Which I would never tell him was a fucking turn-on.
Because watching Archie Rosedale captain a hockey team activates a response in my hindbrain that has nothing to do with athletic appreciation and everything to do with the specific, designation-level attraction that Omega biology produces when it encounters an Alpha operating at the peak of his capability. His confidence on the ice is not the performative, chest-puffing variety that most Alphas deploy. It is quiet. Structural. The kind that holds a team together through competence rather than intimidation, and my body registers it as leadership worth following in contexts that extend well beyond the boards.
Second: Rowan. His physical presence on the ice translated directly into net-front dominance, the broad-shouldered twin converting his power-forward build into a screening capability that blocked Étienne-level goaltending from seeing approximately forty percent of the shots directed at his cage during the simulated games.
Third: me.
Third.
On a roster of fifteen Alphas and one Omega, the Omega placed third in overall performance. Behind the prodigy captain and the power forward whose physicality is a natural advantage. Ahead of every other player on the team. Including Alphas who have been playing competitive hockey for a decade longer than I have been permitted to attempt it.
The team's final simulated score was 21 to 7 in our favor when we played with the top line of Archie, the twins, and me against the remaining roster. Twenty-one goals produced by four players whose chemistry, despite having no formal practice history together, operated at a level that made Coach Mercer nod in approval six separate times during the session, which Dillon informed me is a record.
I close my eyes against the corridor wall, letting the memory of the ranking settle into the specific, protected space in my chest where I keep the things the world has tried to convince me I cannot have. A roster spot. A team. A number on my back and a captain who designed plays that included my position as essential rather than supplementary.
This is real.
Not a tryout that ends with a rejection letter. Not a community center session that nobody scouts. Not a five-AM solo drill on empty ice where the only audience is the Zamboni tracks. This is a team. A real team with a coach and a roster and a six-week countdown to playoffs and a captain whose hockey IQ makes my hindbrain purr.
A cold surface touches my forehead.
The contact is gentle. Precise. The specific, deliberate placement of a chilled object against heated skin, the temperature differential producing an involuntary gasp that snaps my eyes open.
Archie stands above me, his arm extended, a water bottle pressed to my forehead with the clinical attentiveness of a man who has identified a dehydrated teammate and has selected the most efficient method of intervention. He has changed into a black fitted t-shirt that adheres to his lean frame with the specific fidelity of fabric stretched across muscle it was designed to advertise, and gray sweatpants that ride low on his hips, the waistband settling against the V-cut of his lower abdomen with a casualness that his body does not earn casually. His ginger hair is damp, pushed back from his forehead in the slicked pattern that post-shower moisture produces, the water darkening the copper to a rich auburn that catches the corridor's fluorescent light.
"Why are you still out here? You're not changing?" His green eyes perform a diagnostic sweep of my position: back againstwall, legs extended, gear still on, the overall presentation of an athlete who has been too exhausted to move and too lost in her own analysis to register the passage of time. "It's lunch."
I accept the water.
The first sip produces the specific, revelatory awareness of a body discovering it has been operating in a deficit it failed to report. The cold liquid hitting my throat triggers a chain reaction of recognition that cascades through my entire system: I am dehydrated, I am overheated, I am five hours deep into an energy expenditure that my caloric intake has not compensated for, and the water in this bottle is the most important substance I have consumed since the protein cereal that started this day.
I down the entire bottle in one sustained tilt, the plastic collapsing inward as the vacuum builds, the last drops arriving at my mouth with the specific, defeated gurgle of a container that has been emptied by someone who treated the process as a competitive event.
I sigh. The relief genuine. Physical. The specific, full-body exhalation that accompanies the resolution of a deficit my body was too proud to announce.
"Thank you." I cap the empty bottle and address his question. "I'll have to change at the dorm, I guess. The female locker room is closed."
His brow creases. "Why is it closed? That's stupid."
"Maybe they don't think females use this rink." I shrug with the resigned acceptance of a woman who has encountered so many instances of institutional oversight regarding female athletic facilities that each new example registers as data rather than injustice. "Remember, there's two rinks. The other one services the figure skating team. They probably allocated the female facilities there."
"Come on." He extends his hand. The gesture carrying the specific, non-negotiable authority that I have learnedaccompanies every instance where Archie Rosedale has decided a logistical problem requires his intervention. "You can change in ours. I'll make sure no one enters."
I think about it. The prospect of walking back to the dorm in full, sweat-soaked gear through the November air versus the immediate availability of hot water and privacy behind a door that Archie will guard with the territorial commitment of an Alpha whose protective instincts have been reliably demonstrated across every encounter we have shared.
"I need to shower, though."
"You can do whatever you need to."
"It'll take too long. You're probably hungry, and the twins are waiting, and I don't want to hold everyone up because my hair takes forever to wash and?—"
"I don't care if it's an hour or five." The interruption is clean, direct, carrying zero patience for the self-minimizing logistics I was constructing. "Also, we're not eating without you, so less talking and more stripping, Wildcard."
I pout. The expression deploying automatically, the reflexive facial response that his commanding tone produces in my features before my rational mind can intercept it.
But I take his hand.
His fingers close around mine with the warm, confident grip that I have come to associate with transitions: every time Archie leads me somewhere, his hand finds mine first, the contact functioning as both a compass heading and a reassurance that the destination is safe.
