I stop in the doorway of the kitchen and frown. One of my mugs—my chipped black one, the one I always leave by the machine—is rinsed and placed upside down on a dishtowel. The counter’s been wiped. Not scrubbed, necessarily, just… reset. The throw blanket from the couch is folded over the arm instead of kicked into the corner where I dropped it last night, and the fruit bowl is centered on the table.
My breath slows without me meaning it to, my mind processing everything I’m seeing.
This isn’t cleaning: it’s adjustment. The kind of changes made by someone who notices space, who moves through it quietly, smoothing edges without trying to take over. The kind that make a place feel… steadier.
My instincts stir before my thoughts catch up, something inside me lifting its head and scenting the air, and I don’t move for a full five seconds.
Then my jaw tightens.
No.
I cut it off hard, the way I’ve learned to shut down a bad hit before it lands.
This doesn’t mean anything. She’s organized. Methodical. She works in bodies and systems—of course she resets rooms the same way.
This isn’t a nest, and she isnot—
I scrub a hand down my face, rough enough to sting, and force a slow breath through my nose.
Get it together.
Her door is closed when I pass it. There’s no sound, and no scent leaking under the frame. She’s either asleep or already gone, and the quiet there is a relief I don’t want to examine too closely.
I grab my keys and my jacket, and don’t linger. I’m halfway out the door before I realize my instincts are still humming; unsettled and watchful, as if they’ve clocked something I’m refusing to name. I shut the door behind me harder than necessary and step into the cold, letting it bite sense back into me.
Control on and off the ice, I tell myself.
On. And. Off. The. Ice.
And I walk away before my body can decide the house feels different because she’s starting to belong there.
*
Warm-ups start long before anyone touches the ice.
The rink’s still half-asleep when we file in; overhead lights buzzing, the Zamboni’s wet lines barely set, the smell of cold metal and sharpened steel hanging in the air. Music thumps low from someone’s speaker, bass rattling the benches, a familiar pre-practice soundtrack that sayswork first, talk later.
Emery’s not here yet.
Thank fuck.
I claim a corner near the boards and drop to one knee, looping the resistance band around the post the way she showed me. The rubber snaps back with controlled tension as I pull—slow, precise rotations, elbow tucked, scapula set. Every rep burns deep, the kind that forces patience instead of ego.
I count my breath.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
No rushing. No shortcuts.
Behind me, skates scrape concrete as the guys move through their own routines—laces pulled tight, tape ripped with practiced flicks of the wrist, sticks thumped once, twice, against the floor. Dylan’s arguing with Marco about who stole his clear tape, while Gordo’s already sweating through his base layer like he ran here.
The team wakes up in pieces.
I’m halfway through my second set when Connor glides past the open doorway in socks and slides, hair still damp from the showers.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he grins. “Captain Compliance.”
I don’t look up. “You’re late to stretch.”
