I chuckle into her skin, low and guttural.
“And you’re the one who liked it.”
Her grin turns wicked. “Damn right I did.”
*
By the time I shut off the shower, my skin is raw.
I’ve scrubbed until the steam burns my lungs and my shoulders ache from standing under the spray too long, but it doesn’t matter. I know it before I even reach for a towel, before I drag it down my chest and over my arms.
She’s still there.
Her scent isn’t loud or blatant, but it’s threaded through me in a way soap can’t touch.
The thought settles heavy and certain in my chest as I dress, pulling on clean clothes that should smell neutral and don’t. I pause at the door longer than necessary, bracing myself before stepping out into the cold morning air. Snow crunches under my boots, the sky washed pale with early light, and the drive to the Icebox passes in a quiet blur.
My shoulder feels solid when I grip the wheel. Despite the exertion last night, Emery’s work has been doing its job, and my body knows it.
What itdoesn’tknow is how to pretend nothing else has changed.
The locker room hits me all at once when I push inside: heat, sweat, tape, coffee, and alpha presence layered thick enough to taste. Conversation stumbles as I enter, not stopping outright, but shifting;thinning, as though everyone’s instincts have lifted their heads at the same time.
Dylan glances up first, then Marco. Theo’s eyes sharpen as he looks me over, reading more than posture or gait. And Connor…
Connor goes still.
His jaw tightens, eyes flicking over me with a precision that tells me he already knows what he’s scenting. His shoulders square, scent flaring sharp and defensive before he reins it back in.
Yeah. They feel it. Not the details, but the change. The quiet certainty that something fundamental has shifted.
I don’t comment. Instead, I move to my stall and start taping my shoulder, slow and methodical, giving my hands something to do while the room hums with restrained curiosity. Voices pick back up: lower now, glancing around the thing no one’s naming.
Then the door opens again.
Coach Phillips steps inside, clipboard tucked under one arm, coffee in hand. The room settles the way it always does when his presence lands, and his eyes sweep the space once before locking on me.
“Out,” he says, though his voice is calm and steady. “All of you. Ice. Now.”
I don’t need him to confirm the obvious: that he’s not talking to me.
There’s a beat of silence, and Connor’s gaze flicks to me again, but no one argues. Skates scrape against the floor and sticksclatter as one by one, the room empties, noise rolling down the corridor toward the rink until the door swings shut behind the last of them.
Coach sets his clipboard down on the bench and takes a slow sip of his coffee before looking at me again—really looking this time, not at my posture or my shoulder, but atme.
“Well,” he says at last, exhaling through his nose, “that answers a few questions I was hoping I wouldn’t need to ask yet.”
I straighten without thinking.
Old reflex. Old habits.
“I needed to speak to you.”
“I figured,” he replies. His gaze flicks over me, sharp and practiced. “You smell like her, Wolfe.”
There’s no edge to it, nor is there any judgment: justfact, delivered the way he always delivers them.
I nod once, and my throat tightens.
