Chapter 3 Logan
I had spent my entire hockey career perfecting the art of looking unbothered.
It was a survival mechanism, really. When you're the starting goalie for a Division I hockey team, when everyone's watching you, when one mistake means the difference between a win and a loss, you learn to project an image of effortless cool. Sarcastic, slightly vain, unbothered by pressure.
It was all complete bullshit, of course.
My therapist—the one my parents paid for without question because God forbid the Jones family let anyone think they couldn't afford the best mental healthcare—had called my anxiety "manageable.
" Which was therapist-speak for "You're a mess, but you're a high-functioning mess, so let's just work on coping mechanisms."
The panic attacks before big games? Manageable. The lying awake at night mentally replaying every goal I'd failed to stop? Manageable. The crippling fear of letting everyone down? Super manageable.
But now there was a beautiful, terrifying figure skater unpacking in the room next door, and my carefully maintained cool was developing cracks.
I watched from my bedroom doorway as Mira organized her belongings with the kind of methodical precision that spoke to deep-seated control issues I recognized intimately.
Every item had its place. Her clothes hung in color-coordinated order—I could see into her room from my angle in the hallway, and yep, that was definitely organization bordering on compulsive.
She lined up her skating boots like soldiers. Four pairs. Who needed four pairs of skates?
When she pulled out a box of medals and set them carefully on the dresser, I noticed her hands shake slightly before she curled them into fists.
She was pretty in a way that was probably lethal on the ice—all sharp edges and controlled grace, with dark eyes that seemed to catalog and judge everything simultaneously.
When she caught me staring, I retreated to my room with what I hoped looked like casual disinterest rather than the awkward panic it actually was.
"Smooth," I muttered to myself. "Real smooth, Jones."
That evening, the team gathered for practice. I deliberately arrived early, claiming my usual spot in the net and trying to get my head in the game. Focus on the puck and the angles. Focus on anything except the woman who was about to analyze my every move.
Then Mira walked into the rink. She was wearing athletic wear and carrying a notebook, her hair pulled back, looking every inch the professional performance specialist. She climbed into the stands and began taking notes with an intensity that made my skin prickle with awareness.
I proceeded to have my worst warm-up in months.
My butterfly was sloppy—I was dropping too early, leaving the top corners open.
My glove hand timing was off by a fraction of a second, which in hockey terms might as well have been an hour.
I was so busy trying to figure out what Mira was writing in that damned notebook that I let three easy shots past me.
Coach Williams gave me his signature disappointed head shake, which was somehow worse than yelling.
Then I decided, in a moment of what I can only describe as temporary insanity, that if Mira was going to analyze me, I might as well give her something worth analyzing.
I started showing off, making increasingly flashy saves that were technically unnecessary but looked spectacular.
A diving glove save that was pure theatrics—the shot was going wide anyway, but why let facts get in the way of a good performance?
A split that I would definitely feel tomorrow.
A pokecheck that was more figure skating than hockey.
When I snuck a glance at the stands, Mira was writing furiously, and I felt absurdly pleased with myself.
"Jones!" Nolan skated past, his voice dripping with exasperation. "Are you auditioning for Cirque du Soleil, or are you actually going to play hockey?"
"Can't I do both?" I called back.
"No!"
Midway through practice, a wild shot from one of the sophomores rocketed toward the stands. I watched in horror as the puck sped directly at Mira's face.
My body moved before my brain caught up.
I abandoned my net entirely—the cardinal sin of goaltending, the thing that would get me benched faster than anything—and raced toward the glass. My skates bit into the ice, my legs pumping, my heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with athletic exertion.
The puck hit the barrier inches from where Mira sat.
I slammed into the boards, breathing hard, pressing my face against the glass, searching her face for signs of injury.
She stared back at me with an expression that might have been surprise, might have been amusement, might have been secondhand embarrassment for my complete abandonment of basic hockey strategy.
Behind me, Coach Williams's whistle could have shattered glass.
"Jones!" His voice could have awakened the dead. "What in the sweet holy mother of hockey do you think you're doing?"
I turned slowly, skating back toward the center of the rink where Coach stood with his arms crossed and his face the color of a ripe tomato.
"The puck was going toward—"
"I don't care if the puck was going toward the president of the United States! You do not leave your net! What happens if someone shoots while you're playing hero? What happens to your team? What happens to our season?"
I had no good answer for that, mainly because he was right.
"Twenty laps," Coach said. "Now."
I started skating, my ears burning. Behind me, I could hear my teammates being less than subtle with their commentary.
"Aww, look at Logan being all protective," someone cooed.
"Does someone have a crush?" another voice said.
"I think Jones needs a moment to collect himself," Nolan said loudly. "And maybe his dignity."
"Does anyone else smell something?" another player called out. "Or is that just Logan's dignity burning?"
Through the glass, Mira was still staring at me. I couldn't read her expression, which was somehow worse than if she'd been laughing.
I skated my thirty laps in burning humiliation, my mind replaying the moment over and over. What had I been thinking? I hadn't been thinking. That was the problem.
After practice, after I'd showered and changed and seriously considered faking my own death to avoid facing anyone, I found myself gravitating toward the video review room.
I told myself I was just checking the footage from practice. I told myself I needed to analyze my performance, identify areas for improvement. I told myself I definitely wasn't looking for the pretty figure skater with the notebook and the judgmental eyes.
I was lying to myself on all counts.
Mira had set up in the video review room like she owned the place.
Her laptop was open, surrounded by approximately seventeen different colored pens organized by intensity.
She was watching game footage with the kind of focus I usually reserved for playoff games, her eyes tracking every movement, her pen flying across the notebook.
I lingered in the doorway, trying to look casual rather than pathetically curious about what she'd written about me.
She noticed me immediately—of course she did—and gestured me in with a brisk efficiency that felt like a teacher summoning a student.
"Jones," she said, not looking away from the screen.
"That's me," I said, because apparently my brain had shut down and left my mouth to fend for itself.
She didn't mention my spectacular display of poor judgment during practice. Instead, she pulled up footage of my saves from our previous game and began pointing out tiny technical inefficiencies I'd never noticed.
"Here," she said, pausing the video. "See how your butterfly position angles slightly left? You're compensating for a hip flexibility issue, which leaves your glove side vulnerable."
I leaned closer, fascinated despite myself. "I've been working with the same goalie coach for three years, and he's never mentioned that."
"That's because he's probably not analyzing frame-by-frame footage with biomechanics software." She clicked forward. "And here—your glove hand drops about an inch when you're tired. It's minute, but at this level, minute differences matter."
She was right. I could see it now, the tiny drop that I'd never noticed before.
"How do I fix it?"
"Core strengthening, specifically rotational exercises. Figure skaters use their cores differently for balance during spins. I can show you."
She stood up, and suddenly we were in very close proximity in a very small room. She moved behind me, her hands firm on my shoulders, adjusting my posture.
"Feel this?" She pressed her fingers against my obliques, and I became acutely aware that a beautiful woman was basically conducting a hands-on anatomy lesson on my body. "You want to engage here during your butterfly, maintaining that rotational stability."
I was trying very hard to focus on her words rather than the fact that she smelled like something clean and athletic with an underlying hint of vanilla. Her hands were strong, confident, professional.
"So basically," I said, because apparently I couldn't shut up when I was nervous, "figure skaters and hockey players have very different ideas about what constitutes performance enhancement."
Her laugh was surprised and genuine, briefly transforming her severe expression into something warm and real. For a moment, I imagined what it would be like to make her laugh like that regularly, to crack through that controlled exterior and find whatever softness she was hiding underneath.
The door banged open with all the subtlety of a charging bull.
Nolan and Blake filled the doorway, their timing worse than a delayed penalty call. I stepped back from Mira so fast I nearly tripped over my own feet, trying to achieve a casual lean against the wall that probably looked as guilty as it felt.
Nolan's eyes narrowed in that captain way that meant he was cataloging everything for a future lecture. Blake was very pointedly staring at the floor, his ears already turning red.
"Just reviewing footage," I said, too quickly. "Technical analysis. Very professional. Nothing weird happening here."
Nolan's eyebrow rose. "I didn't say anything was weird."
"Right. Because nothing is. Weird. It's all very normal and professional."
"You're making this worse," Mira said calmly, and I was impressed by how unbothered she seemed. She turned back to her laptop like Nolan and Blake hadn't just walked in on what felt like the beginning of something far more interesting than video review.
"Thank you for your time, Jones," she said, dismissing me with the kind of professional efficiency that made me feel like I'd just been politely told to get lost.