Chapter 27
Kiyomi POV
The steam rising from the paper cup smelled like scorched earth and rancid grease.
Tuesday morning, the fifth of February. Outside the glass doors of the Science it was an autonomic revolt.
The bitter aroma of the roasted beans hit my olfactory nerves like ammonia, triggering a sharp, gagging heave that forced my jaw open in a silent gasp.
The corridor tilted sideways.
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead, dampening the hair at my temples. Dizziness swarmed behind my eyes, dark spots flecking my peripheral vision as my knees went loose beneath the hem of my wool coat.
I dumped the untouched coffee into an aluminum recycling bin, clamped my hand over my mouth, and stumbled down the hallway toward the private single-occupancy restroom beside the biomechanics laboratory.
I shoved the door open, threw the deadbolt, and dropped to my knees on the cold white tile in front of the porcelain basin.
My body seized in three dry, shuddering heaves that tore through my diaphragm. Nothing came up except sour bile and thin air, but the convulsions shook my ribs so hard my teeth clicked together.
I leaned my forehead against the cool edge of the porcelain, dragging in ragged, freezing gasps of air. My pulse was hammering an erratic, frantic beat in the hollow of my throat, running at nearly ninety beats a minute while I knelt motionless on the floor.
Mid-semester burnout, I told myself, staring at the drain. Eighty hours a week between lecture halls and the ice-treadmill, surviving on protein bars, running on four hours of sleep.
I stood on shaking legs, gripping the sink edge until the blood rushed back into my fingers. I turned on the cold tap, splashing freezing water across my cheeks and the back of my neck.
In the mirror, my reflection looked hollow.
My skin had an ashen, bloodless cast, dark purple half-moons bruised deep beneath my honey-brown eyes.
My breasts had been tender for three days, aching under the band of my bra whenever I reached for a shelf, a symptom I had chalked up to lifting heavy motion-capture tripods.
I reached into my bag, smoothed a layer of tinted balm over my pale lips, and forced my spine straight.
Ten compliance hours remained on Mauricio’s ledger. I had an eleven o'clock appointment in the basement, and I wasn't going to let a seasonal stomach bug derail my schedule.
* * *
The auxiliary basement lab was quiet, smelling of menthol rub, clean ice wax, and the familiar, heavy warmth of cedar that signaled Mauricio was already inside.
He was standing by the examination table in a gray sleeveless compression shirt and black training shorts, reviewing a laminated play sheet from Coach Henrik Lindqvist. The thick, vascular muscle of his arms was bare, his skin flushed from a morning skate on the main sheet.
I pushed the heavy steel door open, letting the latch click softly.
"Hour fifty-one, Leal," I said.
I tried to keep my voice brisk, even, and clinical, but the words came out thin, catching on a dry hitch in my throat. My fingers were trembling as I set my leather satchel on the rolling diagnostic cart.
Mauricio looked up from the play sheet.
He didn't read the second diagram. The laminated paper slipped from his fingers, fluttering to the floorboards as his dark umber eyes locked onto my face.
His jaw tightened instantly. In two heavy, unhurried strides, he crossed the rubber matting, closing the distance between us until his towering six-foot-four frame blocked out the glare of the overhead light.
He didn't ask a single question. His hands reached out, catching the nylon strap of my heavy satchel, lifting it off my shoulder and setting it aside.
"You're gray as slate, Kiyomi," he rasped, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that demanded absolute compliance.
"I'm fine, Mauricio. It's just a headache from the fluorescent—"
"Stop lying to me."
His large hands came down, gripping my waist firmly through my fleece jacket, guiding me backward until the back of my thighs hit the edge of the low examination bench. He pressed down with steady, gentle authority until I sat down.
Then the captain dropped directly onto both knees on the rubber floor in front of me.
The sheer physical contrast of his massive frame kneeling between my boots, looking up at me with raw, focused vigilance, sent an ache straight through my chest.
He reached out, taking both of my freezing hands into his large, calloused palms. His skin was scorching hot against my clammy flesh, his thumbs smoothing across my knuckles with firm, steady friction, working circulation back into my cold fingers.
"Your hands are like ice water," he murmured, his dark brows drawing together in a fierce frown. "And your breathing is shallow. Look at me, sweetheart."
I looked down into his face. The thin scar over his left eyebrow was pink against his olive skin, his eyes wide, dark, and filled with a terrifying, protective devotion that made the tears burn behind my lashes.
"Good girl," he rumbled softly, bringing my fingers to his mouth, pressing his warm lips against my knuckles. "Just sit back and breathe. When did you eat last?"
"Yesterday at dinner," I whispered, leaning my head back against the concrete wall as a wave of lightheadedness swept over my scalp.
Mauricio stood up, moving with quiet, lethal efficiency. He walked to the small refrigerator beneath the supply shelf, pulled out a fresh bottle of cold filtered water, and grabbed a sleeve of salted crackers from his gear duffel.
He returned, kneeling between my knees once more. He unscrewed the cap, held the bottle to my lips until I took three slow swallows, then placed a plain cracker in my fingers.
"Eat two bites," he commanded, his voice a low, gravelly vibration against my cheek.
I chewed the dry cracker slowly. The plain salt settled the sour churning in my stomach, the icy water cooling the fevered heat beneath my collarbones.
Mauricio reached behind him, grabbed his heavy black wool team parka from the stool, and draped it over my shoulders. The fleece was baking with his body heat, smelling so deeply of his skin and the freezing outdoor wind that my lungs finally expanded on a full, deep inhale.
"You've got the flu," he murmured, his calloused thumb stroking the soft curve of my cheekbone, wiping away a drop of cold sweat. "I'm canceling the rest of the testing block. I'm driving you back to Cottage Road, and you're staying under the duvet until your color comes back."
"I have a department seminar at two, Mauricio—"
"Cancel it," he cut in, his jaw set in stone. "You aren't working today."
* * *
A sharp, double knock sounded on the frosted glass door.
"Leal!" Gabriel Thorne’s voice cut through the basement. "Lindqvist wants the penalty-kill pairings in the video room. Two minutes!"
Mauricio’s jaw locked. He didn't look toward the door. His eyes stayed pinned to my face, his thumb lingering on the warm skin beneath my ear.
"Don't move from that bench," he whispered, his voice thick with raw, gravelly authority. "I'll be back in five minutes. If you try to carry that heavy bag up the stairs, I'll carry you myself."
He pressed a firm, lingering kiss to my forehead, grabbed his play binder, and slipped through the door, pulling it shut behind him until the latch clicked.
The room fell into an absolute, ringing silence.
The hydraulic treadmill hummed its low, mechanical drone, the sound vibrating through the soles of my boots. I sat alone beneath his massive black parka, my breathing slow, my skin slowly warming beneath the layers of heavy wool.
My satchel lay on the cart.
My fingers felt numb as I reached into the side pocket, pulling out my phone.
I needed to email Dr. Hayes to reschedule the force-vector audit. I unlocked the screen, opening my calendar app to check the open blocks for the coming week.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
The calendar display showed the monthly view. At the top was the cycle tracking icon, marked with a small pink dot.
A sudden, suffocating stillness gripped my throat.
I blinked against the glare of the screen, scrolling back through the dates.
My last menstrual cycle had begun on Saturday, December 1.
The historic nor'easter—the night the roads were closed, the night we were trapped in his bedroom, the night his body had claimed mine beneath the charcoal quilt—was Friday, December 14.
Today was Tuesday, February 5.
My cycle was more than two weeks overdue.
In seven years of tracking my health with clinical, obsessive precision, my cycle had never varied by more than twelve hours. It had arrived every twenty-eight days with mathematical certainty.
The air vanished from the room.
My vision narrowed to a single, blinding point. A high, deafening ringing filled my ears, drowning out the hum of the treadmill, drowning out the distant thuds of hockey pucks striking the dasher boards on the rink above.
The physical anomalies of the past forty-eight hours snapped together with violent, sudden clarity.
The morning revolt against dark roast coffee.
The dizziness that had tilted the corridor.
The resting pulse hammering at ninety beats a minute while I sat motionless.
The swollen tenderness aching in my chest.
My hand moved before my brain could calculate the risk.
Slowly, trembling with a hard, involuntary shudder, my right palm slid beneath the heavy wool of Mauricio’s team parka, dropping to rest flat against the fabric over my lower abdomen.
The skin beneath my sweater was burning hot.
The nor'easter. The dark bedroom in his carriage house.
The cold, breathless suspicion hit my bloodstream like an avalanche.
I wasn't sick.
I was carrying his child.