"I..." Mara stopped. Blinked. "The team has media protocols."
"I'm not doing this as the team. I'm doing this as me." Lex held the towel loosely at her shoulders, chin lifted.
"You're wearing Valkyries gear in several of those shots."
"I'm sitting near Valkyries gear. There's a difference." Lex tilted her head. The towel slipped slightly on her left shoulder and she let it. "I'm not ashamed of my body, Coach. I worked too hard for it to hide it because it makes someone uncomfortable."
The wordsomeonesat between them and both of them knew exactly who Lex was talking about.
Mara stepped back. It was a small movement, almost unconscious, her body creating distance that her face suggested she desperately needed. She handed the camera back to Yara without looking at it. Her hands were not entirely steady.
"You should have asked permission," Mara said. Her voice had lost its edge. It was quieter now. Almost raw. "Not because I own your body or your choices. Because this is a team facility and there are protocols and you know that."
"You're right. I should have told someone." Lex conceded the point because it was fair. But standing there in the quiet of the locker room with Mara's composure cracked open, an unexpected doubt snagged in her chest — the first real one she'd let herself feel since Yara had walked through the door. Not about the photos. About this. She'd wanted to get under Mara's skin. She hadn't bargained on it getting under hers too.
"I'll clear it with the front office retroactively," Lex said. "And I'll make sure the photos don't include any team branding. Fair?"
Mara stared at her. The silence stretched between them, thick with everything they weren't saying. Three days since the corridor. Three days since Lex had leaned in and Mara had stood there with her back against the wall and her eyes full of what looked a lot like surrender. Neither of them had mentioned it. Neither of them was going to mention it. The memory lived inthe charged space between them like an unexploded device, and every time they were alone together, the fuse got shorter.
"Fair," Mara said finally. She turned toward the door, then stopped. Turned back. Her blue eyes were sharp and searching and her voice, when she spoke, was almost inaudible.
"The photos are good. You look..." She stopped. Swallowed. "They're good."
She left. The locker room door closed behind her with a solid click, and the silence flooded back in.
Yara let out a slow breath. "So that's your coach."
"That's my coach."
"She's intense."
Lex picked up her sports bra from the bench and pulled it over her head, feeling the fabric settle against her skin. Her heart was hammering. Her face was hot. Her whole body was buzzing with the aftershock of Mara's eyes on her, the flush on Mara's neck, the way Mara's voice had cracked on the wordlook.
You look.
She hadn't finished the sentence. She hadn't needed to. The rest of it was written all over her face, in her shaking grip on the clipboard, in how she'd been unable to stop her gaze from dropping to Lex's body no matter how hard she'd tried to keep it above the neck.
"We done?" Lex asked Yara. Her voice came out rougher than intended. She cleared her throat.
"We're done. I'll have selects to you by Friday."
Lex helped them pack the softboxes and the reflectors, folding the tripod legs and wrapping cords with the automatic efficiency of someone who'd done a hundred media setups in a hundred different facilities across a dozen countries. She carriedthe equipment to Yara's van in the parking lot. The afternoon sun hit her face as she stepped outside, warm and bright after the cool interior of the arena. She stood in the lot for a moment after Yara drove away, the sea breeze pulling at her loose hair and the salt in the air sharp against her lips.
She pulled out her phone and opened theIce & Edgeaccount. Fifty-two thousand followers. Posts of female athletes from every sport, shot in exactly this style: raw, strong, unapologetic. Boxers with bruised knuckles. Weightlifters mid-lift. Swimmers with shoulders that could fill a doorframe. Women who looked like Lex looked, who moved through the world the way Lex moved through it, and who had never once been asked to soften themselves for someone else's comfort.
She scrolled past a photo of a rugby player flexing in a locker room, grinning at the camera, and a warmth spread through her chest that had nothing to do with the sun. This was why she'd said yes. Not for attention. Not for controversy. Because visibility mattered. Because somewhere a twenty-year-old queer kid with broad shoulders and short hair was going to see these photos and feel less alone in a world that kept telling her she was too much.
She locked her phone and walked back inside. The arena corridors were empty and cool after the warmth of the parking lot, the recycled air carrying the clean bite of fresh ice from the rink. Her footsteps echoed off the polished concrete. She passed Mara's office door. It was closed. No light under the crack.
But Lex could still feel her. That gaze pressing against her skin. The crack in her composure. How she'd stood in the middle of the locker room and looked at Lex's body and forgotten how to finish a sentence.
The photos are good. You look...
Lex smiled. Pushed her hair back from her face. Kept walking.
She was having an effect on Mara Ellison. And Mara Ellison was having an effect on her.
The difference was that Lex wasn't pretending otherwise.
