HOLLOWAY is stitched across the shoulders in bold white lettering against the navy fabric. The number 55 sits beneath it, centered between the shoulder blades, the digits large enough to be read from the upper bleachers by spectators whose only interest in the player wearing them will be the novelty of an Omega occupying a jersey that was never designed with her body in mind.
I pout at my reflection.
The uniform is enormous. Not the fitted, body-contouring variety that female athletes in other sports receive, tailored to acknowledge the existence of hips and waists and the specific dimensional ratios that distinguish female physiology from themale template that athletic equipment manufacturers consider their default client. This jersey was cut for an Alpha male approximately six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than me, the fabric draping from my shoulders in cascading folds that convert my upper body into a shapeless textile landscape.
The sleeves extend past my wrists. The hem reaches my mid-thighs. The shoulder pads beneath the jersey, the smallest pair the equipment room could provide, still add three inches of width on each side, giving my silhouette the proportions of a woman wearing a tent with armor plating.
I look boyish.
More boyish than usual. Which is an achievement, given that my standard presentation already occupies the masculine end of the spectrum and my hair is currently spiked in the direction that Jace once described as "aggressively undecided about which way it wants to grow."
I sigh. Long. Surrendering the aesthetic critique that my mirror-self is never going to win because the equipment was not manufactured with the expectation that someone shaped like me would ever require it.
At least the jersey is baggy enough that nobody can assess my body underneath it. The fabric functions as camouflage, concealing the curves and the muscle definition and the anatomical details that I have spent my life hiding beneath oversized garments because visibility invites evaluation and evaluation invites the specific, gendered scrutiny that I have neither the patience nor the emotional bandwidth to endure during an event that is already testing every limit I possess.
This is it.
First practice. First official session as a rostered member of Valenridge University's Division Two hockey team. First time in my life that I am not sneaking onto a rink before dawn or grinding at a community center or standing on the outside ofthe boards watching men occupy the ice that my body was built for.
I am inside the boards now.
And the jersey has my name on it.
And if I do not stop staring at this mirror and start walking toward the ice, the anxiety that is currently occupying my chest cavity like a squatter with a long-term lease is going to escalate from manageable to debilitating, and I will not give it the satisfaction.
I grab my stick. Check my skate laces. Adjust the helmet that sits on my head with the slightly oversized wobble of equipment designed for skulls that are wider than mine. And I walk.
Through the corridor that connects the locker rooms to the arena entrance, the rubber-matted floor muting my blade guards with each step, the industrial scent of ice and refrigerant growing stronger as the distance to the rink decreases. My heartbeat is elevated. My palms are damp inside my gloves. The fresh-cut grass and peppermint of my scent profile is spiking with the nervous edge that my body produces when the stakes are high enough to activate the fight-or-flight circuitry that my designation hardwires into every confrontation.
The arena opens before me, the rink stretching wall to wall beneath fluorescent lights that have been set to full intensity for the first time since the scrimmage. The ice is fresh. Zambonied to a mirror finish that reflects the overhead beams in pale, clean streaks across the surface. The boards are gleaming. The benches are populated with gear bags and water bottles and the scattered evidence of a team assembling for its inaugural session.
I step onto the ice.
The first stride carries the familiar rewriting of the world that competitive surfaces produce in my nervous system. Blade to ice. Friction to velocity. The anxiety in my chest recalibratingfrom static to kinetic, the energy converting from the buzzing, useless hum of fear into the directed, purposeful current that my body knows how to channel through skating.
I am three strides into the rink when the sound erupts from the far boards.
A whistle. Sharp, piercing, the kind that is produced by fingers in mouths rather than referee equipment. Then cheering. Not the polite, golf-clap variety that accompanies introductions. Full-volume, boards-slamming, stick-banging cheering that carries the specific, unhinged enthusiasm of men who have just seen a face they did not expect and are reacting with the collective restraint of a stadium crowd at a playoff overtime goal.
"NO FUCKING WAY! CAPTAIN ARCHIE?!"
The shout comes from a cluster of players at center ice, their helmets off, their faces split into grins so wide the emotion is visible from across the rink. They are converging on a figure standing near the face-off circle whose posture tells me everything his expression would confirm if I were close enough to read it.
Archie is stiff.
Rigid in the specific, locked-joint manner of a man whose body has entered an environment it associates with danger and whose nervous system has engaged every containment protocol available to prevent the panic from breaching the surface. His wire-rimmed glasses are absent, replaced by contact lenses that leave his green eyes fully exposed to the fluorescent lighting and the attention of approximately fifteen Alphas who are currently crossing the ice toward him with the predatory enthusiasm of a pack that has just rediscovered a missing member.
They reach him.
And the tackle-hug that follows would earn a roughing penalty in any sanctioned game.
Bodies collide with his from three directions simultaneously, arms wrapping around his lean frame with the force of men who are not checking his consent before expressing their joy. He flinches at the initial contact, the involuntary tension of a man whose trauma-conditioned reflexes interpret sudden physical contact as a precursor to harm, but the flinch dissolves within a second as his brain processes the input and reclassifies it from threat to reunion.
He nods. Greets them. Accepts the shoulder-slaps and the back-pats and the profanity-laden expressions of disbelief with the measured composure of a man who is performing participation while his internal systems run diagnostics on every face in his proximity.
"Haven't seen our boy in fucking YEARS!" a player with a missing front tooth announces to the rink at large, his arm locked around Archie's neck in a headlock that Archie tolerates with the resignation of a man whose escape options are limited by social convention and the player's significantly larger biceps.
The attention shifts to the twins.
