was difficult to interview. Not because he was arrogant. Not because he was hiding something scandalous that she couldn't uncover. The problem was far more inconvenient than any of those possibilities. The problem was that the longer she spent around him, the harder it became to fit him into the narrative she'd created before ever meeting him.

She noticed it during practices. During interviews. During the quiet moments in between when players forgot cameras existed and simply became people again. Every day seemed to reveal another contradiction. The public saw a superstar surrounded by attention, but Noah often appeared most comfortable when nobody was paying attention to him at all. The public saw confidence, but Maya had started noticing moments that looked suspiciously like exhaustion. The public saw a man who had everything, yet there were times when he carried himself with a loneliness she couldn't quite explain.

Those observations followed her everywhere. They followed her through interviews with assistant coaches, through conversations with team staff, and through long evenings spent reviewing notes in her apartment. Instead of answering questions, each new piece of information created three more. As a journalist, she should have been thrilled. Questions led to stories. Stories led to opportunities. Yet this felt different. The questions she found herself asking were becoming increasingly personal, and that made her uncomfortable.

One afternoon she arrived at the arena earlier than usual. The building hadn't fully come alive yet. Staff members moved quietly through the hallways preparing for practice while players gradually filtered into the facility. Maya appreciated those quieter hours because they felt honest. Without reporters crowding around and cameras documenting every movement, people tended to relax. They revealed versions of themselves the public rarely saw.

As she made her way toward the media offices, voices drifted from a nearby corridor. She wasn't intentionally listening, but years of journalism had trained her to notice details automatically. One of the voices belonged to Liam Foster. The other belonged to Noah.

The conversation sounded tense.

Maya slowed her pace instinctively, remaining around the corner as the discussion continued.

Liam sounded frustrated in the way close friends often did when repeating an argument they had already had too many times. He was clearly trying to convince Noah of something, while Noah seemed determined to dismiss whatever concern was being raised. Maya couldn't hear every word, but she caught enough to understand the subject wasn't hockey strategy or team schedules.

"...you can't keep ignoring it forever," Liam was saying.

"I'm not ignoring it."

"That's exactly what you're doing."

There was a pause before Noah answered again, and when he did, his voice carried a weariness Maya had never heard during interviews.

"I'm handling it."

Liam let out a frustrated breath. "You keep saying that."

The conversation continued for another minute before footsteps approached. Not wanting to be caught lingering nearby, Maya immediately moved on, though the exchange stayed with her long afterward. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd heard, but she knew concern when she heard it. Liam hadn't sounded annoyed. He had sounded worried.

The realization remained in the back of her mind throughout practice.

Standing behind the glass later that afternoon, Maya watched the team move through a series of demanding drills. Players accelerated across the ice, battled for position, and executed plays at a pace that would have seemed impossible to most people. At first everything appeared normal. Noah looked exactly as he always did—focused, composed, and completely in control. Yet once the possibility of an injury entered her mind, she found herself noticing details she might otherwise have missed.

The signs were subtle enough that most people would never have seen them. Occasionally, after a particularly sharp turn, Noah's movements seemed fractionally less fluid than usual. Sometimes he shifted his weight in a way that suggested discomfort. None of it lasted more than a second. None of it would have attracted attention from reporters searching for headlines. Yet Maya's instincts kept returning to those small inconsistencies.

By the end of practice she had filled several pages of notes but found herself staring at the same sentence she'd written ten minutes earlier. Her concentration had drifted completely. She was still looking down at the notebook when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

"At this point, I should probably start charging you observation fees."

Maya looked up and immediately found Noah watching her from the other side of the railing. His practice jersey was damp from exertion, and a water bottle rested loosely in one hand. There was amusement in his expression, the kind that appeared more often now than it had when they'd first met.

"I'm working," Maya replied, closing the notebook before he could see what she'd written.

"That's becoming a very convenient excuse."

"It's not an excuse. It's literally my job."

Noah nodded thoughtfully. "Fair point. Although I'm starting to think your notebook contains more theories about me than actual reporting."

Maya couldn't stop the smile that appeared. "That's a dangerous assumption."

"So there are theories."

"I'm not confirming or denying anything."

The conversation settled into an unexpectedly easy rhythm. It was becoming harder to remember that only a few weeks earlier they could barely speak to one another without arguing. The tension was still there, but it had changed shape. Their interactions no longer felt like battles. Instead, they felt like two people cautiously attempting to understand one another while pretending they weren't interested in doing exactly that.

Noah rested his forearms against the railing and glanced toward the empty sections of the arena. "You know, most reporters usually lose interest after a while."

Maya studied him carefully. "Is that what you want?"

His smile faded slightly, though not completely. "Sometimes."

The honesty surprised her.

Not because of what he said.

Because he had actually answered.

For a brief moment neither spoke. The noise of the arena filled the silence between them as staff members prepared equipment for the following day's practice. Maya found herself watching Noah more carefully than before. There was something about the way he looked out across the ice that felt strangely distant, as though part of him was somewhere else entirely.

"You don't seem to enjoy being famous as much as people think you do," she said.

A short laugh escaped him. "That's because people confuse attention with happiness."

The answer lingered between them.

It wasn't defensive.

It wasn't rehearsed.

It simply sounded true.

Before Maya could respond, a coach called Noah's name from across the rink. The moment broke naturally. Noah pushed away from the railing and began walking backward toward the locker room, though he paused after a few steps and glanced over his shoulder.

"Try not to turn me into a villain in your article."

Maya smiled. "No promises."

"That's what worries me."

His grin returned briefly before he disappeared down the corridor.

Maya remained where she was long after he left. Her notebook rested forgotten in her hands as she replayed the conversation in her head. The sensible thing would have been to focus on the assignment and maintain the professional distance she'd always relied on. Instead, she found herself thinking about the tiredness she'd heard in his voice earlier that morning, the concern Liam had tried unsuccessfully to hide, and the loneliness that occasionally surfaced when Noah thought nobody was paying attention.

Those thoughts unsettled her more than she wanted to admit because they had nothing to do with journalism anymore. They weren't the questions of a reporter trying to understand a story. They were the questions of a woman trying to understand a person, and Maya wasn't entirely sure when that line had started to blur.