The lot looks likedaylight someone forgot to turn off.
Floods bleach the asphalt, stretch the shadows of moving bodies long and thin under SUVs and team sedans.I clock the angles without thinking—cameras on the corners, the blind spot by the maintenance gate, the way the bus blocks the view of the east row.Wren’s pace tightens for half a step and eases again when we close in around her.
“Everyone in,” I say, quiet.It carries.
Rookies peel toward their cars, coaches drift in a huddle of low voices, equipment guys heave bags like they weigh nothing.We cut straight for the staff entrance.I badge us through and hold the door while Wren slips inside.Finn follows, soft-footed and chatty on purpose.Atlas last, broader than the frame and refusing to apologize for it.
The building hums—fluorescents, HVAC, the faint, clean stink of ice.Wren looks toward the trainers’ office.
“You want your bag,” I say.
She nods.“And—” Her eyes cut, quick, toward a drawer.“My phone.”
Atlas’s voice is gravel.“Leave it.”
“Not tonight,” I add, softer.“Morning.”
She swallows, then nods again.
We walk.Finn’s humming under his breath—nervous tell; he thinks it soothes other people more than it does him.Atlas’s boots hit like punctuation.I keep a pace she can set her breathing to.
In the office, I flip the lights.The day snaps back into color.She grabs her bag; her gaze pulls to the drawer by instinct.I rest a knuckle on the laminate.
“Tomorrow,” I repeat.
“Tomorrow,” she echoes.
“Home?”Finn asks, careful.
She looks up at me, at the door, at the hall, and I see the math—alone versus not, pride versus fear, the cost of asking versus the cost of pretending.It lasts one breath.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she says.
“Good,” Atlas answers, like the decision belongs to him.“You’re not.”
I jerk my chin toward the exit.“We drive to my place.You take the bedroom.”
She blinks.“I’m not—”
“You’re not taking anything,” I say, steady.“You’re staying.I’m giving.”
Finn lifts a hand.“And we’re staying too.Just for tonight.”He glances between us, making sure I’m with him.“We’ll be quiet.Promise.”
Atlas nods once.“I’m not going home while he might be in this city.”
The tension in Wren’s shoulders doesn’t vanish, but it loosens like a knot that found its beginning.
We move.I take point to the lot again, open the SUV, slide her bag in.Finn climbs into the back.Atlas rides shotgun; he’ll watch mirrors for me.Wren sits mid-row, buckles with fingers that tremble once, then tuck into her sleeves.
“Safe,” I say, meeting her eyes in the rearview.Not a reassurance.A fact I intend to keep true.
She tips a tiny nod.It lands.
The drive is elbows and quiet.Finn tells a story about a junior game with a broken Zamboni that bought him a hat trick and an apology from a rink manager named Stan.Atlas tracks headlights like they’re tells in a faceoff.I watch the road and Wren’s reflection—her blink slowing, the tension flickering at big intersections, the way her shoulders lower when I take the longer, brighter route on purpose.
At my house, the porch light trips.The neighborhood is still—cold air, a dog two houses down, the smell of someone’s dryer vent pumping out heat.I unlock the door and stand aside.
“Not roommates,” Finn says lightly as he passes her, like we owe her the sentence out loud.“We’re only crashing tonight.Normally we’d bug our own places.”
