"Really, it's okay," I said, my voice climbing octaves I didn't know existed. "These things happen. In houses withshared bathrooms. Which this is. A shared bathroom in a house. Where we all live."
I was speaking in sentence fragments. This was not helping.
"Maybe we should establish a schedule," I managed, forcing my voice back to something resembling normal. "For the bathroom. With color-coded time slots. And possibly a lock system. With multiple locks. Industrial locks. Bank vault locks."
"Yes," Blake said, nodding so enthusiastically he nearly lost his towel again, which caused a new wave of mortification for both of us. "A schedule. That's good. I like schedules. Schedules are great. I'm a big fan of schedules."
We established a complex bathroom schedule through the door—Blake still refused to come out—involving color-coded time slots that I immediately began planning on graph paper because apparently I handled fresh trauma through even more organizational systems.
When Blake finally emerged, fully clothed in hockey warm-ups and still refusing eye contact, we navigated around each other in the hallway with the awkward choreography of people who'd seen way too much of each other way too soon.
"So," I said. "We're never speaking of this again."
"Never," he agreed fervently.
We stood there for another awkward moment before both fleeing to our respective rooms.
I got ready for the day in a haze of mortification, pulling on athletic wear and yanking my hair back into a ponytail with probably more force than necessary. Today was the day I proved my worth to the team, the day I made them take me seriously.
Today was the day I tried very hard not to think about Blake's cock.
At the rink that morning, I channeled my embarrassment into professional competence. I'd prepared a training session that would either prove my worth or get me laughed off the ice. Probably both.
The team gathered on the ice, looking at me with varying expressions of skepticism, amusement, and outright dismissal. I recognized several faces from years of shared rink time—the ones who'd called me "princess" and made kissing noises during my practices.
Time to make them eat their words.
"Good morning," I said, my voice carrying across the rink with more confidence than I felt. "I'm Mira Torres, your new performance enhancement specialist. Today we're going to work on edge work and balance using figure skating techniques."
A ripple of laughter went through the team.
"Are we auditioning for Ice Capades?" one of the sophomore players called out.
"Will we be wearing sequins?" Logan added, smirking.
Even Nolan looked skeptical in that politely restrained way that was somehow worse than open mockery.
"Figure skating," I continued, ignoring them, "requires levels of edge control, balance, and agility that translate directly to improved hockey performance. The techniques I'm going to teach you will improve your tight turns, increase your speed through transitions, and enhance your overall ice awareness."
More skeptical looks.
"But first," I said, "let me demonstrate."
I laced up a pair of borrowed hockey skates—I refused to risk my custom figure skating boots on this disaster—and stepped onto the ice.
The rink went quiet. I started with basic spirals, moving across the ice with the kind of precision that came from fifteen years of practice. Then I transitioned into edge work that made hockey skates—which felt like skating in cardboard boxes compared to my usual equipment—look like they were made for figures.
I could feel their attention now. The mockery had faded into something that looked like surprise. Then I landed a double axel, in hockey skates. The sound of the landing echoed through the silent rink.
I stopped and looked at the team. Several players had their mouths open. Logan looked personally offended that I'd made that look easy. Nolan had the expression of someone recalculating every assumption he'd ever made.
"So," I said sweetly. "Anyone want to try now?"
The exercises that looked graceful when I performed them turned into a comedy of errors when hockey players attempted them. It was like watching baby giraffes try to ice skate. If the baby giraffes were over six feet tall, weighed over two hundred pounds, and had the balance of a couple of drunks.
Logan nearly face-planted trying a basic spiral. One of the defensemen actually did face-plant, taking two other players down with him like hockey dominoes.
The rink filled with the sounds of cursing, scraping ice, and bodies hitting frozen ground. It was beautiful.
