Page 24 of Moms of Mayhem (Mayhem Hockey Club #1)

Emmy beamed, then patted me on the shoulder, walking backward into the main studio space. “This is great. I’m glad you’re open to it.”

I gave myself a minute to recover, willing my body’s reaction to her proximity to dissipate with thoughts of the least sexy things I could think of: Coach Tremblay’s locker room speeches, the time I got hit in the face with a puck and had to pick my tooth out of my mouthguard, the smell of the Mayhem’s locker room after a game.

It helped. Barely.

I adjusted the waistband of my shorts and muttered, “Get it together, man.”

Voices filtered in as other patrons came into the studio, and I got up, headed that way. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find, but a dozen geriatrics that made my mom look spry was not it.

I stared slack jawed as, one by one, they took their places on the reformers.

Most of them had silver hair and several wore sparkly grip socks.

All of them looked like they made a mean funeral casserole and had literal war stories, but when they started adjusting straps and tightening springs like pros, I realized I was the one out of my depth.

One of the ladies shot me a wink and cracked her knuckles. Another flexed her bicep at me, and she had definition .

“Pick a reformer, hotshot,” Emmy said, her smile so big I could tell she was barely containing her laugh. “Hope you’re ready. Ruth gets competitive.”

I swallowed hard and shuffled my feet, trying to ignore the smug little grin on Emmy’s face.

This wasn’t just Pilates.

This was initiation.

I took the spot Emmy pointed to between two-guns Ruth and a lady in a neon tracksuit who offered me a Werther’s Original from her pocket like we were about to board a cruise ship.

Emmy clapped her hands from the front of the room, then adjusted her little headset microphone. “All right, everyone! Today’s focus is hip mobility and pelvic alignment. We’ll be starting on the mat. Beckett’s joining us for the first time—be nice.”

A chorus of greetings echoed around me like I’d just walked into a very supportive cult. I nodded, trying to keep the nerves off my face, but this was the weirdest thing I’d ever done.

Emmy led us through some preliminary moves to warm up our lower body, pacing between the center aisle and fixing our posture as needed. I did okay, proud of my ability to keep up, even if it was with eleven octogenarians.

“Let’s start with some basic pelvic tilts,” Emmy said from the far side of the room. “Feet flat, knees bent, back pressed gently into the mat. Inhale to prepare, exhale to tuck the pelvis.”

Sounded easy enough.

Except my abs didn’t seem to remember how to work, and my hip protested even that small movement.

“Good, now slowly roll your back off the mat, one vertebra at a time, until you lift your hips up.”

I tried to copy Ruth without looking like I was copying Ruth, but she caught me staring. “Breathe through it.”

Fuck me, I tried, but my breath stuttered out like a deflating balloon. The playlist switched to That Don’t Impress Me Much, and the song choice felt more than a little pointed.

Emmy walked past, eyes scanning my body in a way that 20 minutes ago would have given me another semi, but right now all I could focus on was how low my ego could go before I imploded.

“Good, Beckett. Don’t force it. Just move within your pain-free range.”

Pain-free range? Was that some sort of a sick joke? I wasn’t exactly in pain, but even the smallest movements were activating muscles that I, a paid professional athlete, had never used this way before.

We moved into hip extensions and abductions, on our hands and knees. Emmy showed us how she wanted to straighten one leg back, then tap it outside the mat, and bring it back. She came to check my position, ensuring I didn’t push my range of motion past what my brace allowed.

Her gentle hands on my back would have been tempting if I hadn’t started sweating by the second rep, trying to keep my back from arching like she said.

It didn’t help that Neon Tracksuit was chatting casually with her neighbor while powering through the moves like it was nothing.

Meanwhile, I had a river forming down my back, dripping into my waistband.

Next up, Emmy instructed the class to move into clamshells.

On their sides, knees bent, lifting the top leg like they were auditioning for an X-rated version of the Little Mermaid: Boomer Edition .

Most of the ladies did it with a resistance band, but my hip wasn’t ready for it yet, and that was its own canon ball to my ego.

“Skip this one, and let’s have you move on to adductor squeezes instead.” Emmy handed me a blue Pilates ball and showed me how to put it between my knees, laying on my back.

After over 16 years in the NHL, lifting my legs off the mat without dropping the ball should have been simple. But I felt every damn muscle in my hip fire like it had been years instead of weeks since I’d last used it.

Ruth was knocking them out like a metronome, making me feel worse as I grunted through mine, legs shaking by the eighth rep.

“I’m feeling this in places I didn’t know had places,” I muttered, earning a snort from Emmy as she passed by.

By the time we hit planks, my whole lower body was vibrating like it had caught an electrical current from hell, even though I got to cheat and keep my knees on the ground, only lifting them a few inches off the ground.

“Last one,” Emmy called cheerfully. “Let’s finish with a hip opener. Lay on your back, one knee up. Ankle over opposite knee, then gently pull on your knee until your foot leaves the mat. Breathe into the stretch. Beckett, only hold it for ten seconds, but do ten reps for me.”

I followed along, groaning as I pulled my leg in one after the next.

And then it happened. Sweet, glorious release. My hip loosened, and my body melted into the mat. The sound that came out of my mouth was part moan, part exorcism, and it echoed off the walls.

Heads turned.

Neon Tracksuit cackled.

“Jesus.” I covered my face with my forearm and let the other arm rest on the floor under the reformer. “Sorry. That was involuntary.”

Emmy just grinned, hands on her hips where she stood in front of my mat. “You good?”

Ruth reached a hand over to pat mine. “You survived, sweetheart. I can’t wait to tell your mother about this when she comes back to the knitting club meetings.”

When the hour was up, Emmy passed out sanitizing wipes and instructed us all to wipe down our equipment.

“What did you think?” she asked when it was just the two of us left in the studio. “That was one hell of a moan.”

I laughed, even though my whole body felt like it had been stretched and pulled in a hundred different directions. But for the first time in what felt like forever, the pain felt productive, and I was overjoyed.

Emmy’s hazel eyes were still on me, so I leaned down until my mouth was just above her ear. “Seemed fair for you to hear my sex moan when I know exactly what you look like wearing nothing but my hoodie.”

She pulled back with a little inhale, her cheeks flushed and eyes alight. I ran my hand down her back, then stepped by her, both sore and feeling better than I had since my injury.

Damn. I was never underestimating Pilates again.