Chapter 6
The photographer's name was Yara, and she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Chin up. Little more. Hold that." The shutter clicked in a fast burst. "Beautiful. Now lean back against the tiles and cross your arms."
Lex shifted against the shower wall, the ceramic cool through the thin fabric of her sports bra.
The new Valkyries locker room smelled like fresh paint and industrial cleaner and the faint cedar of unfinished benches.
Everything in this building was brand new, from the polished concrete floors to the LED panels overhead to the chrome shower fixtures that gleamed like they'd never been touched.
The locker room was massive compared to the old rink.
Spacious stalls, wide corridors, a shower area with individual dividers and proper drainage.
Built for professionals. Built for a league that mattered.
Built, apparently, for a photoshoot nobody had authorized.
"Arms a little wider," Yara said, crouching to shoot from a low angle.
She was mid-thirties, wiry, with close-cropped hair and a camera that looked like it cost more than Lex's car.
She'd messaged Lex on Instagram two weeks ago with a pitch that had been refreshingly direct: a feminist hockey fan page called Ice & Edge wanted to feature women athletes who didn't conform to the glossy, lipstick-and-ponytail image that sports media loved to peddle.
Athletic bodies. Tattoos. Strength without apology.
No softening, no sanitizing, no pretending that women in professional sports had to look like they'd walked out of a shampoo commercial to be worth celebrating.
Lex had said yes immediately.
She hadn't asked Mara's permission. She hadn't asked Astoria's.
The decision was hers to make. Her body, her image, her choice.
She'd been making decisions like this her entire career, and the fact that every institution she'd ever been part of had tried to control her image was exactly why she kept doing it.
The stylist, a quiet woman named Dina with a septum piercing and a canvas bag full of supplies, adjusted the lighting reflector she'd propped against the shower wall.
The overhead LEDs were too harsh for photos, so they'd switched them off and were working with two portable softboxes that cast a warm, golden glow across the tiles.
The effect was intimate. Almost painterly.
Light that made muscle definition look like sculpture.
"This one's going to be incredible," Yara said, reviewing her screen.
She turned the camera toward Lex. The image showed her leaning against the shower wall, arms crossed over her sports bra, every line of her upper body defined and visible.
The tattoos on both arms were vivid in the warm light, the geometric patterns on her left arm contrasting with the more organic designs on her right.
Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, still damp from the spray they'd used to get that post-shower look.
Her expression was calm, direct, unapologetic.
She looked strong. She looked like herself. That was the whole point.
"Ready for the next setup?" Yara asked.
Lex nodded. She stripped the sports bra and her underwear off and stepped fully into the shower stall, turning to face the wall.
The water wasn't running, but Dina misted her back and shoulders with a spray bottle, the fine droplets catching the softbox light like scattered glass.
The ceramic was cold against Lex's forearms where she braced them above her head, and a chill tracked down her spine that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the thrill of being exactly this bold in a space that belonged to an organization that hadn't given her permission.
The shot was from behind. Shoulders, back, the curve of her spine tapering to her ass.
The tattoo that wrapped around her right shoulder blade was fully visible, the lines dark against her tanned skin.
Nothing explicit was in frame. Nothing needed to be.
The image was about strength and presence and the deliberate refusal to hide.
"Three more," Yara said, her shutter clicking rapidly. "Turn your head left. Just your profile. Yes. Hold."
Lex held. The silence of the empty locker room pressed around them, broken only by the click of the camera and the distant hum of the arena's HVAC system.
The building was supposed to be empty today.
No practice, no game, no staff. Just Lex and two women with cameras and softboxes, making images that would reach fifty thousand followers on a platform dedicated to celebrating exactly this kind of athlete.
"Last one for the shower," Yara said. "Face the camera. Cover with your arm across your chest. Just enough."
Lex turned. She angled one arm across her chest, her forearm hiding what needed to be hidden, her other hand resting on the shower dial. She looked directly into the lens. No smile. No performance. Just presence.
The shutter fired.
"That's the one," Yara said quietly. "That's the cover image."
They moved back to the locker room for the final setup.
Lex pulled on a pair of black briefs and sat on the bench in front of her stall, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
The Valkyries jersey was draped over the stall behind her, the purple and silver fabric catching the light.
Dina adjusted the reflector. Yara crouched again, shooting from below, framing Lex between the open stall doors with the team logo visible above her head.
The locker room door banged open.
The sound cracked through the silence like a gunshot. Lex's head snapped up. Dina flinched. Yara straightened, camera lowering.
Mara stood in the doorway.
Coaching jacket zipped to her throat. Ponytail tight.
Blue eyes blazing with a fury so sharp it was almost physical.
Her gaze swept the scene in a single pass: the softboxes, the camera, Dina with her reflector, and Lex, sitting on the locker room bench in nothing but black underwear with her arms covered in tattoos and her hair loose and her body on full display under warm golden light.
"What the hell is happening in my locker room."
Not a question. A detonation.
"Hey, Coach." Lex stayed seated. She didn't grab a towel. Didn't cross her arms. Didn't move to cover herself in any way. Her pulse kicked up, hard and fast, but not from embarrassment. The warmth that spread through her chest when Mara's eyes swept over her body was desire, pure and undeniable.
Mara's gaze tracked from Lex's face down to her shoulders, to the tattoos, her breasts, the muscles of her abdomen, to the low waistband of the briefs, and then back up again with a jerk that was almost violent, as if she'd caught herself staring.
Her jaw was locked tight. Color rose from under her collar, staining her neck and climbing toward her ears.
"Somebody want to tell me who authorized this?" Mara's voice was controlled but her hands were fists at her sides.
"Nobody authorized it," Lex said. "I don't need authorization to take photos of my own body."
Mara's eyes flashed. "In a team facility. In a league locker room. With people who are not team staff." She looked at Yara and Dina. "Who are you?"
"Yara Osman." Yara stepped forward, professional and composed. "I run Ice & Edge. It's a feminist sports photography platform. We're here at Lex's invitation." She held the camera protectively against her hip.
"You're here without the team's knowledge or approval, in a restricted area, photographing a player in various states of undress." Mara's voice could have cut diamond. "Do you have any idea what this looks like?"
Lex stood up. Slowly. She let the movement be deliberate, rising from the bench with the unhurried confidence of someone who was entirely comfortable in her own skin.
Which she was. She'd spent twenty-eight years in this body.
She'd trained it, pushed it past breaking, rebuilt it, and she was not going to rush to hide it because someone had walked into the room upset.
Mara's gaze dropped to her breasts again. The flush on her neck deepened. She dragged her eyes back to Lex's face with visible effort, and the tension in her jaw was so pronounced the muscle was jumping beneath the skin.
"Can I get a towel?" Lex asked. She walked past Mara toward the hooks on the far wall, adding an extra second to each step.
Mara's attention pressed against her back like heat from a fire.
The space between them hummed with tension that had nothing to do with professional misconduct and everything to do with the corridor outside Mara's office three days ago, the near-kiss, the breath between them, the moment that neither of them had acknowledged since.
She took a towel from the hook and draped it over her shoulders without fastening it.
It covered her chest loosely. She turned back to face Mara, who was standing very still in the center of the locker room with her arms crossed and her eyes locked on a point somewhere above Lex's left shoulder, as if maintaining eye contact had become physically dangerous.
"These photos," Mara said, and her voice was quieter now but no less sharp, "will reduce you to a pin-up. A body. You have talent, Landry. Real talent. And you are going to throw it away so strangers on the internet can objectify you."
"That's not what this is."
"That is exactly what this is. The second these images hit the internet, you are not a hockey player anymore.
You are a sexy picture in someone's group chat.
You are a meme. You are locker room wallpaper.
Everything you do on the ice will be measured against these photos and the conversation will never be about your skill. "
The words hit close. She'd heard this argument before — reasonable-sounding, protective-seeming, always dressed up in concern. Always, underneath it, about control.