Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Someone has touched my things.
Tarmek stood frozen in front of his locker, equipment bag dangling from his fist, and stared at the catastrophe before him.
His deodorant, which he always positioned exactly three inches from the left edge of the shelf with the label facing forward at a precise ninety-degree angle, had been moved.
Not dramatically. Just enough that the label now tilted slightly towards the right wall, and the container itself sat perhaps an inch closer to his body wash than it should.
His body wash, which was also wrong. The label faced eleven o'clock instead of twelve.
His skates were out of alignment. And someone had uncoiled his second set of spare laces and left it in a sloppy figure-eight that made his eye twitch just looking at it.
"Everything okay, Cap?"
Fenrick, the youngest member of the team and resident chaos demon, peered around the edge of his own locker with an expression of exaggerated concern. His pointed ears twitched with barely contained glee.
"Someone," Tarmek said slowly, "has been in my locker."
"No way." Fen's eyes widened with exaggerated shock. "Who would do such a thing?"
Tarmek turned to look at him. Just looked. The younger orc held his gaze for approximately three seconds before cackling and retreating to his own space.
"Wasn't me, I swear on my grandmother's grave. But I wish I'd thought of it."
"Your grandmother isn't dead."
"Details." Fen waved a dismissive hand. "Point is, someone's finally gotten under your skin. It's beautiful. I might cry."
Tarmek turned back to his locker and began the painstaking process of restoring order.
Deodorant: three inches from the left edge, label forward.
Body wash positioned by height next to the shampoo with the label at exactly twelve o'clock.
He uncoiled the spare laces, smoothed them flat, recoiled them into identical circles, and hung on their designated pegs.
His hands moved automatically, but his mind was elsewhere.
Edie.
He didn't have proof. He hadn't caught her anywhere near the locker room.
But he knew. The same way he knew when an opposing player was about to try a dirty hit, the same way he knew when the ice was running slow, the same way he knew exactly how many seconds remained on the clock without looking.
The deep orc awareness that had kept his ancestors alive in mountain caves and battle camps for thousands of years.
Someone had invaded his space, disrupted his order, and left chaos in their wake. Only one person fit that description.
Edie.
I just need to stay away from her, he decided.
The problem was, she was everywhere. Over the following week, he couldn't escape her. Not because she sought him out. If anything she seemed to avoid direct contact with him. But her presence still seeped into every corner of the arena like watercolor bleeding across wet paper.
Her music came first. Not loud or intrusive, but there - a constant undercurrent of indie folk and vintage rock drifting from whatever corner of the building she'd claimed for the day.
He'd hear it during his morning conditioning sessions, the faint strains of guitar and warm vocals floating down the corridors.
He'd catch it during film review, when someone left a door open and suddenly he couldn't concentrate on defensive formations because someone was singing about wildflowers and wandering souls.
Then there were the coffee cups.
Half-empty cups with lipstick prints on the rims, left on window ledges and equipment carts and once, memorably, balanced on the edge of the Zamboni's control panel.
Sam had nearly had a heart attack over that one.
The cups always had names scrawled on them in Sharpie, but never her name.
Instead: "World's Okayest Artist." "Professional Paint Sniffer.
" "If found, please return to the nearest chaos dimension. "
And the scarves. God, the scarves.
Bright silk and soft wool and chunky knit monstrosities in every color imaginable, draped over chairs in the break room, forgotten on benches outside the weight room, tied around the handrails of staircases like tiny flags of surrender.
He'd found one in the meditation room wrapped around the base of a decorative plant like the plant had gotten cold and she had taken pity on it.
He had folded that scarf with military precision and left it on Sam's desk without comment. Sam had laughed for five straight minutes and then framed a photo of it.
But the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that he couldn't stop looking for her.
He'd walk into the arena each morning and find his eyes scanning the lobby before his brain caught up. He'd hear music and strain to identify which room it was coming from. He'd see a flash of red hair in his peripheral vision and his head would snap around before he could stop himself.
She'd infected him, gotten under his skin like splinters of paint and chaos. And she'd charmed his entire goddamn team.
"Edie said I should try positive visualization before face-offs," Rognar announced during Thursday's practice, as if this were perfectly normal advice to receive from a mural artist. "She says athletes underestimate the power of imagination."
"Edie's not a sports psychologist," he said flatly.
"No, but she painted a mural for a minor league team in Arizona and their goalie said his save percentage went up twelve percent after she taught him to visualize the puck as a bird he was setting free." Rognar nodded sagely. "A bird, Cap. Set free."
"That makes no sense."
"Art rarely does. That's the point."
On the other side of the rink, their goalie Brogran, whose disposition normally made Tarmek look gregarious, was showing Edie his phone with an expression that could almost be called a smile.
She was perched on the boards with her legs swinging and her paint-stained overalls bright against the arena's muted colors, and she was laughing at whatever the phone displayed.
Brogan never showed people his phone.
Tarmek scowled, his stick cracking against the ice.
"Problem?" Fen skated past with a knowing grin.
"No."
"Because you look like you want to murder someone. And not in the fun, hockey way."
"Skating drills. Now."
Fen cackled but complied, and Tarmek forced his attention back to practice.
He ran the team through formations until their legs burned and their lungs screamed and not a single player had breath left for chatting with visiting artists.
It was brutal and probably excessive and definitely motivated by something he refused to examine.
But every time he looked up, Edie was still there. Watching. Sketching in that damn notebook of hers. Occasionally waving at someone on the ice with cheerful obliviousness to the chaos she was causing.
She caught him looking once. Their eyes met across the length of the rink, and she had the audacity to smile.
It wasn't a professional smile. It was a smile that said I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm enjoying every second of it.
He looked away first. He told himself it was because he needed to focus on the drill.
The team dinner was Sam's idea.
"Community building," she'd said, when she'd announced it at the previous day's meeting. "Edie's going to be here for at least two months. She should feel like part of the Enforcers family. Plus, I already made reservations and ordered the appetizers, so this is technically not a request."
Stone's Throw was Greenwood Hollow's closest approximation of upscale dining: a converted farmhouse with exposed beam ceilings, a fireplace large enough to roast a small vehicle, and a menu that specialized in what the owner called "mountain fusion cuisine.
" In practice, this meant large portions of meat with interesting sauces, and everyone seemed satisfied with the arrangement.
The team had taken over the private dining room in the back, shoving together three long tables to accommodate twelve-odd players plus the coaching staff plus one small redheaded artist who had somehow ended up seated directly across from him.
He suspected Sam's involvement. Sam had an innocent face and a devious mind.
"So," Edie said, propping her chin on her hand and fixing him with those warm brown eyes, "I hear you've been running extra drills this week."
"Standard practice intensification before the pre-season tournament."
"Funny. Fen said you've been, and I quote, 'skating the team like you're preparing for war against demons instead of the Northridge Yetis.'"
"Fen talks too much."
"Fen is delightful." She stole an olive from the appetizer platter in front of her without breaking eye contact, and he tried not to growl.
"He showed me pictures of his grandmother's collection of cursed artifacts.
Did you know she has a mirror that tells you the exact moment of your death if you look into it at midnight? "
"I've heard."
"He looked into it."
"What did it say?" he asked before he could stop himself, and she gave him an impish smile.
"Eighty-three years from now, complications from competitive eating."
A sound escaped him. He wasn't sure if it was a cough or something worse. Across the table, her eyes lit up like she'd discovered gold.
"Was that almost a laugh? Did I almost make Tarmek Stonefist laugh?"
"No."
"It was. I heard it. I'm telling everyone."
"Please don't."
"Too late. Fen!" She turned in her seat, raising her voice over the general din. "Fen, I made the captain almost laugh! Write it down for posterity!"
"On it!" The young orc's voice came from somewhere near the fireplace. "I'm putting it in the team newsletter!"
"There is no team newsletter," he growled.
"There is now!"
She turned back to him, grinning like she'd won a championship. In the warm light of the restaurant, with the fire casting golden shadows across her paint-freckled cheeks, she looked like something out of a fever dream. Chaotic and bright and entirely too present.
"You should smile more," she said. "It looks good on you."
He hadn't smiled. His face felt strange, but he was certain he hadn't smiled.
The server arrived with their entrees, providing a blessed distraction. He had ordered the elk medallions with juniper reduction, as he did every time the team came here, a dish optimized for protein intake and recovery. His plate arrived perfectly arranged, portion sizes exactly what he expected.
She had ordered something involving noodles and an alarming variety of vegetables and what appeared to be an entire garden of fresh herbs piled on top. It smelled good. Aggressively good. The kind of good that made neighboring diners crane their necks to see what she'd gotten.
She dug in with enthusiasm, making small sounds of appreciation that probably shouldn't be audible from across a table and definitely shouldn't be affecting his concentration the way they were.
He focused on his own meal and did his best not to think about other ways to get her to make those soft little moans.
And then her fork darted across the table and speared a piece of elk directly off his plate. He froze.
"Oh my god," she said around the stolen bite, eyes closing in pleasure. "That's incredible. Is that juniper? I can never tell the difference between juniper and rosemary. They both taste like pine trees to me, but in a good way. Like Christmas in your mouth."
She'd taken food off his plate. Without asking. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A sensation he didn't recognize, unfamiliar and ancient at the same time, stirred in his chest. His hands tightened on his utensils, but not from anger. There should be anger, shouldn't there? Someone had invaded his space, his meal, his territory—
Feed her, whispered a voice from deep in his hindbrain instead. Mine.
The orc part of him, the part that ran on instincts older than civilization, was suddenly very, very awake.
She was still talking, fork gesturing as she compared the relative merits of various game meats, completely unaware that she'd just triggered something fundamental in his psyche.
Around them, the team dinner continued in its usual chaotic fashion with laughter and arguments and the clatter of silverware.
He cut another piece of elk and set it deliberately on the edge of his plate on the side closest to her. He watched, holding his breath, as she noticed. Her gaze flicked from the meat to his face and back again, a question in her eyes.
"You like it," he said roughly. "Eat."
Something passed between them. Her cheeks flushed pink, and for once she seemed at a loss for words. Then she gave him a shy smile and took the offered bite.
The orc voice in his head purred.
Oh, he thought distantly, I'm in trouble.
Across the table, she started talking again, something about the history of juniper in European cuisine, but her eyes kept darting to his plate.
And each time they did, he found himself adjusting his food.
He cut the best pieces into small bites and moved them closer to the edge, offering them to her.
He'd read about this somewhere, in some dusty tome of cultural history that he'd never paid attention to because he was a modern orc living a modern life, there were traditions about food and courtship and the significance of sharing meals with potential mates.
His mother had probably mentioned it at some point.
He'd dismissed it as an outdated superstition, an evolutionary holdover irrelevant to contemporary relationships. Now, watching her steal another bite of his elk and feeling the satisfaction welling up inside him, he realized he might have been dramatically wrong.
"You're staring," she said, pointing her fork at him. "Is there something on my face?"
You're beautiful, he thought. You're chaos incarnate and you've ruined my locker and my concentration and possibly my life, and I want to feed you until you're too full to move and then wrap you in blankets and keep you safe forever.
"No," he said.
She squinted at him suspiciously but returned to her meal, and he spent the rest of the dinner in a state of quiet crisis.
When dessert arrived she attacked the shared platter of pastries with gleeful enthusiasm—and then she offered him a bite of her chocolate tart without being asked.
It was the best thing he'd ever tasted.