Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Enormous.
She'd called him enormous. To his face. As a greeting.
Edie shoved a handful of glitter pens into her tote bag, her cheeks still burning from the encounter. The lobby echoed with her frustrated muttering as she gathered the last of her scattered supplies, cramming paint samples and charging cables into bags without any regard for organization.
Not that she ever had any regard for organization.
But still. Enormous. Like she was describing a particularly impressive vegetable at a farmer's market. Oh yes, look at this zucchini. Very enormous. Ten out of ten would plant again.
"Get it together, Edie," she muttered, yanking a stubborn charcoal sketch free from where it had somehow gotten wedged under a radiator grate. "He's just a hockey player. A very large hockey player. With very intense eyes. And forearms that could probably crush a watermelon."
She paused, the sketch dangling from her fingers.
Why was she thinking about his forearms?
The morning light had shifted while she worked, the golden streams through the eastern windows now climbing the walls in lazy arcs. She'd lost track of time—she always lost track of time—but her stomach was growling and her coffee had gone cold hours ago and she needed to regroup.
She slung the overstuffed tote bags over her shoulders, grabbed her sketchpad, and headed for the side exit.
Her bare feet slapped against the terrazzo because she'd forgotten to put her socks and shoes back on, but she couldn't summon the energy to care.
The morning air hit her like a slap when she pushed through the doors.
Greenwood Hollow in early autumn was all golden leaves and crisp breezes and the faint scent of pine from the surrounding forest. The arena sat on the edge of town, backed by a sprawling parking structure that cast long shadows across the employee lot.
Her camper was tucked into the far corner, where Sam had given her permission to park for the duration of the project.
"Just don't let anyone see you," Sam had said, with the air of someone who regularly bent rules for convenience. "Technically we're not supposed to have overnight parking, but what my father doesn't know won't give him palpitations."
The camper looked exactly like Edie felt—slightly battered, cheerfully defiant, and held together by optimism and duct tape.
She'd bought it three years ago from a retired couple in New Mexico who'd decorated the interior with turquoise accents and dreamcatchers.
Since then, she'd added her own touches.
There were fairy lights strung across the ceiling, a patchwork quilt she'd sewn from fabric scraps collected in every town she'd visited thrown across the bed, and postcards taped to every available surface.
The tiny kitchenette was cluttered with mismatched mugs.
The built-in couch was currently buried under a mountain of half-finished sketches.
The walls were covered in paint swatches, reference photos, and a poster of a cat that said "HANG IN THERE" in aggressive pink letters.
It was chaos. Beautiful, colorful, chaos.
She dumped her bags on the narrow stretch of open floor space and immediately stubbed her toe on a stack of art books she'd forgotten she'd left there.
"Son of a—" She hopped on one foot, knocking over a jar of brushes, which sent a cascade of pencils rolling off the counter and onto her sketchpad. "Oh, come on."
The camper responded with the settling creak of metal and wood that she'd come to think of as its personality. Deal with it, the creak seemed to say. You're the one who chooses to live like this.
Fair point.
She collapsed onto the edge of her bed, shoving aside a pile of clean laundry she'd been meaning to fold for three days, and pressed her palms against her eyes until colors bloomed in the darkness.
Tarmek Stonefist.
She'd researched him, of course. The moment Sam had mentioned the team captain, she had done what any self-respecting millennial would do and stalked his entire online presence.
A presence which had been frustratingly sparse.
A few official team photos. A handful of interview clips where he spoke in careful, measured sentences about discipline and teamwork and the importance of consistency.
No social media accounts that she could find.
No candid shots. No glimpses into his personal life.
Just hockey. All hockey, all the time.
She'd expected someone intimidating. Someone rigid and humorless and easy to dismiss.
She hadn't expected the way her heart had stuttered when he'd crouched down beside her, all controlled power and dark eyes and a jaw that could have been carved from granite.
She hadn't expected the rough velvet of his voice, or the way he'd seemed genuinely confused by her chaos rather than contemptuous of it.
She hadn't expected the flash of something almost vulnerable when she'd asked if he belonged in his own arena.
And she definitely hadn't expected to find him attractive.
Hugely attractive. Devastatingly attractive. The kind of attractive that made her want to do stupid things like stay in one place long enough to find out if his intensity extended to other areas of his life.
"Nope." She dropped her hands and stared at the camper's low ceiling, where fairy lights twinkled in cheerful defiance of her spiraling thoughts. "Absolutely not. We don't do that. We don't do complicated. We don't do feelings. We do murals and then we leave."
The cat poster stared at her from across the narrow space. HANG IN THERE.
"I'm trying," she told it.
Her phone buzzed.
Sam: How's it going? Did Tarmek find you yet?
Me: Yep. He was very friendly.
Sam: ...
Sam: LOL. Sure he was. Don't let him scare you off. His bark is worse than his bite.
Me: Does he bite often?
Sam: Only when people touch his stuff.
She grinned despite herself.
Me: Noted.
She tossed the phone onto the bed and stretched, her spine popping in three different places.
The smart thing to do would be to make some food, take a nap, and return to the lobby that afternoon with fresh eyes and a clear head.
The smart thing to do would be to focus on the mural—the actual reason she was here—and forget about orc hockey captains with intense stares and absurdly organized lives.
She had never been particularly good at the smart thing.
Three hours later, she was creeping through the arena's back corridors like a very colorful burglar.
Exploring, she told herself. Artists need to understand their space. This is professional reconnaissance.
The camper had felt too small after her nap, the walls pressing in with that familiar restlessness that always came after staying somewhere too long.
Which was ridiculous since she'd only been in Greenwood Hollow for two days.
But the feeling was there nonetheless, itching under her skin, whispering that maybe it was time to move on.
Find the next project. The next town. The next temporary home.
Temporary was safe. Temporary meant no expectations. No disappointments. No one getting close enough to leave.
She'd learned that lesson early. Foster homes and group facilities and the endless parade of well-meaning adults who promised forever and delivered maybe-for-now.
By the time she'd aged out of the system at eighteen, she'd understood the fundamental truth of human connection.
Everyone leaves eventually. Better to leave first. Better to keep moving.
The camper was perfect for that. It was small enough to be mobile, and big enough to hold everything she cared about. A home that went where she went, that couldn't be taken away or reassigned or sold to someone else.
Most of the time, she loved it.
And then there were moments like this afternoon, when the fairy lights felt like a poor substitute for roots and the postcards on the walls reminded her of all the places she'd never go back to.
Hence, professional reconnaissance.
The arena's backstage areas were a maze of concrete corridors, service entrances, and mysterious doors with labels like "ELECTRICAL - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" and "ZAMBONI STORAGE.
" She'd already discovered the team cafeteria with the lingering scent of protein powder, the weight room that looked more like a medieval torture chamber, and a small meditation space that appeared to have been designed by someone whose idea of relaxation involved fluorescent lighting and motivational posters about winning.
But it was the locker room that stopped her in her tracks.
The door was propped open, revealing a glimpse of gleaming wood benches and individual cubbies stretching into the distance.
The smell hit her first—sweat and industrial cleaner, and something earthier that made her think of pine forests and cold winter mornings.
I shouldn't go in there, her sensible side warned. It's definitely off-limits.
Her feet were already moving.
The Emerald Enforcers' locker room was surprisingly elegant for a space dedicated to sweaty athletes.
Each player had their own cubby, marked with nameplates and hung with equipment in various states of use.
Some cubbies were cluttered with hockey tape and energy bar wrappers and crumpled towels.
Others were bare, waiting for their occupants.
A few had personal touches like family photos, lucky charms, and a poster of what appeared to be a troll death metal band.
And then there was Tarmek's locker.
She knew it was his before she even saw the nameplate.
His equipment hung on hooks at exactly even intervals.
His skates were aligned with military precision, blades gleaming and guards in place.
A small shelf held toiletries arranged by height—shampoo, body wash, and deodorant, all with their labels facing forward.
A folded towel sat at a perfect right angle.
Even his spare laces were coiled into identical circles and hung on small pegs.
It was beautiful. It was insane.
"Oh my god," she breathed, leaning closer. "You absolute control freak."
The cubby was a masterpiece of organizational obsession.
She'd seen neat before—she'd painted a mural in a monastery, for crying out loud—but this was something else entirely.
This was a male who had waged war against chaos and won.
This was a male who would absolutely lose his mind if someone moved his deodorant two inches to the left.
A slow grin spread across her face.
Don't do it, her sensible side urged, but once again she ignored it.
She glanced around. The locker room was empty. The corridor outside was silent. The team was probably at afternoon practice or whatever hockey players did in the middle of the day. No one would ever know.
Except Tarmek. Tarmek would definitely know.
She moved the deodorant exactly one inch to the left.
Then she tilted the body wash label slightly away from center.
Then she repositioned the skates to the alignment was off by a quarter of an inch.
Then she uncoiled one of his spare laces and left it in a loose figure-eight instead of a perfect circle.
The changes were subtle, barely noticeable to anyone who wasn't pathologically obsessed with order. Which meant that Tarmek would notice instantly.
She stepped back to admire her work, heart racing with the gleeful thrill of chaos. The cubby looked almost exactly the same—but wrong in a way that would drive a certain orc captain absolutely batty.
"This is childish," she told herself.
Yes, her brain agreed. And also hilarious.
She was still grinning when she slipped back into the corridor, pulling the door shut behind her with a soft click. Her phone buzzed again—probably Sam with another question about the mural timeline—but she ignored it.
Tomorrow, she'd be professional. Tomorrow, she'd focus on sketches and paint palettes and the serious business of transforming a lobby into a work of art.
But tonight?
Tonight she was going to enjoy the mental image of Tarmek Stonefist walking into his locker room and discovering that someone had violated the sacred order of his toiletries.
Enormous, she thought, and laughed all the way back to her camper.