Chapter 10 - Aleksey #2
“He was terrified when you checked him into the boards.” Perez laughed loud enough for the front rows to hear. “Seriously, I thought he was gonna cry.”
I gave a short nod. “He should have been.”
I killed time by watching the safety mirror above the driver’s head. Yellow streetlights flashed across the curved glass, letting me track Karter in the back row. Karter sat next to his freshman roommate, looking tired, but he was smiling and leaning into whatever the kid was saying.
I gripped the edge of my seat. It made me sick to see how easily he fit in with someone else. He belonged in that bright and comfortable world. And I was the one pulling him down.
I looked away from the mirror before I broke something.
The eight-hour bus ride back to campus gave the post-game high plenty of time to wear off.
By the fifth hour, the mood inside the bus turned sour.
The legacy guys sitting near the front started bragging loudly about their shifts, and the scholarship players in my section threw comments back about who carried the game.
“Zotov, are you even listening?” Perez asked. He stopped bouncing his knee and studied my profile.
I scratched the side of my chin and let the lie come easily. “Yeah. Just thinking about the rest of the season.”
“We took this tournament, but we have a real shot at the actual NACH title if we keep playing like this,” Perez said.
“We do,” I agreed.
My skin felt too hot. I just wanted Karter to look at me. I hated watching him give his attention to someone else for eight straight hours. I wanted that panicked, hyper-focused look he only gave me when I had him backed into a corner.
A few hours later, the bus finally pulled into the Ridge Cross parking lot, but eight hours of trapped irritation poured right out the doors with us.
I grabbed my duffel bag and stepped down into the freezing night air.
The earlier argument from the bus immediately escalated between the parked cars.
“You guys get all the prime ice time!” Perez yelled.
He stood nose-to-nose with Trenton, one of Elliot’s legacy guys. Another scholarship player stepped up to back Perez.
“Maybe if you could actually pass the puck, you would play more,” Trenton snapped back. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his designer jacket.
Perez shoved Trenton hard in the shoulder. “Say that again.”
Some talkative legacy freshman I barely recognized stepped up next to Trenton. “Back off.”
“Make me,” Perez shot back.
Elliot stepped into the middle of the fray. He pushed Trenton back with one hand and planted the other on Perez’s shoulder.
“Hey. Enough,” Elliot said, projecting his usual steady voice. “We won a tournament today. Take it inside and cool off.”
I dropped my bag and stepped up right next to Perez. My fists clenched automatically as I squared my stance. I was ready to swing if Trenton made a move, even though my heart was not in it.
My muscles were dead tired. But Elliot was standing right there, and he was a very convenient target for the frustration I could not take out on his brother.
“Or what, Captain?” I asked, keeping my tone flat and challenging. “You going to tell Coach to bench us for pointing out the obvious?”
Elliot looked at me hard, but did not take the bait. Nobody moved for a long second. The lines were clearly drawn in the gravel, with the legacy guys standing on one side and the scholarship kids on the other.
Eventually, Trenton scoffed and turned away. Perez spat on the ground and walked in the direction of the Ice House.
I picked my bag up again. The team was splitting right down the middle. If a real war broke out between us and the legacy guys, my secret with Karter would be the exact thing that destroyed me.
Twenty minutes later, I dropped my gear bag in my room and ignored the noise coming from downstairs. The rest of the guys in the house were breaking out cheap beer to celebrate the tournament win, but I grabbed my work uniform and headed right back out the front door.
For the first time all year, I was actually glad to walk into my night shift at the Food Mart.
Staying at the Ice House meant sitting alone and staring at the thin wall separating me from Karter.
The temptation to check if Karter’s roommate was gone so I could slip into his room was too much.
So, stocking shelves was the only way to keep my hands off him.
I downed two energy drinks back-to-back to force my body through the shift.
The cold air radiating from the open freezer doors helped keep me awake while I knelt on the floor to fill the bottom shelves.
My muscles were burned out from playing such a physical game.
Reaching for a plastic crate of soup, my fingers just gave up.
The crate crashed hard onto the linoleum and sent dented cans rolling under the display racks.
At the sound, my manager rushed down the aisle toward me. He surveyed the mess, then glared down at me. “You’ve got a real attitude problem, Zotov.”
Standing up slowly, my hands wiped down my dirty apron. “It slipped. I’ll clean it up.”
“The cost of this damaged inventory comes out of your paycheck,” he said. He crossed his arms. “Don’t forget you’re easily replaceable. One more mess like this, and you’re fired.”
Every muscle in my body wanted to tell him to shove the job.
I wanted to leave the mess and walk out into the freezing night.
But quitting meant coming up short on the money I wired home every month.
And it meant my mother would have to pick up another night shift to cover the difference.
I had less than a hundred bucks to my name, so I chose survival over ego.
I swallowed the anger down and kept my face blank. “I understand.”
I got back down on my knees and gathered the damaged cans off the dirty floor.
It was three in the morning by the time I trudged up the steep stairs to the third floor of the Ice House. And collapsing onto my bed was the only goal I had left.
But Karter was waiting right outside my door.
He looked wrecked, with one arm wrapped tight around his torso as if he were favoring a hit from the game. His other hand rubbed nervously at the back of his neck.
Seeing him made me shove my hands deep into my pockets so that I would not reach out and pull him towards me.
I had to get him away from my room before I did something stupid.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Karter said. He stepped into my path, blocking my door.
“Doing what?”
“Using me,” Karter said. His chin lifted, his eyes locking onto mine. “Using me and then pretending I don’t exist.”
I had no patience left. “Fuck this.” I grabbed his wrist and yanked him into my room before kicking the door shut behind us. He had never been inside my room before.
Karter stayed quiet while his eyes tracked over the empty walls and the single cheap duffel bag in the corner.
“This is it,” I said. I struggled to keep my voice steady. “This is everything I have to lose.”
Karter held his ground. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Do you?” I stepped closer to him. “Because guys like you have no idea what having nothing actually looks like. One mistake means I go back to exactly where I started. You think you’re a fun distraction for me?” I scoffed. “You’re a damn risk.”
I fully expected him to look around my empty room and run. I stood still and waited for him to back away, but he refused to move.
“You are full of shit,” Karter said quietly. “You are using this room as a massive excuse.”
Pride kept my feet firmly on the floor. “It is my reality.”
“It is a wall. You want me to look around and feel sorry for you,” Karter said. He closed the remaining distance between us. “Or do you want me to get scared and bolt?”
“You should bolt,” my voice dropped to a low warning.
“I am not going anywhere.” Karter poked a finger at my chest. “You’re just terrified because you actually want me.”
A hot spike of panic flared behind my eyes. He found the one truth I had spent weeks trying to avoid, making the tiny room feel suffocating.
Desperation forced my hands up. Grabbing the front of his shirt, my momentum drove him backward until he slammed hard against the closed door. The cheap wood rattled under his weight.
He did not even try to fight back. Hands relaxed at his sides. Waiting. The same way he’d waited on the bus with his teeth sunk into my palm, trusting me to finish what I started.
That thought should have satisfied me. Instead, it made confusion and frustration burn at the back of my throat.
His eyes locked on mine, then my gaze dropped to his mouth. For one insane second, leaning in and kissing him seemed like the only logical next step.
Sanity violently kicked back in. Shaking my head to break the trance, my grip tightened on his shirt. Dragging him forward just enough to clear the doorframe, my hand reached around him to turn the knob. I ripped the door open and shoved him backward into the hallway.
“Get out.”
Karter caught himself against the far wall.
“Aleks.” That nickname again, nothing else.
The sound of it hit harder than his finger poking at my chest ever had.
No one called me that. Not my mother, not Perez, and not anyone who’d ever mattered enough to try.
Karter had been doing it for weeks now, slipping it in like he had some claim to it, and I’d never once told him to stop.
“Don’t.” The word came out strangled.
“Then stop making me.” Karter pushed off the wall, steadying himself. “Stop shoving me out of rooms every time I get too close to the truth.”
The door slammed shut between us.
As I slumped back against the solid wood, I let loose a breath at the sound of his retreating footsteps echoing down the hall.
Karter was absolutely right—I wanted him. And knowing that terrified me a hell of a lot more than losing my place on the team ever did.