"That was INCREDIBLE," McKenzie announces, dropping from her silk and grabbing my arm. "Ella, you’re a natural."
"I was up for like twelve seconds."
“You looked like a glorious bird. We're coming back next week."
Aarthi joins us, rolling her shoulders in agony. "My cousin is a liar. That was not empowering. That was assault by fabric." She flexes her reddened hands. "But I'll come back because you two clearly need supervision."
We gather our things and head for the door. I'm pulling on my hoodie when McKenzie spots Bernard through the window. He leans against the G-Wagon, scrolling his phone, looking every inch the professional athlete at rest: expensive jacket, expensive car, effortless posture.
"Is that your ride?" McKenzie's voice pitches up half an octave.
"That's my roommate. He offered to pick me up."
"Your roommate. A hockey player." McKenzie grabs my arm. "Ella. You failed to mention that your roommate looks like that."
"He's my brother's friend."
“He’s a threat to panties everywhere.” She's already pushing through the studio door. "We should get drinks. All of us. Does he have more friends? Friends who want to have a casual drink with three sweaty nurses in tight pants?”
I don't have a chance to answer because we're on the sidewalk now, and Bernard looks up from his phone, and his face transforms when he sees me — a flash, quick, the private look from the window — before it folds into something else entirely.
I watch the volume on his personality turn up until he’s nothing like the tender Bernard from earlier today.
"Ladies," he says, pocketing his phone and standing tall. His voice is louder, warmer, pitched for an audience. This isn't the man who whispered my name against my neck. This is Howie Houser, professional charmer, the guy who knows every bouncer in Pittsburgh. "How was clown college?”
"Aerial silks," I correct, trying to control this situation and failing.
"It was amazing," McKenzie says, extending her hand. "I'm McKenzie. Ella's friend from work. We're nurses."
"Howie." He shakes her hand with both of his, and I watch McKenzie lick her lips. "I've heard great things. You're the one from Louisville, right?"
She melts. Actually melts on the frigid sidewalk. He deployed that factoid like a heat-seeking missile of personal charm.
"And you must be Aarthi." He turns to her with the same warmth, the same focus.
Aarthi, who is immune to most forms of nonsense, cracks a reluctant smile. "She talks about us?"
"Constantly." He glances at me, and our eyes catch for half a second, long enough for me to see the real Bernard underneath the Howie show — before he snaps back to performing. "So what's the plan? You guys hungry? Thirsty?"
"We want drinks," McKenzie says. "And Ella says hockey players are fun."
"I absolutely did not say that."
"You implied it." McKenzie turns to Bernard with the confidence of a woman who has fully decided to shoot her shot. "Do you have single friends who might want to meet three incredibly interesting women who just defied gravity?"
Bernard laughs. The big one, the Howie laugh, the one that carries half a block, and pulls out his phone. "I might know a guy or two. Where do you want to go?"
McKenzie names a bar nearby. Aarthi suggests a backup. Bernard's thumbs fly across his screen, and I stand on the sidewalk watching him text his teammates, watching my careful, private world tilt on its axis toward my brother’s loud, public one.
This is Howie. The party organizer. The social connector. The man half of Pittsburgh has seen buying rounds for strangers. And I'm standing here in a sweaty tank top with chalk dust on my hands and silk burn on my palms, watching him charm the two people who see me as just Ella — not Baby Rookie, not a hockey player's sister, just Ella. I feel the ground shift.
For the last ten days, I've had Bernard. Private, tender, devastating Bernard, who quizzes me on cardiac conduction and traces my collarbone and tells me I'm gorgeous with a voice like gravel. I've had him in a bubble — the apartment, the car, his bed.
Now my friends are meeting Howie. And Howie is spectacular— magnetic, generous, impossible not to like. But he's not the man who held me while I shook apart this morning. He's the version of that man built for public consumption, and I'm the only person on this sidewalk who knows the difference.
Bernard catches my eye again over McKenzie's head. One look. Quick. The grin stays on his face, but something behind his eyes flickers — a question, a check-in, the real him surfacing for just a breath.
You okay?
