Chapter 7 Mira
The dynamic in the hockey house shifted overnight from uncomfortable cohabitation to something I could only describe as "competitive courting" and it was absolutely mortifying.
I noticed it immediately the morning after Blake's concussion monitoring incident. I woke up to find expensive coffee and a bakery box outside my door, accompanied by a note written in elaborate calligraphy that had to have taken Logan at least twenty minutes to perfect.
For the performance specialist who makes even the most anxious goalie believe in his own potential.
Also, you were right about my glove hand positioning—I owe you approximately seventeen goals' worth of gratitude.
Also, you look really pretty when you're analyzing game footage and don't realize anyone's watching.
—L
I stared at the note, then at the artisanal coffee that was still warm, then back at the note. This was actually happening.
The bakery box contained a chocolate croissant that probably cost more than my entire meal plan budget for the week. It was perfect—flaky, rich, exactly the kind of indulgent breakfast I would never buy for myself.
I ate it while standing in my room, trying to figure out what the appropriate response to expensive baked goods and poetry-adjacent notes from your goalie was.
I came up with nothing.
Over the next few days, the pattern continued and escalated.
Logan left coffee and notes every morning.
The notes got progressively more elaborate, quoting actual poetry mixed with technical observations about my work that revealed he'd been paying far more attention than his sarcastic demeanor suggested.
Your assessment of opposing forwards' weak-side coverage was brilliant and I'm low-key offended you noticed their deficiencies before I did. Coffee is a bribe. I accept payment in continued technical insights and also maybe smiles because yours are rare and therefore valuable.
I should have shut this down. I should have had a professional conversation about appropriate boundaries. Instead, I found myself looking forward to the notes, smiling at Logan's self-deprecating humor and surprisingly insightful observations.
Nolan took a different approach. He adjusted his workout schedule to coincide perfectly with mine—and I mean perfectly.
I couldn't use the home gym without him appearing within five minutes, offering to spot me during strength training with the kind of timing that could not possibly be coincidental.
"Need a spot?" he'd ask, materialized beside the bench press like a helpful ghost.
"I've got it," I'd say, even though I definitely could use a spot.
"Your form's off," he'd observe, which was technically true but also somewhat irrelevant. "You're not engaging your core properly. Here—"
His hands would steady me during difficult lifts, his presence solid and reassuring.
He'd provide unsolicited but remarkably accurate advice about athletic conditioning, demonstrating with his own body, adjusting my positions with the careful professionalism that was undercut by the way his eyes lingered just a fraction too long.
"You're tensing your shoulders," he'd say, his hands firm on said shoulders. "Relax into the movement. Like this—"
He'd demonstrate, and I'd watch the way his muscles moved under his skin, the precise control he maintained even during heavy lifts, the focus in his eyes that made me feel like the only person in the room.
This was totally fine. It was professional athletic training between colleagues. Except it wasn't, and we both knew it.
Blake's approach was the most dangerous because it felt the most domestic.
He continued cooking elaborate meals, but now he set the table with actual care—cloth napkins that he'd somehow acquired, coordinated plates that didn't look like they came from a college athletic house, candles on nights when Logan and Nolan had away commitments.
"It's just dinner," he'd say when I raised an eyebrow at the increasingly fancy table settings.
"There are flowers," I'd point out.
"The grocery store had a sale."
"Blake. There are three different forks."
"You need different forks for different courses," he'd say, his ears turning pink. "That's just basic dining etiquette."
He insisted on teaching me cooking techniques that required close physical proximity.
Knife skills where he'd stand behind me, his large hands guiding mine through the proper cutting motion.
Pasta-making where our bodies pressed together at the counter, his chest against my back as he showed me how to work the dough.
Sauce-tasting where he'd hold the spoon to my lips with an intensity that had nothing to do with culinary education.
"Tell me what you taste," he'd say softly, his eyes on my mouth.
"Tomato?"
"More specific. What kind of tomato? Can you taste the basil? The garlic?"
I could taste approximately nothing beyond my own rising panic at having Blake this close, this focused, this obviously trying to seduce me through Italian cuisine.
It was working. God help me, it was absolutely working.
During practice, I maintained strict professionalism despite the increasingly obvious attention from my housemates. I'd introduced a new training program that I was privately calling "Ballet Meets Hockey: A Study in Humiliation."
"Today," I announced to the assembled team, "we're working on flexibility and core strength using ballet positions."
The collective groan could probably be heard in the next county.
"Ballet," one of the juniors repeated. "You want us to do ballet."
"I want you to improve your flexibility, range of motion, and core stability using techniques that ballet dancers have perfected over centuries. Unless you think centuries of athletic refinement is beneath you?"
Silence.
"That's what I thought. Everyone find space on the ice."
I demonstrated the positions with enough technical detail to forestall mockery—pliés to strengthen leg muscles and improve knee tracking, arabesques for balance and core engagement, port de bras for shoulder flexibility and upper body control.
The sight of massive hockey players attempting pliés created hilarious chaos that made even Coach Williams's mouth twitch with suppressed amusement. They wobbled, they complained, they struggled with basic positions that I could hold for minutes without breaking a sweat.
"Engage your core!" I called out. "You're relying too much on leg strength. The power comes from your center."
"My center is crying!" someone yelled back.
"Your center is weak! Again!"
Logan deliberately performed moves incorrectly—I could tell because I'd watched him execute perfect edge work that required similar balance. He was doing this on purpose, requiring me to manually adjust his positioning with hands-on correction he clearly didn't actually need.
"Your hip placement is wrong," I said, moving to correct him.
"Is it?" Logan's voice was innocence itself. "I can't seem to get it right. Maybe if you showed me again?"
I adjusted his hips with more force than strictly necessary. He grinned.
"Better?" he asked. "I'm just a dedicated student seeking proper instruction."
"You're a dedicated pain in my ass."
His grin widened. "I can work with that."
One of the sophomore players made a crude comment about figure skaters being flexible in bed, and the temperature in the rink dropped about twenty degrees.
Before I could respond, all three of my housemates converged on him with violent intent that made the entire team go silent.
Nolan reached him first, getting in his face with controlled fury.
Logan abandoned his net—again—skating over with his goalie stick held in a way that suggested it might become a weapon.
Blake was the most terrifying, his enforcer persona emerging as he loomed over the sophomore with an expression that promised pain.
"Apologize," Nolan said quietly, which was somehow more menacing than yelling.
"I was just—"
"Now!"
The sophomore stammered an apology directed at me, his face pale.
I should have let them continue. Should have let them deliver whatever punishment they thought was appropriate. But watching three grown men leap to my defense like I couldn't handle one immature comment was both thrilling and slightly insulting.
"I can handle myself," I said firmly, skating over. "But thank you for the thought."
"He can't talk to you like that," Blake said, his voice low and dangerous.
"No, he can't. Which is why he's going to spend the rest of practice doing penalty drills until he understands proper respect." I turned to the sophomore. "Skate laps. Full speed. Until I say stop."
"How many?" he asked weakly.
"I'll let you know when you've done enough."
He started skating. I let him do twenty laps before calling him back, by which point he was gasping and appropriately contrite.
Logan, Nolan, and Blake watched the whole thing with expressions of mingled approval and continued murder intent, like they were simultaneously proud of me and disappointed they didn't get to punch someone.
That evening, I stayed late at the rink after practice ended.
I needed ice time to maintain my skills, needed the emotional release that only skating provided.
Needed to remember who I was beneath all the complications of living with three hockey players who were rapidly destroying my ability to think rationally.
I changed into my performance dress—a simple but elegant design in deep blue that made me feel like a figure skater instead of a hockey performance specialist. Stepped onto empty ice with relief, letting the familiar cold and silence settle over me like coming home.
Without an audience, I didn't have to be anything other than myself.
I started my solo program, letting the music guide my movement. The program I'd been working on since before Sam left, before everything fell apart. A program about loss and longing, about identity fractured and slowly rebuilding, about opening yourself to trust after betrayal.
I landed jump after jump with technical precision softened by artistic expression. Every spiral carried vulnerability. Every jump required faith. Every artistic beat reflected my current emotional complexity in ways I couldn't articulate with words.
I poured everything into the skating—the hurt of Sam's betrayal, the confusion of my situation with three men who looked at me like I was something precious, the fear that I was fundamentally incapable of being what anyone needed, the hope that maybe, possibly, I could figure this out.
When I finally stopped, breathing hard and crying from emotional release I hadn't meant to indulge, I discovered all three of them watching from the shadows of the rink entrance.
The shock of being observed during such a private moment should have made me feel exposed, vulnerable, embarrassed.
Instead, I felt seen—not as a role or responsibility or utility, but as myself, fully and completely.
Nobody spoke. Logan's usual sarcasm had completely disappeared, his face open with something that looked like wonder.
Nolan stood with unusual stillness; his captain's control abandoned in favor of honest emotion.
Blake's expression was tender in a way that transformed his intimidating presence into something gentle.
I stood in the center of the ice, still breathing hard, tears on my face. I didn't skate off the ice with my usual controlled competence. Instead, I glided toward them slowly, giving us time to process this moment, time to decide what it meant.
When I reached the boards, Logan spoke first, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
"That was..." He trailed off, seemingly unable to find words. "I didn't know movement could tell stories like that."
"Your artistry," Nolan added, his voice rough with emotion. "The way you translate feeling into physical expression—I've never seen anything like it."
Blake said nothing, but his eyes were bright with unshed emotion that spoke louder than words.
I stood there, vulnerable and seen and terrified and exhilarated all at once.
"We should go home," Nolan said finally, his voice gentle.
The four of us walked back to the hockey house together through late evening cold, nobody touching but everyone hyperaware of proximity.