Chapter Twelve
Emery
After two whole weeks, the Icebox feels like a second home, which is…
unsettling. It shouldn’t feel familiar this fast. Not the way my feet know which floorboard creaks outside the PT room, or how I no longer need the map taped behind the desk to remember which storage cupboard holds the resistance bands versus the ice packs.
Fourteen consecutive days of bruised ribs, taped ankles, knotted quads, and one extremely stubborn captain with a shoulder that hates him will do that, I suppose.
My time so far in Iron Lake has been… something. Busy. Chaotic. Strangely grounding.
Also: full of Beau Wolfe.
Not that we talk much at home. We’ve fallen into a weird—truce? Pattern? Coexistence treaty?
He wakes earlier than I do no matter what time he goes to sleep and pads around the house like a giant predator trying not to spook the prey.
We exchange neutral nods in the morning (sometimes strained greetings), and though he doesn’t exactly brood at me anymore—not like that first day, anyway—the air between us still goes taut whenever we accidentally make eye contact in the kitchen.
The conversation with the rental agency hadn’t been helpful. Apparently, someone forgot to update the database.
That was it: that was the explanation.
I’d asked if there were any alternatives, and they’d said that there was one other place.
“It’s currently occupied, though, and the tenant has no plans to move. And also the roof leaks. And also it’s directly above the taxidermy shop, so—probably not ideal.”
Apparently, I was never meant to live alone, and I figure it’s a classic case of better the devil you know. You know: the devil whose scent threads through the house like storm-steady alpha tension I’m refusing to think about.
Living with Beau isn’t bad, necessarily. He doesn’t bother me, he’s just there. A quiet storm system moving around the kitchen. A heavy footstep on the stairs, and a deep voice murmuring something unintelligible when he’s half-asleep and passing by the bathroom.
So, yeah. Beau is the constant. And not just at home, either, but here—every day, without fail.
We've been working closely together, just as Coach wanted. It's less awkward at work than it is at home, since there's a purpose to our interactions.
Light skates that turn into stretching sessions. Stretching sessions that turn into time in the gym. Controlled strength work, careful mobility drills, endless reminders from me to slow down, and the way he actually listens when I correct him.
It’s… intimate, whether either of us acknowledges it or not.
(Which, for the record, we absolutely do not.)
There’s something about working on someone’s body every day that strips pretense away.
I know the exact point where his shoulder tightens before he does.
I know when he’s pushing through pain and when he’s pretending he isn’t.
I know the sound he makes when a stretch hits just right—a low, involuntary noise that he clearly wishes he could swallow back down.
Today, it’s massage.
It’s not my favorite part of the job. Necessary, yes—but there’s something about prolonged touch that always feels heavier and more personal, especially when the person under my hands is someone I live and eat with.
Beau lies face down on the table, his shirt discarded and his bare skin warm beneath my palms. I work oil into the muscle methodically, focusing on the scar tissue along his shoulder blade, the tight bands that refuse to let go.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” I say, professional to the core.
He exhales, long and slow, and the sound does something unfortunate to my concentration.
“Feels… good,” he murmurs, voice roughened in a way it absolutely does not need to be.
I adjust my pressure, thumbs digging deeper, and he groans this time. My pulse stutters, and I have to remind myself to breathe.
“You’re tense,” I note, because it’s safer than commenting on the way his back flexes under my hands.
“Occupational hazard,” he reminds me dryly. “Captain. Alpha. Chronic overthinker.”
I snort despite myself, and the sound makes his shoulders loosen just a fraction more. The room smells like menthol and oil and him—clean sweat and warm alpha. Something steady and grounding that curls low in my gut if I let it.
I don’t let it, though.
Mostly.
By the time I finish, my hands ache, and my nerves feel tight-strung, like I’ve been holding myself still for too long. He sits up slowly, those striking blue eyes meeting mine in that quiet, searching way he’s developed lately.
“Thanks,” he says, rolling his neck.
“Don’t undo it,” I reply. “No heroics.”
A corner of his mouth lifts.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We part like we always do—professional and composed—but the air around me hums long after he leaves the room.
Which is why, when away game day rolls around, it feels less like a change of pace and more like an escalation.
The Moose versus Red River Reapers.
Coach invited me—though invited might be generous. It was more: You’re coming. Bring your kit. Don’t make a fuss.
That’s Coach all over: charm offensive of a brick with a soft spot somewhere deep beneath the fossil layers.
And Red River isn’t just another town. It’s history, rivalry, bad blood that never quite freezes over. The kind of game where injuries happen fast and tempers run hotter.
The rest of the Moose have thankfully been much more welcoming and overall less tense than Beau.
There’s Connor, with his fair hair and his bruised ribs (and bruised ego), who has the most obnoxious grin I’ve ever seen.
There's Gordo, who has shockingly bright red hair and talks like caffeine is a hobby. There’s also Dylan and Marco, both short and stocky with dark hair and thick beards, who alternate between chirping each other and chirping me.
Out of everyone, it’s Theo who surprises me the most. He’s big—tall and broad, built solid rather than showy—but it’s his stillness that stands out first. His dark hair is kept short at the sides and longer on top.
His eyes are dark and steady, framed by lashes that have no right being that thick on a man his size, and when he’s focused, his expression settles into something calm and unreadable—like nothing rattles him unless he allows it to.
Then there's Benny. Who drinks liquified spinach and crystals. Literally.
I’ve barely stepped outside the Icebox except for groceries.
I haven’t made new friends because I haven’t tried, and I haven’t explored town because I haven’t needed to.
Solitude wraps around me here in a way that feels like relief, not loneliness, and I decide that small towns are definitely easier than big cities.
After everything that happened with my ex—after the cheating scandal and the exposure of his web of lies—silence feels like a blessing. No one knows my baggage here, and better yet: no one cares.
The guys treat me like part of the machine, Coach treats me like I’m competent, and the town barely looks twice. There’s a faint, barely-there thrum in my stomach: the nesting instinct nudging quietly, as if it’s happy I’ve found somewhere stable to land.
Iron Lake isn’t a nest, of course; but it is a place to catch my breath, and I figure that has to count for something.
(Even if the house I live in contains one glowering alpha with shoulders that block the hallway.)
I shove that thought down as I grab my team jacket. I take one last look at myself in the floor length mirror placed at the top of the stairs, adjust my beanie, zip my jacket, and head downstairs.
Beau’s already in the kitchen, waiting. He looks up just as I step in, his blue eyes flicking from my face to my jacket then back again.
“Ready?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. You?”
“Always.”
He grabs his keys and holds open the door without comment.
A small gesture, yet my omega instincts flare all the same.
Beau heads down the porch steps first, his boots crunching over thin ice that’s crusted the front walk overnight. The cold bites instantly, and he unlocks his truck with a soft beep.
It’s huge: a lifted black pickup with tires that look capable of plowing through a blizzard without noticing. It shouldn’t really be any surprise that an alpha who clears doorframes by a country mile drives a vehicle big enough to fit both of us and a small moose.
I’m halfway down the stairs when he opens the passenger door for me.
Now that is a surprise.
This time, the flare of omega instinct hits harder. It’s warm at the base of my spine, a little dizzying. That old, instinctive awareness of being seen, being considered.
I swallow it back and climb in.
He rounds the hood, slides into the driver’s seat, and starts the engine. The truck grumbles awake, apparently resenting early starts as much as I do, and I sigh to myself as he puts it into drive and heads off.
Iron Lake on a Sunday morning in January looks exactly like you’d expect a small hockey town to look: quiet, snow-dusted, and eerily proud of it. The main street is lined with businesses that all look like they were built in 1973 and never updated, and I glance out the window as Beau drives.
He keeps one hand on the wheel, the other braced casually on the gearshift; moving with the kind of controlled ease that only comes from years of being watched, measured, and expected to lead.
“You sleep?” he asks suddenly, breaking the silence.
It startles me enough to make me blink. “Uh… yeah. Mostly.”
He nods once. “Good.”
The words are plain, almost monotone, but something under them feels… intentional. I don’t know how to answer that, so I distract myself by watching the town fall away as we approach the Icebox.
The rink sits at the far end of a long stretch of road, past the last few houses and a big billboard advertising a car dealership twenty miles away.
The team bus is idling near the entrance with its peeling Moose logo on the side, and even from the parking lot I can see people milling around as players move on and off it like hyperactive bees.