Chapter 18
Lex played the game of her life.
She knew it while it was happening, which almost never occurred.
Usually the best performances only revealed themselves in retrospect, in the video review the next morning, when the adrenaline had drained and the body had cooled and the footage showed brilliance that the player had been too deep inside to recognize.
But tonight, skating in front of the Boston crowd in the arena where she'd grown up watching hockey as a kid, Lex could feel herself operating at a level she'd never reached before.
Everything was fast. Her reads were a half-step ahead of the opposition, her feet a stride faster, her hands a touch quicker.
She intercepted passes before the passer had finished committing to the lane.
She hit crossovers at speeds that bent the defensive coverage like a wind bending grass.
She combined with Camille on plays that the crowd saw as telepathy but were, in truth, the product of weeks of system work and one-on-one sessions and the rigorous tactical education that Mara had been pounding into her since day one.
The first goal came in the opening period.
A breakaway off a stolen puck in the neutral zone, Lex deking the goaltender so cleanly the poor woman was still sliding to her left when the puck hit the back of the net on her right.
The arena erupted. The Boston fans, who remembered Lex from her field hockey days, from the tabloid controversy, from the Sports Illustrated shoot that had made her famous, roared their approval with a ferocity that rattled the glass.
Lex's teammates mobbed her at center ice and she grinned through the pile but her eyes found the bench.
Found Mara. Found the small, private nod that Mara gave her, professional and restrained and carrying underneath it a warmth that only Lex could read.
The second goal was a thing of beauty. A give-and-go with Camille that involved three touches, two head fakes, and a one-timer from the slot that beat the goalie clean.
Lex heard the horn and skated past the bench and this time she let herself look directly at Mara, and the expression on Mara's face, pride and hunger and the ache of wanting to celebrate with someone you couldn't touch in public, burned into her memory like a brand.
Mara's system. Mara's architecture. Mara's coaching in every play she made, and the knowledge that Mara was behind the bench watching her execute it perfectly was a drug more potent than anything she'd ever put in her body.
This win would push the Valkyries into playoff contention.
The team that everyone had written off at the start of the season, the expansion franchise with the controversial rookie and the coach nobody wanted to hire, was going to the postseason.
A collective certainty hummed through the bench like current through a wire.
The Valkyries won 4-1. Lex had two goals and an assist and had been on the ice for three of the four scores.
The Boston crowd, her hometown crowd, gave her a standing ovation when the final horn sounded, and the sound of it vibrated through her chest and sank into her bones like an inheritance she'd been waiting her whole life to claim.
But it was Mara she wanted.
The post-game media swarm was intense. Cameras and microphones and reporters shouting questions about the performance, the goals, the career trajectory, the switch from field hockey, the controversy, the photo shoot.
Pretty women in the press corps leaned in with their recorders and their smiles, and autograph seekers pressed against the barriers with markers and jerseys, and a girl of maybe nineteen with short hair and a flannel shirt held up a sign that read LEX YOU'RE MY HERO with a rainbow heart, and Lex signed the sign and took a selfie with her and felt the warm rush of visibility mattering.
She worked through the media obligations as fast as she could, giving answers that were professional and brief and completely distracted by the knowledge that somewhere in this building, Mara was finishing her coaching duties and preparing to debrief with the staff.
A reporter from ESPN asked about the transition from field hockey, and Lex gave her standard answer about transferable skills and coaching, but what she was thinking about was Mara's hands on a whiteboard drawing up the play that had produced the second goal.
A local anchor asked about growing up in Boston, and Lex smiled and talked about childhood memories of this arena, but what she was remembering was Mara's face in the hotel room this morning, sleepy and bare and looking at her with blue eyes that held nothing back.
Lex was still in her gear, her jersey damp with sweat, her hair plastered to her face, her body buzzing with the twin highs of competition and anticipation.
The smell of the rink clung to her skin, cold air and rubber and the salt of her own exertion.
She excused herself from the last cluster of reporters and walked through the arena corridors, away from the media room, away from the locker room, toward the unused team facilities in the far wing of the building.
Her cleats echoed on the concrete floor.
The corridors grew darker, the overhead lights spaced further apart, the sounds of the post-game celebration fading behind her until the only thing she could hear was her own pulse.
She found an empty locker room three corridors deep. Visitor's equipment room, unlocked, lights off, the smell of old rubber and disinfectant. She pulled out her phone and texted Mara. Equipment room C. Third corridor past the media room. Come now.
Three minutes passed. Four. Lex leaned against the lockers and listened to the building shift around her.
The ice plant hummed through the walls. A pipe clanked somewhere overhead, loud and hollow.
Her body was cooling from the game, the sweat turning cold on her skin, but the heat beneath her ribs had nothing to do with hockey.
She checked her phone. No reply. Five minutes now.
Then footsteps in the corridor, quick and purposeful, and the door opened and Mara slipped inside and the door closed behind her and the dark room contracted to the space between their bodies.
"What are you doing?" Mara's voice was breathless. She was still in her coaching gear, jacket zipped, ID badge around her neck, hair in its game-day ponytail. She looked professional and composed and her eyes were burning.
Lex didn't answer with words. She stepped forward, took Mara's face in both hands, and kissed her.
The kiss was hard and hungry and tasted like cold air and salt, sharp and clean, and Mara's hands found Lex's jersey and gripped, and her body arched forward, and the professional composure evaporated like ice on a hot blade.
"You were incredible tonight," Mara gasped between kisses. "The second goal. The transition read. I've never seen anyone play like that."
"I was playing for you." Lex pushed Mara backward until her shoulders hit the row of empty lockers, the metal rattling under the impact.
She pressed her body against Mara's. She'd stripped her gear in the visitors' stall after the media scrum — jersey, pads, shin guards, all of it dumped in a pile — and was down to a sports bra and compression shorts, her skin still damp from a quick rinse, her body radiating heat from three periods of hockey.
The contrast of Lex's bare, flushed skin against Mara's fully clothed coaching gear was intoxicating.
Lex smelled like soap and the sharp salt of exertion, her system still running hot with adrenaline, and Mara's hands found the bare skin of her waist and gripped.
Lex's hand went to Mara's waistband. She unzipped Mara's pants with the efficiency of someone who'd been thinking about this for three periods and sixty minutes of elite hockey, and her fingers slid inside and found Mara wet and hot and ready.
"You've been thinking about this during the game," Lex said against her mouth.
"I've been thinking about this since you scored the first goal and looked at me."
Lex groaned and pressed her fingers deeper.
Mara's head fell back against the locker with a dull clang, her mouth open, her eyes closed, her hips rocking against Lex's hand.
The locker room was dark except for the emergency strip lighting along the baseboards, casting everything in a dim red glow that turned their bodies into shadows and their sounds into reverberations off metal.
Lex worked her fast and hard, her fingers curling inside Mara with the confident rhythm she'd learned, knowing exactly where to press, exactly how much pressure, exactly the pace that turned Mara's breathing into gasps and her gasps into moans and her moans into the broken, desperate sounds that Lex lived for.
Her other hand was braced against the locker beside Mara's head, her body pinning Mara to the metal, her mouth kissing and biting Mara's neck above the collar of her coaching jacket.
"You can come when I tell you," Lex whispered against her ear. "Not before."
Mara whimpered. Her hands were gripping Lex's jersey so hard the fabric was straining at the seams. Her body was taut, every muscle locked, her hips moving in tight, desperate circles against Lex's hand.
“Please,” she gasped.
“Not yet,” Lex said. “Wait” Lex fucked Mara with steady thrusts, knowing she was holding on to the edge and the thought of it thrilled her.
"Now. Come for me now,” Lex growled.
Mara came with a muffled cry, her face buried in the shoulder pad of Lex's jersey, her body convulsing against the lockers, the metal rattling with each spasm. Lex held her through it, fingers slowing, easing her down, and pressed her lips against Mara's temple.
"That's it," Lex murmured, and felt Mara shudder, an aftershock that rippled through her entire body.