Most of the team had cleared out an hour ago—early dinner, sleep, the mundane rituals of athletes recovering from yet another brutal session with Mara. But Lou had stayed late, running extra drills on her own until her legs shook and her lungs burned, pushing herself the way she always did when her mind wouldn't settle.
The problem was that her mind still wouldn't settle.
She'd been avoiding Camille for three days. Avoiding wasn't quite the right word—they still played together inpractice, still exchanged the minimal conversation required for teammates to function. But Lou had stopped meeting her eyes. Had stopped letting herself be caught alone in the same room. Had done everything possible to put distance between them that had nothing to do with physical space and everything to do with the memory of Camille's body pressed against hers on the ice.
It wasn't working.
The locker room door creaked open, and Lou's fingers stilled on the tape.
Camille emerged from the shower area wrapped in a towel, her blonde hair dark with water and streaming down her shoulders. Droplets traced paths across her collarbone, catching the fluorescent light in ways that made Lou's mouth go dry. Steam clung to her skin, flushing it pink, and she moved with the unconscious grace of someone entirely comfortable in their own body.
Lou looked away too quickly. Obvious. Telling.
"I didn't realize anyone else was still here." Camille's voice echoed in the empty space, carrying notes of surprise and something else—curiosity, maybe, or the same charged awareness Lou was trying desperately to ignore.
"Just finishing up." Lou kept her eyes fixed on her stick, pulling tape in long strips that curled against her fingers like pale ribbons. "Needed some extra ice time."
"Mara wasn't brutal enough for you?" The question carried a teasing edge that Lou hadn't expected.
"Mara's fine." She risked a glance up—a mistake. Camille had moved to her own locker, directly across from Lou's position, and was pulling clothes from her bag with movements that drew attention to the length of her arms, the curve of her shoulders. The towel shifted as she moved,revealing glimpses of skin that Lou absolutely should not have been cataloguing.
"You're allowed to admit she's a sadist." Camille's smile was different from the practiced ones Lou had seen during introductions—this one seemed genuine, edged with self-deprecating humor. "I've been dreaming about ice baths. That's not normal."
Despite herself, Lou's mouth twitched. "Ice baths are part of recovery."
"Ice baths are instruments of torture dressed up in sports science." Camille unwrapped her hair from a smaller towel, shaking it out in a cascade of damp gold that caught the light like something precious. "But I'm not complaining. It's working. I haven't felt this pushed since college."
"That's the point."
"I know." Camille turned to face her locker, reaching for the towel wrapped around her body. Lou should have looked away. Should have given her privacy, focused on her own gear, done anything other than watch as Camille let the towel drop.
Lou's breath caught.
Camille's back was a landscape of muscle and movement, the kind of body that came from years of elite training and genetic fortune. Her shoulder blades shifted as she reached for her sports bra, the curves of her waist narrowing before flaring into hips that made Lou's fingers itch with the sudden urge to touch. A droplet of water traced a slow path down her spine, disappearing into the small of her back, and Lou tracked its progress with helpless fascination.
She was stunning. Not just beautiful in the polished, camera-ready way Lou had expected, but genuinely, achingly stunning in the raw vulnerability of this moment. No makeup, no careful styling, no performance—just awoman drying off after a shower, unaware of how completely she was undoing Lou's careful composure.
Lou forced her gaze to the floor. Her heart was pounding so hard she was surprised Camille couldn't hear it echoing off the concrete walls. Heat flooded her cheeks, spread down her neck, pooled in her stomach in ways she desperately didn't want to acknowledge.
This was dangerous. This was exactly the kind of wanting she'd spent years learning to suppress, the vulnerability she couldn't afford. But her body wasn't listening to reason. Her body was very interested in the view she'd just denied herself, in the memory of Camille's skin gleaming with steam and shower water, in the way she'd moved with such easy confidence.
"Can I ask you something?"
Lou's head jerked up. Camille had pulled on underwear and a sports bra, was now stepping into comfortable-looking sweatpants—still too much exposed skin, still too much for Lou's composure. "What?"
"Why do you hate me?"
The question landed like a check to the ribs. Lou's hands stilled on the tape, her mind racing through possible responses. Denial would be easy, but Camille's eyes were too direct, too knowing—she would see through any lie Lou offered.
And maybe Lou was tired of lying. Maybe she was tired of the distance she'd been maintaining, the coldness that kept her safe but also kept her isolated. Maybe something about the quiet intimacy of this moment, the empty locker room, the fluorescent lights humming overhead, the lingering steam from Camille's shower, made honesty feel possible.
"I don't hate you."
"You avoid me." Camille pulled a soft grey sweater over her head, emerging with her hair tousled and her expression unreadable. "You look through me like I'm not even there. Every time we're in the same room, you find a reason to leave." She sat down on the bench across from Lou, close enough that Lou could smell the clean scent of her shampoo, something floral and expensive. "If that's not hate, what is it?"
Lou stared at the tape in her hands. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, filling the silence with their constant hum. Somewhere in the building, a door closed—the night maintenance crew starting their rounds.
"I don't trust you," she said finally. "Your world. Everything you represent."
