“What happened to your goalie pads,” Rémi says, and the lazy sleep has dropped clean out of his voice.
I sigh. I pull the glasses off and pinch the bridge of my own nose. “I noticed this morning. Someone, somewhere between yesterday’s practice and this morning’s, has taken a knife or possibly a key to the inside straps of both my left and right pads. I had to borrow two old ones out of the storage room to get through this morning’s skate, and gentlemen, those thingsreek.Like someone died inside them in 1998. And they do not fit my body type, which means I have been blocking pucks on legs configured for someone roughly the build of Hargrove.”
Rémi’s mouth thins. Matteo’s entire face goes still in a way that is, frankly, not promising for whichever sector-one defenseman did it. Jude does the small captain math behind his eyes and arrives at a number that involves probably calling Coach Declan before lunch.
“We will,” Jude says, flat, “handle the equipment situation.”
“What doeshandlemean.”
“It means, Pinky,” Matteo says, sweetly, “do not concern your beautiful brain.”
“And from now on,” Rémi adds, in that low even way of his, “your gear lives in our sector’s locker room. Not the Omega side. Ours.”
“Oh, sure.” I throw a hand up. “Wonderful. Lovely. I will simply pop my entire kit into the men’s changeroom every afternoon. Casually. Like that is a thing.”
“Yes,” the three of them say in unison.
“Guys.”
“You come find one of us when you are done changing,” Rémi continues, ignoring me. “You hand your gear to whoever is on. We lock it in our sector. No one is going to play with your equipment if it is on our side, because that side is access-controlled. The Omega side is open foot traffic to anyone with a student ID, which is presumably how this happened in the first place. We are not allowed cameras in either changeroom. Lock and key is the only solution.”
“And from now on,” Matteo adds, raising a hand like a man requesting a turn on the soapbox, “one of us is with you when you change. Personally.”
I give him the flat stare.
“You,” I tell him, “are going to be a distraction. I do not have time to be distracted in the changeroom. That is my lock-in window.”
Matteo opens his mouth.
“Jude will do it,” he announces.
“Excuse me,” Jude says.
“You are the supervisor. You are the responsible one. You have four sisters. You have, on the record, established expertise in not being a distraction to a woman in a state of undress, whereas I, beloved roommates, must regretfully admit I would in fact be exactly that.”
“Matteo.” Rémi, weary.
“What. I am self-aware.”
“Why,” Jude asks, looking at Matteo, “are you so insistent.”
Matteo’s grin slides off. He turns his head to me, then to Jude, and something in his face goes still and careful, and the room, in a beat, gets cooler.
“Because,” he says, evenly, “three douches from the other sector tried to corner her in the girls’ changeroom on her first day after practice. I used the excuse that Coach had sent me to check whether the hot water was running. That was the cover. They had worse intentions than the cover I gave them.”
Silence.
Rémi’s jaw moves once. Jude’s does not, but his eyes go to me, and the small searching captain-read he does is, briefly, alarming. I shrug.
“It was fine. I am a black belt. I can handle myself.”
Three heads turn.
“What,” Matteo.
“Black belt where,” Jude.
“Seriously,” Rémi.
