Chapter 12 #2
I don’t wait for him to answer. I walk out, pull the door closed behind me, and keep walking until the elevator swallows me whole. Only when the doors slide shut and the building’s mirror throws my own face back at me do I let my breath leave like a punch.
Practice can have me. The ice can have me. He can have his silence.
I get the last word. It tastes like victory for about ten seconds. Then it tastes like nothing at all.
By the time I step through my apartment door that night, silence hits me like a wall. The counter’s cluttered with unopened mail and empty bottles of electrolyte water I never finished. I kick off my shoes and drop my keys too hard on the table, the sound shattering the stillness.
My phone buzzes. Not him. I’ve heard nothing all day. It’s Phoenix:
Practice at 9 tomorrow. Try not to come in hungover this time, yeah?
Too late.
I toss the phone aside and head for the kitchen. There’s half a bottle of whiskey left from before everything got messy. I grab it by the neck, twist off the cap, and drink straight from the source. The first burn hurts like something real, so I do it again.
The second swallow goes down easier.
The third feels like forgetting.
By the time I’m leaning against the counter, the numbness starts to crawl in—that soft, dangerous place where thoughts blur and emotions lose their edges.
I turn on some music, something with bass that fills the empty space. The walls thrum. My reflection in the window looks like a stranger. My hoodie’s still half-zipped, hair a wreck, eyes too sharp. I look like the kind of guy you don’t bring home, the kind of guy your father warns you about.
I laugh at that. I’m exactly that guy.
Another drink.
The weekend plays on loop behind my eyes—the quiet breakfast, Alaric’s smile over coffee, his hand brushing mine when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. Then the argument. His shoulders squaring like armor. The way he said my name—soft, pleading, already goodbye.
Magnus, please. I can’t be another story.
But he already is.
He’s my story.
The bottle’s a third empty when the thought hits: I need noise.
I need bodies and bass and the kind of distraction that doesn’t care who you are.
The bar’s only fifteen minutes away, one of the few gay clubs in the city that doesn’t mind if athletes drop by incognito.
They pretend not to recognize us. We pretend we’re not there to be recognized.
I change into a clean shirt and a dark jacket. I leave my phone on the counter, face down. If he texts, I don’t want to know.
The club is already packed when I get there—flashing lights, sweat, laughter spilling out the door in humid waves. The music’s loud enough to rattle my ribs. Inside, everything is movement: bodies sliding past, hands brushing, strangers looking at each other like questions.
It’s exactly what I need.
The bartender knows me just enough not to say my name. I frequented this club before I started dating Elena. He slides me a drink, and I slide him cash, uncounted. The first sip is sugary and strong. The air tastes like salt, cologne, and spilled liquor.
I plant myself near the edge of the dance floor, watching the crowd sway under violet light. Two men are kissing near the bar, messy and unapologetic. Another couple grinds to the beat, fingers tracing each other’s hips. My stomach twists—envy and hunger and guilt in one ugly knot.
Someone catches my eye. He is tall, dark-haired, and his jawline is sharp enough to cut glass. He smiles, slow and confident. I should look away. Instead, I tilt my drink in a silent invitation. He takes it.
He slides closer through the crowd, the press of people parting like water. He’s bold, hands already finding my arm when he reaches me.
“You look like trouble,” he says over the music.
I laugh low, automatic. “You have no idea.”
His grin widens. “I like trouble.”
He’s flirting like it’s muscle memory, and maybe it is. So is mine. I let him buy me another drink. I let him touch my arm. I let him lean close enough for his breath to hit my neck.
And for a second, it almost works.
The heat, the proximity, the noise blur the edges of Alaric’s face in my head. But then the stranger says something—a compliment, something about my eyes—and the illusion cracks. Alaric said the same thing once, voice low, like he didn’t mean to.
I drain my drink. “You dance?” I ask.
He nods, eyes gleaming, and follows me onto the floor.
The beat hits hard, vibrating through my chest. I move without thinking, hips rolling, body finding rhythm. The stranger presses closer, his hands finding my waist. I let him. His cologne is expensive and wrong. His touch is too eager.
I close my eyes and try to pretend.
For half a heartbeat, I almost manage it.
But then the music shifts, slows, something sultry and dangerous. The stranger leans in, lips ghosting the edge of my jaw. The scent of him hits and it’s not right. It’s not Alaric.
I open my eyes.
He’s looking at me like he expects something. Maybe permission, an invitation, both. I force a smile, brush a thumb over his jaw, and feel absolutely nothing.
“Buy you another?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
We head back to the bar. We trade names—his is Eli—and an exchange of nothing sentences that are just code for yes, I see you; yes, you can come closer.
The lights flicker, blue and red over his skin.
I down another drink because I can’t stop the ache that keeps circling back.
Every laugh I fake feels louder. Every hand that touches me feels wrong.
The more I drink, the less I can forget.
“Want some air?” Eli asks, nodding toward the hallway by the bathrooms.
I should say no. I want to say no. I say “Yeah.”
We slip down the narrow corridor where the music thins to a pulse. The bathroom door swings open, spills warmth and laughter and mirror-light; a couple squeezes out, grinning. Eli looks at me like a question he’s tired of repeating. I answer by catching his belt loop and tugging him inside with me.
The door swings shut on the noise. The bathroom is a slick box of tile and chrome, air sweet with soap and something more human. A single sink. A mirror. Two stalls. The fan hums like a secret. I lean back against the counter and Eli steps into my space like he’s been invited all his life.
He kisses me like he has nowhere else to be—steady, warm, mouth confident without being greedy.
No teeth, no bite. He tastes like juniper and something clean.
I let my eyes fall shut and allow the lie to hold for a second: that any mouth is an answer.
Heat unwinds in my chest; not the wildfire I’m used to with Alaric, but a hearth I could sit beside and pretend.
Eli’s fingers find the back of my neck, thumb stroking absently, and the gentleness knocks me sideways. I kiss him again, harder, searching for the edge. He meets me there, not backing off, not pushing past. We find a rhythm. A small sound escapes me, shameful in its relief.
The bathroom door opens, laughter spills in, dies.
Someone glances, decides they don’t care, disappears into a stall.
We ignore it. Eli’s hands slide to my hips, steady, present.
I realize I’ve barely been touched like this—without the armor of challenge, without the dare.
It makes me both softer and meaner inside.
He pushes me into the free stall, pinning me against the creaking plastic walls. I can feel his hard cock pressing against my hip. The music thrums behind the walls. My head is swimming from the alcohol.
His mouth doesn’t feel right. It’s too hard. It doesn’t listen to me.
Eli yanks my shirt off, and I let him. He’s kissing my neck, his hand passing over the bulge in my jeans. And it almost feels like Alaric.
Except Alaric would never grab me. He wouldn’t touch me with starved hands and greedy kisses.
Eli gets on his knees before me, unzipping my pants.
“Wait.” I pull him up by his arms.
Eli laughs, his brown eyes glinting. “Oh, you want to skip to the good part?”
“No. No.” I grab my shirt from the floor, pulling it on. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
“What?”
But I’m already out the stall, out the club, walking the cold streets of Frost Haven.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, groaning. “Fuck, I’m such an idiot.”
How did I think I could just forget him? Like he isn’t woven in my skin. Like the taste of him isn’t my favorite flavor.
Like I wouldn’t do anything for him if he would just let me have him.
Alaric.