"It doesn't." It did, sometimes, in the quiet hours. But she wasn't going to say that to someone she'd known for twenty-four hours, no matter how much she already liked Elise. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.
"So what's your type?"
"Older women." The answer came without hesitation. "Complex, guarded, hard to reach. The ones you have to work to get close to. The ones who look at you like they're deciding whether to let you in or shut you out."
Elise raised her eyebrows slowly. "Is that so."
"Don't look at me like that." Lex threw a couch cushion at her, but lightly.
"Like what?"
"Like you're connecting dots."
Elise picked up her tea and took a very deliberate sip, watching Lex over the rim with an expression of theatrical innocence. "I'm not connecting anything. I'm just making conversation. Although it is interesting that you just described someone who could easily be our head coach."
"Elise." Lex's voice carried a warning.
"Older. Complex. Guarded. Very hard to reach. Blue eyes. Incredible jawline." Elise ticked each quality off on her fingers.
"I did not mention the jawline."
"No, but you were thinking about it."
Lex grabbed a throw pillow and threw it at her head. Elise caught it laughing, nearly spilling her tea, and the tension broke into laughter. They talked for another hour, about hockey and the season and what it was like to play in Phoenix Ridge. Elise told her about the city, the waterfront bars, the weekend farmers market where half the team showed up in off-season. She told Lex about the old rink's quirks and the excitement building around the new arena. She was good at making a place feel like home, and by the end of the conversation, Lex felt like she'dknown her for years instead of hours. Elise was good company: steady, thoughtful, with a dry wit that surfaced at unexpected moments. By the time Lex went to bed, she felt more settled than she had in months.
She lay in the dark in her new room, listening to the faint sounds of the street outside and the quiet rhythm of Elise moving around the kitchen, and thought about Mara. The blue eyes. The tight jaw. How she'd saidDon't flirt with me, Landryin a voice that was trying hard to be cold and not getting there.
Lex smiled into the dark. She could still see those blue eyes. Could still feel the cold air between them on the ice, charged and electric.
She was going to make Mara Ellison lose control. And Mara was going to like it.
The next morning, Lex decided to push.
She dressed in her favorite training gear, gelled her hair back messily, and arrived at practice five minutes early. She took her place on the ice and stretched, watching Mara set up behind the boards with her clipboard and whistle and that rigid, controlled posture that Lex was becoming slightly obsessed with dismantling.
Practice started. Mara ran the drills with her usual intensity, her whistle sharp, her voice cutting across the ice with an authority that made Lex's stomach tighten in ways she was choosing not to analyze. Lex threw herself into every rep, skating harder than she had the day before. Her edges were better. Her reads were quicker. The one-on-one session had worked, and part of her wanted to show Mara that she'd listened, that she could learn.
But another part of her, the part that had been getting her into trouble since she was fourteen years old, wanted to see what would happen if she pushed.
She played within the system for the first thirty minutes. Then she broke. She abandoned a defensive cycle to chase a loose puck, pulling off a between-the-legs move that drew a low whistle from Camille. She deked past Frankie on a breakaway and roofed a backhander that clipped the crossbar and nearly went in. She played within the system long enough to prove she could do it, then abandoned it, just to see what Mara would do.
"Landry!" Mara's voice cut across the ice like a whip crack. "You're out of position. Again."
Lex grinned and skated back to her zone. She saw Camille hiding a laugh behind her glove. Lou was shaking her head, but the disapproval on her face was undercut by a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Mara was standing behind the boards with her jaw clenched and her cheeks flushed and her whistle gripped tight in her fist, and she was beautiful when she was angry. Beautiful enough to make Lex's blood run hot and fast.
She did it twice more during practice. Small rebellions, deliberate and targeted. A flashy zone entry when the drill called for structure — and the breakdown it caused left Rowan caught on a two-on-one she barely killed. Rowan skated past her without a word, jaw set. A no-look pass to Camille that violated the coverage assignment and left the weak side wide open. Each time Mara called her out, voice harder, eyes hotter. And each time Lex caught heat building behind those blue eyes that wasn't just anger. A hunger Mara was fighting to suppress with everything she had.
After practice, the players filed into the locker room. Lex was stripping off her gloves when a hand landed on her shoulder.
Lou. Her green eyes were steady, her expression serious but not hostile.
"A word."
They stepped away from the others, past the equipment cage and into the empty corridor where the sounds of the locker room faded to a murmur. Lou leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, scarred hands visible beneath rolled sleeves. Her green eyes were calm but serious. She didn't look angry. She looked more effective than angry: concerned.
"You need to back down on winding Mara up."
"I'm just playing hockey, Lou."
