The ice below gleamed under the overhead lights, freshly resurfaced, the Valkyries' logo brilliant at centre ice. Both teams were warming up, red and white jerseys weaving around each other in overlapping patterns. The crack of pucks hitting boards echoed through the space, sharp and percussive. A Toronto player fired a shot that rang off the crossbar, and the home crowd booed good-naturedly.
She found Elise without trying. Centre ice, skating in wide, easy loops, her stride long and fluid. Lex Landry was beside her, matching her pace, the two centres moving in tandem. Lex was younger, more explosive, her skating powered by the raw athleticism that had made her a PWHL sensation. Elise was different. Smoother. Every stride looked effortless, each push carrying her further than it should have, an economy that came from years of knowing exactly how much her body could give.
Whatever Elise said to Lex made the younger woman grin and bump her shoulder. Elise's laugh carried, barely, above the arena noise. Even from this distance, even through a helmet and full gear, She picked her out of the group without hesitation.
"So." Helen's voice pulled her back. The tone was different now. The one that came with a slight tilt of the head and a careful pause before the question. “How’s your love life? Are you seeing anyone?"
Heat rushed Sienna's cheeks. Instant. Uncontrollable. "No."
Helen raised an eyebrow. "That was fast."
"The answer is simple." She adjusted her glasses and kept her eyes on the ice. "I'm not dating anyone. I don't really have time for that."
Helen made a sound that was not quite agreement.
"What?"
Helen tilted her head, her tea cradled in both hands. "Nothing. Just that you said the same thing when I asked you six months ago. And six months before that."
Sienna's jaw tightened. "Because the answer hasn't changed."
Below them, a whistle blew. Both teams reset for a faceoff near centre ice.
"You work 9-5 except game days and live alone in a one-bedroom apartment." Helen sipped her coffee. Unhurried. "I think you have the time."
"I have early mornings. And game days are unpredictable. And I'm still settling into Phoenix Ridge." She was running out of excuses. She could hear it, and so could Helen.
"You've been here fourteen months."
Sienna wrapped both hands around her coffee cup. "I'm a slow settler."
"And I don't..." Sienna trailed off. She didn't know how to finish the sentence honestly. I don't think anyone would choose me. I don't trust myself to get close to someone without it going wrong. I don't know how to be wanted.
She pushed her glasses up with one finger. "I'm fine on my own."
Helen let the silence sit. She was infuriatingly good at that, holding space without filling it, leaving room for Sienna to hear her own words and decide if she believed them. After a moment, Helen said, "Mara mentioned Lavender's is doing another womens event this month."
"I'm not going to a bar event."
On the ice below, a player fired a shot into the boards with a crack that echoed up to the rafters.
"Why not?"
Sienna tore the corner off her napkin, folding it into a small square between her fingers. "Because I don't drink."
“It’s a cafe-bar. They serve food and coffee also.” Helen took a sip of her own tea, watching Sienna over the rim.
"I eat at home."
Helen laughed, a warm sound that briefly softened the arena's hard edges. Sienna's mouth twitched into a reluctant smile. "You're the most socially avoidant physician I've ever met. And I've met a lot of physicians."
Sienna opened her mouth to protest and then closed it, because Helen wasn't wrong. She looked down at her hands, resting on top of the medical bag in her lap. Neat nails, no rings,the faint crease of a scar along her left thumb from a scalpel slip during residency. Capable hands. She'd been told that once, by a woman she'd dated briefly in her early thirties. You have very capable hands, and then nothing had come of it, because Sienna had gotten busy and stopped returning calls and the woman had eventually stopped trying.
That was the pattern. It had been the pattern for her entire adult life. Interest, followed by withdrawal, followed by silence. She told herself it was professionalism, the focus and discipline she'd built her life around. But the truth, when she sat still long enough to hear it, was simpler and uglier than that. She didn't believe anyone would want to stay.
On the ice, the warm-up was winding down. Both teams clustered near their respective benches, sticks tapping the ice in pre-game rituals. The noise in the arena was reaching a fever pitch, twenty thousand people settling into seats, conversations layering over music, the whole building humming with anticipation.
And there it was. The image from the medical room, pushing back into Sienna's mind the moment her attention wandered. Elise, walking through the door. Sports bra and compression shorts and that easy, unhurried confidence. The strong line of her jaw. The definition in her arms. The way her eyes had caught Sienna's across the room, direct and warm, as though Sienna was someone worth looking at. As though Sienna was someone who mattered outside of the tape and the ice packs and the medical assessments.
