I glide up to their conversation, my movements rough by design. The competitive skating form I have been honing since my father put a stick in my hands at six years old is leashed beneath a presentation of raw athleticism that reads as enthusiastic rather than elite. My short hair spikes from the wind, my uniform is intentionally disheveled, and my stride carries the unpolished energy of an Omega who loves the ice but has not been formally trained on it.
Misdirection. The oldest play in hockey, applied off the boards.
I jerk my chin at Archie's goggles. "You're not going to take those off, Arch? You don't even need them. Your vision is fine without them and you know it."
"Shut up, Sage."
The exchange is fast, clipped, carrying the specific cadence of two people who are very familiar with each other and areperforming their unfamiliarity for an audience of one. Mae blinks between us, her hazel eyes widening.
"Wait. You two know each other?"
The blush that climbs Archie's cheekbones is involuntary. I catch it before he can suppress it, the pink spreading across freckled skin like a weather front moving across a satellite map. His jaw tightens. His gaze darts sideways. Every tell confirming what his mouth will not: that the proximity of an Omega who knows what lives beneath his mask is destabilizing the mask itself.
I pretend to notice none of this.
Instead, I laugh, bright and unbothered, and skid behind him on my skates, reaching up on my toes to ruffle his ginger hair with the casual aggression of a childhood friend rather than a woman who knows exactly how those strands feel fisted in her grip.
The height difference forces me onto the balls of my blades. Even in skates, Archie has three inches on me, his lean frame carrying a height I failed to register during our previous encounters because every time we have been together, we have been horizontal, inverted, or too close to each other's faces for scale to register.
He ducks away from my hand, his expression settling into the practiced irritation of a man whose personal space has been violated by someone he allegedly barely tolerates.
"I need them for observation, so stop bullying me."
Mae laughs. "Oh, she's not bullying you. That's Jace's job. Making your life annoying is his whole brand." She glances at me. "Speaking of, where is Jace? I haven't seen him all day."
I wave a dismissive hand, keeping my voice light despite the genuine concern coiled beneath the casualness.
"He's not here because he's busy sorting our dorm situation."
"What's happening with your dorm?"
"Oh, nothing major. Just our entire place flooded."
"WHAT?"
The word erupts from Mae and Archie simultaneously, their voices colliding in a synchronized pitch of alarm that echoes off the arena ceiling. Archie's reaction is the one I catalogue: the sharpening of his green eyes behind the goggles, the slight forward lean of his body, the barely perceptible spike in his cedarwood scent that signals his protective instincts have engaged before his rational brain authorized them.
He didn't know about the flood.
And his first reaction is concern.
For me.
I explain the situation with manufactured nonchalance: burst pipe, waterlogged mattresses, Jace on salvage duty. The words come out level and practical, the voice of a woman who has survived worse and expects no rescue.
"We'll figure it out. Always do."
The phrase tastes familiar on my tongue. The mantra of people without safety nets. I have been saying it since my mother first confiscated my phone and my agency in the same administrative sweep, and it has never once sounded convincing to anyone who knows whatfiguring it outactually costs.
Coach Mercer's whistle slashes through the conversation.
"Focus up! Practice round! Let's see what you three have got!"
We form our triangle at center ice. Mae at the point. Archie on the right flank. Me on the left. The rookie team spreads into their formation opposite us, their expressions carrying the specific confusion of athletes who have been told to take a demonstration seriously from two Omegas and a nerd.
The whistle blows. The puck drops.
And I feel it immediately.
