Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
If I’d ever questioned my sexuality, watching a fit woman in a sports bra pull her hair into a ponytail would have been all the confirmation I needed.
The muscles in Dani’s toned shoulders and arms flexed and shifted as she twisted her ponytail into a bun. I knew I was staring, but try as I might, I couldn’t look away until her arms were once again loose at her sides.
“So the story is what exactly?” she asked me.
She grabbed an oversized medicine ball from a rack and began throwing it against a cinder block wall.
“It’s behind-the-scenes stuff for a feature,” I said.
I tried not to flinch each time the rubber ball struck solidly against the weight room’s wall.
“Fans see you all on the ice, but they might not realize all of the extra conditioning the team puts in. Plus, we can highlight the practice facility and connect these great resources to the team’s success on the ice. ”
Dani breathed out heavily through her nose as she slammed the ball against the wall. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” she grunted.
In truth, I only had a few story ideas beyond player profiles. The women’s hockey league was relatively new, however, so that in and of itself was a major headline.
The rubber ball smacked the cinder block again, echoing through the mostly empty weight room.
“It helps that everything here still feels new,” I added. “Fans like the behind-the-scenes stuff when they’re still learning who everyone is.”
Dani caught the ball on the rebound and held it against her chest for a second, breathing steadily.
“Meaning what,” she asked, “people don’t know enough about us yet to get bored?”
“Meaning,” I corrected, “there’s an appetite for stories.”
She hummed at that and tossed the ball again. The impact rattled the wall.
I tried to jot something down in my notebook, but the rhythm of the exercise kept pulling my eyes back up. Dani moved with a kind of contained aggression—shoulders tightening as she launched the ball, core bracing when she caught it again.
It was … distracting.
The ball hit the wall again.
And again.
Finally Dani caught the ball, tucked it under one arm, and glanced at me through the mirror that ran along the opposite wall.
“Are you getting usable material out of this,” she asked, “or are you just watching?”
Heat crept into my face.
“Research and Development,” I claimed.
She snorted. “Uh huh.”
Dani set the medicine ball back on the rack and grabbed a towel from a nearby bench, wiping her hands before turning toward a row of mats spread across the floor. She dropped down onto one of the mats and shifted into a plank position.
“Strength training,” she said conversationally, staring at the floor between her hands. “Core, hips, glutes. Everything starts there in hockey.”
“How long do you hold that?” I asked, watching her.
“As long as the strength coach tells us to.”
“And how long is that?”
She shrugged without breaking form. “Depends how much he hates us that day.”
I scribbled a quick note.
“Does that translate directly to skating?” I asked.
“Pretty much everything does,” she said. “Stride comes from your hips and glutes. If those aren’t strong, your legs get tired faster and your edges get sloppy.”
She shifted slightly, the muscles in her exposed shoulders tightening.
“Balance, too,” she said. “Hockey’s basically controlled falling for sixty minutes.”
“That is a vast devaluation of what you all do out there,” I chuckled.
Dani pushed up from the mat and stood again. “You want to try one?”
Her breath was more labored than before. I couldn’t help noticing the rise and fall of her chest beneath her sports bra or the light sheen of sweat that had collected across her exposed collarbone.
I blinked. “No.”
“Come on.”
“I cover athletes,” I said. “I don’t pretend to be one.”
“Wall sit,” she said, already walking toward an empty stretch of cinder block wall. “Thirty seconds.”
“I’m good,” I resisted.
“Your journalistic integrity’s on the line here, Reese,” she prodded.
“I doubt very much that the station’s audience cares how long I can hold a wall sit.”
Dani leaned back against the wall and slid down until her knees bent at a perfect ninety degrees.
“See?” she said. “Easy.”
I looked at her.
Then at the wall.
And then back to her.
“Come on,” Dani cajoled. “Thirty seconds.”
Against my better judgment—and possibly because walking away would make me look like a coward—I set my notebook on the bench and leaned against the wall beside her.
“Fine,” I huffed.
I slid down until my legs bent. I wasn’t dressed for a workout. My outfit was far more relaxed than what I typically wore during a broadcast, but jeans and a three-quarter zip top weren’t exactly ideal for exercising.
The burn started almost immediately in my quads and calves.
“Timer’s running,” Dani said cheerfully.
“You didn’t even start one,” I complained.
She tapped at her temple. “Internal clock,” she claimed.
Time passed. It felt like an eternity. My thighs started to shake. I clenched my teeth and stared straight ahead.
“How much longer?” I grit out.
Dani tilted her head, studying me like I was a mildly interesting science experiment. “You’re at … twelve seconds.”
“That’s impossible.”
My legs trembled harder.
At about the fifteen-second mark, my body made the executive decision to abandon ship. I slid down the wall and collapsed onto the mat with a groan.
“That wasn’t half bad,” Dani complimented.
I stayed flat on the mat for a moment, staring up at the fluorescent lights.
“For the record,” I said, “I’m wearing jeans.”
She crouched down in front of me, elbows resting on her knees. “Want to try sled pushes?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that worse?”
Her smile was sly. “Define ‘worse.’”
Across the room, a metal sled sat on a strip of artificial turf that ran the length of the weight room. I’d seen the same kind of apparatus on a football field before. Linemen pushed the sled as hard and as far as they could, simulating pushing back against an opponent’s defensive line.
“It mimics skating stride,” Dani explained. “Forward lean, power through the legs.”
“It doesn’t look that hard,” I said.
The moment the words left my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Dani’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh. Okay.”
I stayed on the mat for a second longer, debating whether I could plausibly pretend I had an urgent phone call. Unfortunately, curiosity got the better of me.
By the time I reached the turf strip, Dani had already loaded a few small weight plates onto the sled.
“More weight?” I lamented.
Dani smirked. “Wouldn’t want it to be too easy for you,” she teased. She gestured toward the sled. “Step right up.”
I stared determinedly at the weighted sled and tugged the sleeves of my shirt up until my forearms were bare.
I heard Dani’s amused chuckle. “Oh, she’s getting serious now.”
I leaned forward and awkwardly gripped the sled’s vertical handles. My top bunched at my elbows, and my jeans stretched uncomfortably with the forward lean. Dani circled behind me, her presence immediate and warm.
“Lower,” she told me.
I bent my knees a little.
“No, lower.”
Her hands landed lightly on my hips. The touch was brief and professional—or it was supposed to be—but my entire nervous system lit up like someone had flipped a breaker.
“Like this,” she said, leaning slightly closer so I could feel her weight shift against mine as she adjusted my stance.
“O-Okay,” I said, breath catching.
“Your center of gravity has to be lower,” she explained. “Otherwise you lose power in the push.”
Her hands lingered for a moment longer, steadying my hips before she let go.
My brain was no longer processing sled mechanics. It was processing Dani standing directly behind me.
“Lean forward more,” she said.
I tried.
“No—like you’re about to sprint.”
Her hand slid lightly along my lower back, encouraging me into a deeper angle.
“That’s it,” she encouraged.
I stared at the turf and focused very hard on not thinking about Dani’s hands on my lower back and hips. I tried not to notice how close she stayed or how her hands lingered just a fraction longer than necessary to adjust my posture.
“Now drive through your legs,” she instructed.
I pushed. The sled barely budged.
“Maybe a little more effort,” she suggested, her voice calm and encouraging—but there was that teasing undertone I’d always known.
“I’m trying!” I huffed.
I pushed again, focusing on driving with my legs rather than pushing with my arms. This time, the sled moved a few inches forward.
“Progress,” Dani said cheerfully, clapping once.
I stepped away from the sled, trying to pretend my lungs hadn’t suddenly forgotten how breathing worked.
“You set me up,” I complained through uneven breaths.
A voice from across the room nearly startled me. “Is Dani bullying reporters again?”
I glanced up to see one of the other players walking through the doorway, shaking her head.
“She can take it,” Dani called back easily.
The other player laughed and disappeared down the hallway.
I rubbed my thighs, which were already protesting the brief attempt at athleticism.
“You make this a habit?” I asked. “Torturing the press?”
I tried to keep my tone light and playful, but even to my own ears, it carried a sharper edge than I intended. The word again had my stomach twisting.
“Only the ones who talk trash about my workouts.”
“I only said it didn’t look that hard,” I corrected.
“And now you know better.”
Dani glanced down at the sled and then back at me, a new idea clearly forming behind her eyes.
“Actually,” she said slowly, “I’ve got a better way to demonstrate.”
That sentence alone should have had me cutting the weight room visit short.
“Oh?” I asked carefully.
“You can add some resistance.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
She gestured toward the sled. “Hop on.”
I stared at the metal frame. “You want me to be the weight?”
“Exactly.”
I puffed out a breath of annoyed air. “Are you calling me fat?”