"Of course." Mara's voice was professional. Her hands were in her pockets so Astoria wouldn't see them shaking.
They walked to the boardroom. Mara answered questions about the game, the lineup, the matchups, the adjustments she'd make for the next game. She talked about the defensive breakdowns, the power play efficiency, the areas where the team had shown promise. She was coherent. She was competent. She was falling apart inside.
Every nerve in her body was still humming with the aftershock of what had almost happened in that corridor. The feel of the wall against her back. Lex's arm beside her head. Theheat of Lex's body close enough to touch. The way Lex's eyes had dropped to her mouth and stayed there.
She took notes. She made plans. She said goodnight to Astoria and drove home through the dark streets of Phoenix Ridge with the ocean glinting under the moon to her left and the new arena lit up behind her in the rearview mirror.
Goldie was waiting at the front door, tail wagging slowly, sensing the distress. Mara knelt on the kitchen floor and held the dog against her chest, burying her face in the warm fur, and tried to stop replaying those seconds in the corridor. Lex leaning in. Lex's lips parting. The moment, suspended and impossible, before Astoria's voice broke it.
She was terrified. Not of Lex. Not of the scandal. Not of the age gap or the power dynamic or any of the rational objections she'd been cataloguing for weeks.
She was terrified because she knew exactly what she would have done if Astoria hadn't come around that corner. She would have let Lex close the distance. She would have kissed her back. And she would not have wanted to stop.
6
The photographer's name was Yara, and she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Chin up. Little more. Hold that." The shutter clicked in a fast burst. "Beautiful. Now lean back against the tiles and cross your arms."
Lex shifted against the shower wall, the ceramic cool through the thin fabric of her sports bra. The new Valkyries locker room smelled like fresh paint and industrial cleaner and the faint cedar of unfinished benches. Everything in this building was brand new, from the polished concrete floors to the LED panels overhead to the chrome shower fixtures that gleamed like they'd never been touched. The locker room was massive compared to the old rink. Spacious stalls, wide corridors, a shower area with individual dividers and proper drainage. Built for professionals. Built for a league that mattered.
Built, apparently, for a photoshoot nobody had authorized.
"Arms a little wider," Yara said, crouching to shoot from a low angle. She was mid-thirties, wiry, with close-cropped hair and a camera that looked like it cost more than Lex's car. She'd messaged Lex on Instagram two weeks ago with a pitch that hadbeen refreshingly direct: a feminist hockey fan page calledIce & Edgewanted to feature women athletes who didn't conform to the glossy, lipstick-and-ponytail image that sports media loved to peddle. Athletic bodies. Tattoos. Strength without apology. No softening, no sanitizing, no pretending that women in professional sports had to look like they'd walked out of a shampoo commercial to be worth celebrating.
Lex had said yes immediately.
She hadn't asked Mara's permission. She hadn't asked Astoria's. The decision was hers to make. Her body, her image, her choice. She'd been making decisions like this her entire career, and the fact that every institution she'd ever been part of had tried to control her image was exactly why she kept doing it.
The stylist, a quiet woman named Dina with a septum piercing and a canvas bag full of supplies, adjusted the lighting reflector she'd propped against the shower wall. The overhead LEDs were too harsh for photos, so they'd switched them off and were working with two portable softboxes that cast a warm, golden glow across the tiles. The effect was intimate. Almost painterly. Light that made muscle definition look like sculpture.
"This one's going to be incredible," Yara said, reviewing her screen. She turned the camera toward Lex. The image showed her leaning against the shower wall, arms crossed over her sports bra, every line of her upper body defined and visible. The tattoos on both arms were vivid in the warm light, the geometric patterns on her left arm contrasting with the more organic designs on her right. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, still damp from the spray they'd used to get that post-shower look. Her expression was calm, direct, unapologetic.
She looked strong. She looked like herself. That was the whole point.
"Ready for the next setup?" Yara asked.
Lex nodded. She stripped the sports bra and her underwear off and stepped fully into the shower stall, turning to face the wall. The water wasn't running, but Dina misted her back and shoulders with a spray bottle, the fine droplets catching the softbox light like scattered glass. The ceramic was cold against Lex's forearms where she braced them above her head, and a chill tracked down her spine that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the thrill of being exactly this bold in a space that belonged to an organization that hadn't given her permission.
The shot was from behind. Shoulders, back, the curve of her spine tapering to her ass. The tattoo that wrapped around her right shoulder blade was fully visible, the lines dark against her tanned skin. Nothing explicit was in frame. Nothing needed to be. The image was about strength and presence and the deliberate refusal to hide.
"Three more," Yara said, her shutter clicking rapidly. "Turn your head left. Just your profile. Yes. Hold."
Lex held. The silence of the empty locker room pressed around them, broken only by the click of the camera and the distant hum of the arena's HVAC system. The building was supposed to be empty today. No practice, no game, no staff. Just Lex and two women with cameras and softboxes, making images that would reach fifty thousand followers on a platform dedicated to celebrating exactly this kind of athlete.
"Last one for the shower," Yara said. "Face the camera. Cover with your arm across your chest. Just enough."
Lex turned. She angled one arm across her chest, her forearm hiding what needed to be hidden, her other hand resting on the shower dial. She looked directly into the lens. No smile. No performance. Just presence.
The shutter fired.
"That's the one," Yara said quietly. "That's the cover image."
They moved back to the locker room for the final setup. Lex pulled on a pair of black briefs and sat on the bench in front of her stall, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. The Valkyries jersey was draped over the stall behind her, the purple and silver fabric catching the light. Dina adjusted the reflector. Yara crouched again, shooting from below, framing Lex between the open stall doors with the team logo visible above her head.
The locker room door banged open.
The sound cracked through the silence like a gunshot. Lex's head snapped up. Dina flinched. Yara straightened, camera lowering.
