Chapter 1: The Forgotten Man at the Table
The press conference room smelled of stale coffee and regret. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, bleaching the color from everything except the lurid green of the team banner sagging behind the table. Clare Thompson hovered at the back of the scrum, her recorder held high over the forest of broader shoulders and more expensive blazers. The team’s star fly-half, golden-haired and grinning despite the loss, held court.
“Next question for Finley, right here!” a producer barked, pointing to a veteran reporter.
Clare’s editor’s text had been clear: Get Finley’s take on the missed conversion. Make it personal. She elbowed forward, notebook ready. “Clara Thompson, Sentinel Tribune. Finley, on that last kick, did the crowd noise—”
“Clare.” A hand landed on her shoulder. It was Ben from sports, his phone pressed to his chest. “Change of plan. See the mountain sitting at the end of the table? MacAlister. Coach wants him to say a few words. No one’s biting. Go get us some filler.”
He was gone before she could argue. Filler. The word tasted bitter. She glanced down the long table, past the gleaming faces of the starting backs, to where Eamon MacAlister sat alone.
He was massive. The folding chair seemed to strain under his weight, his shoulders a vast plain of muscle and navy-blue polyester. While others fidgeted with water bottles or forced smiles, he was utterly still, his gaze fixed on his own hands. He was methodically wrapping a roll of white athletic tape around the knuckles of his right hand, round and round with a quiet, practiced precision. The tape made a soft, tearing sound each time he ripped it with his teeth.
The crowd of reporters was a living thing, and it pulsated around the stars, leaving MacAlister in a perfect, silent pocket of space. He wasn’t just ignored; he was willfully unseen. A utility piece. A prop.
Clare wove through the dissipating crowd, the cacophony of pack journalism fading to a murmur behind her. She stopped a few feet from his table. He didn’t look up. The process of taping his knuckles was his entire world.
“Eamon?” she said.
His hands stilled. That was all. Just a sudden, frozen stillness in those large, taped fingers. Then, slowly, his shoulders tensed, the fabric of his polo pulling tight. It was a minute reaction, but it spoke volumes. He was so used to being background noise that the direct address was a physical shock.
He lifted his head.
Clare had prepared for the size, but not the face. It was a good face. Younger than she expected, softened by a slight weariness around the eyes. His hair was a dark, unruly brown, and his gaze was a steady, quiet blue. He looked at her, not through her, with a focus that was unnervingly complete.
“Yeah?”
His voice was low, a soft rumble that didn’t match the cathedral of his body.
“Clara Thompson. Sentinel Tribune.” She clicked her recorder on, placing it on the table between them. “Tough game.”
He gave a single, small nod, his eyes flicking back to his hands as he resumed taping. “It was.”
“You were in for the last twenty. The defensive line tightened up quite a bit once you were on.” She’d done her homework, watching the last quarter on double speed.
He glanced up again, a flicker of something—surprise, maybe—in his eyes. “They were tired. We just held the shape.”
“Coach said he wanted more ‘enforcement’ in the tight channels. Was that your directive? Just to enforce?”
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth, there and gone. “My directive was to tackle the man with the ball. That’s usually the job.”
Clare found herself smiling back. “Usually. Can you talk about the injury to Peterson? His exit seemed to shift the momentum.”
Mac’s expression closed down, becoming careful. “Petey’s a tough bloke. He’ll be back.” It was the most generic, coach-approved answer possible. He finished with the tape, tearing the end with a final, definitive rip. He flexed his fist, the white stark against his bruised skin.
The main scrum was breaking up. Chairs scraped. Laughter erupted from Finley’s circle. Clare knew her time was evaporating. This was just filler, after all. But she hated filler. She looked at his hands, the careful tape, the quiet containment of him.
“Off the record,” she said, leaning in slightly and lowering her voice. “What’s it like? Being the guy they only send on to do the hard, ugly work?”
He froze again. This time, his eyes locked on hers. The noise of the room seemed to recede, the bright lights focusing down to just this corner. She saw the assessment in his gaze, the calculation. He was deciding if this was a trap.
“It’s the job,” he said finally, his voice even softer. “Someone has to do it.”
“And you’re okay with that? Being the someone?”
He held her look for a long moment. “Are you?” he asked. “Okay with being the someone they send to talk to the guy no one else wants to talk to?”
The question landed with a quiet thud in her chest. It was sharply observant, and it cut through her professional veneer to the impatient intern underneath. She didn’t have a slick answer.
“I asked for Finley,” she admitted, the truth surprising her as much as him.
That almost-smile returned, a little warmer. “And you got me. Life’s full of disappointments.”
“I didn’t say that.”
They looked at each other. A PR staffer clapped their hands. “Last questions, folks! Wrap it up!”
Clare’s professional instinct kicked back in. “On the record, then. What’s the focus for training this week?”
He gave her the standard, bland answers about reviewing footage, building cohesion, taking it one day at a time. His voice was a monotone. He was giving her the nothing-burger she was supposedly here for. But his eyes never left hers, and she had the distinct sense he was reciting a script for her benefit, to make her job easier.
As he spoke the final platitude, he began to push back from the table. The movement was slow, a little stiff. He winced, almost imperceptibly, as his weight settled onto his left leg.
“Are you hurt?” The question was out before she could filter it.
He paused, half-standing. “Just tape,” he said, but the denial was a beat too slow. He nodded at the recorder. “You can turn that off now.”
She did. The red light died.
He stood to his full, overwhelming height, and Clare had to tilt her head back. The ceiling suddenly felt much lower. Up close, she could see a fresh, puffy cut along his jawline, the dark shadow of fatigue beneath his eyes, the sheer lived-in reality of him. He wasn’t just a player in a polo shirt; he was a man who’d spent eighty minutes in a war.
“Thanks for the time, Eamon.”
“Mac,” he said. “My friends call me Mac.”
“Clare,” she offered, feeling the odd formality of the exchange.
He nodded, a final, brief dip of his chin. Then he turned and walked toward the players’ exit, his gait careful, the slight favoring of that left leg undeniable. The door swung shut behind him, swallowing his frame.
The room was suddenly just bright lights and empty chairs. Clare looked down at her notebook. She had three lines of generic quotes. Filler. Ben would be disappointed.
She packed her bag slowly, her mind replaying the tension in his shoulders when she’d said his name, the quiet intelligence in his retort, the hidden pain in his step. He was a story pretending not to be one.
As she walked out into the buzzing corridor, the echo of cleats on concrete fading, she made a decision. She wasn’t going to write about the missed conversion. She opened a new document on her phone, her thumbs tapping rapidly against the screen.
Profile idea: The Enforcer. Who is Eamon ‘Mac’ MacAlister when he’s not the last man on the bench? The quiet giant holding the line—and what he’s hiding to stay there. Need to investigate persistent leg injury rumors, his background…
She hit save. It was more than an assignment. It was a starting point.