Chapter 8 #2
Mara crouched and picked up the leash. Goldie rolled upright and pressed herself against Mara's legs, tail wagging, clearly delighted to have both of her favorite humans in the same hallway.
Mara's free hand went to the dog's head, her fingers gentle in the fur, and they were both petting the same dog in the same corridor, their hands close enough that Lex registered the warmth of Mara's skin, as she always did. Every single time.
"She likes you," Mara said. Her voice was softer than it had been all week.
"Everyone likes me." Lex grinned up at her from the floor.
The faintest trace of a smile. Gone before it fully formed. "She's very discerning, actually. She doesn't warm up to everyone."
"Then I'm honored." Lex scratched behind Goldie's ear and the dog sighed with contentment, leaning into the touch. "How old is she?"
"Eight. I adopted her from the shelter a year ago.
She'd been there for months. Nobody wanted a senior dog.
" Mara's voice was quieter now, the sharp edge stripped away.
She was looking at Goldie, not at Lex, and her face had softened into an expression that was unguarded and private.
"I walked in to look at puppies and she was just sitting in her kennel, watching me with this calm, patient expression, like she'd been waiting for me to show up. "
Lex's throat went thick. The image was so clear: Mara in a shelter, surrounded by yapping puppies, locking eyes with a quiet, dignified eight-year-old retriever who'd been passed over by everyone. Of course that was the dog she'd chosen. Of course it was.
"She's perfect," Lex said. And she meant it about more than the dog, but she kept that part locked behind her teeth.
Goldie looked from one of them to the other, tail swishing, brown eyes bright. The dog had the serene, knowing expression of an animal who understood the situation before the humans did.
"I should get her home," Mara said. She straightened, wrapping the leash around her hand, and the distance was back. The architecture of distance. The careful, measured control that Mara maintained like something load-bearing and essential. "Good practice today, Landry. You finished strong."
"Thanks, Coach."
Mara nodded once and walked away. Goldie padded beside her, tail still swinging, pausing once to look back at Lex with her mouth open in what looked unmistakably like a grin. Then they rounded the corner and were gone.
Lex stayed on the floor. The concrete was cold through her joggers and the corridor was quiet again, just the hum of the building and the distant drone of the Zamboni. She pressed her palms against her thighs and breathed.
Her head was fried.
She wasn't built for this. She was built for attraction that resolved quickly and cleanly: see someone, want someone, have someone, move on.
That was the pattern. That had always been the pattern.
In Boston, in London, on the road with the national team.
Beautiful women showed up at bars and hotels and after-parties, and Lex turned on the charm, and the night ended in a bed somewhere, and the morning ended with a goodbye that neither of them found difficult.
She was good at that. She was comfortable with that.
Mara Ellison did not fit the pattern. Mara was not a woman you slept with and moved on from.
Mara was a woman who got under your skin cell by cell, who made you argue and think and burn and question every assumption you'd built your emotional life around.
She was twenty years older, she was Lex's coach, she was technically her boss, and the power dynamic between them was a career-ending, reputation-destroying reality.
If Lex made a move and Mara rejected her, the professional fallout would be catastrophic.
If Lex made a move and Mara didn't reject her, the professional fallout might be worse.
Either way, the team got hurt. The season got hurt.
The PWHL got a scandal in its inaugural year that would overshadow everything the Valkyries had built.
A million reasons not to.
And one reason to. One stupid, overwhelming, undeniable reason: the way Mara looked at her when she let her guard drop.
The hunger behind those blue eyes. The way her voice went soft when she talked about Goldie, or about her childhood, or about the parts of herself she kept hidden from the world.
Last night in that office, sitting close on Mara's couch, watching the laptop screen glow between them, Lex had seen the real Mara.
Not the coach. Not the authority figure.
The woman. And that woman was magnetic and complicated and achingly lonely, and Lex wanted her with a ferocity that was starting to scare her.
She stood up. Brushed off her joggers. Picked up her kit bag.
Usually the solution was simple. Want someone? Go get them. Body says yes, brain says yes, game on. But her body was saying yes and her brain was saying this will burn your whole life down and you know it, and for the first time in her adult life, Lex wasn't sure which one to listen to.
She walked out of the arena into the parking lot.
The late afternoon sun was low over Phoenix Ridge, painting the ocean a deep, glassy amber.
The air carried salt, warm asphalt, and the faint sweetness of bougainvillea climbing the arena's south wall.
She stood by her car and let the warmth settle against her face and arms, the coastal breeze pulling at her damp hair.
Mara's SUV was still in the lot, engine running. Goldie's face was visible through the passenger window, tongue out, ears up. Even from here, the dog looked happy and uncomplicated, free of the tangled, impossible wanting that was currently making Lex's chest feel three sizes too small.
She got in her car, started the engine, and pulled out of the lot without looking at the SUV again.
It was going to be a long season.