Chapter 9 #2
I hear him scrambling down the hall, muttering under his breath and cursing when he stubs a toe, and I smile—not because it’s funny, but because it’s familiar, because it’s him, because every frantic sound reminds me exactly where he belongs.
Elias eventually moves. He huffs, slinks to the coat rack, and grabs one of my old Reapers jackets. The one that’s too big even for me, faded black with our old logo on the back and the cuffs fraying. He throws it on like it’s couture, sleeves swallowing his hands, collar popped like a little shit.
I don’t say anything. He catches my look anyway. “What? It smells like you,” he shrugs, unapologetic.
My heart stutters. I open the door before he can wreck me further.
The ride to the press conference is mostly quiet.
Elias kicks his shoes off the second he folds into the passenger seat, pulls his feet up, and spends half the drive playing with the hem of the jacket sleeve like it’s some sort of comfort blanket.
He doesn’t say much, just hums under his breath and watches the city blur past with that look he gets when the noise in his head finally shuts up.
By the time we pull into the arena lot, I already know what we’re walking into—chaos—and that we’re late, not horribly, but enough to earn side-eyes and a few chirps.
Cole whistles the moment we walk in. “Well, well, if it isn’t Daddy and the delinquent.”
Mats doesn’t even look up from his phone. Just snorts once and mutters, “Called it,”. Everyone thinks he’s just the flirty one, always smiling, always chill. But he watches everything. Reads people like scouting reports. And when he decides you’re worth protecting? God help whoever hurts you.
Shane’s midway through balancing his fifth Red Bull can into a lopsided pyramid, his eye twitching. “You two missed my glove blessing. That’s bad juju.”
Viktor just lifts a brow, deadpan as ever. “Late.”
“Fashionably,” Elias quips, flopping into the chair next to Cole and stretching like a cat.
I take the seat beside him. Let my thigh press against his. One grounding point.
The moment the mics go hot, the sharks smell blood. “Damian—four wins in a row, two on home ice, two away. What changed after the Wranglers series?”
“Elias,” I say without missing a beat. Elias jolts slightly beside me, clearly not expecting it. He blinks at me, wide-eyed, pink creeping up his neck.
I don’t elaborate.
Another reporter jumps in. “Mercer, you’ve been dominating faceoffs this entire series—what’s driving this level of performance from a rookie?”
Elias tilts his head, all fake innocence. “You mean besides a terrifying six-foot-five enforcer whispering threats in my ear every morning?”
Laughter rips through the room as the press eats it up and the team grins.
“Damian,” the reporter says—steady enough to sound smug—“do you think your relationship will affect Elias’s career? Are you… favoring him?”
The room stills all at once, and beside me Elias makes a soft, strangled sound that has nothing to do with guilt or shame and everything to do with rage barely contained by disbelief.
I take my time looking up, fixing my eyes on her, letting my expression settle into something calm, measured, dead flat.
“I see,” I say, my voice cold enough to sting.
“So we’re pretending stats don’t exist now? ”
She shifts but doesn’t retreat, not yet. “He’s a rookie, and the team just advanced to the semifinals—”
“He works me ’til I puke,” Elias cuts in before she can finish, chirping with a bright, acidic grin. “Ask anyone. I’m throwing up by the second drill.”
Nervous laughter ripples through the room. He does not throw up. He never did. He fainted once, sure, after a workout before the playoffs when he was still filling in. But not once did he throw up.
I keep my gaze on her and speak slow. “He’s got the best center stats in the league,” I say. “Most faceoff wins. Most assists. Fastest zone entries. Cleanest plus-minus. You want to accuse someone of favoritism, at least do the homework.”
Her mouth opens. I don’t give her the chance. “What would I be favoring him with?” I ask, tone razor-sharp. “Ice time he earns? Shifts he dominates? You think I’d waste a playoff spot on a pretty face when I’ve got a Cup to win?”
Beside me, Elias leans back, stretching his arms behind his head, still smiling that smug, feral little smirk. “You think I’m just pretty?” he mutters under his breath.
The boys snort. Cole chokes on his gum. Shane full-on wheezes.
I reach over, smooth Elias’s hair back just enough to make the gesture look casual to the room and a warning to him.
The air in the room goes thinner than ice. One second we’re chirping through stat sheets and playoff grit, the next—“What about when you’re going to hang your skates?” a reporter asks, his tone light. “Will you guys still be a thing?”
I lean into the mic, flat and even. “Do you divorce your wife when you stop working?”
The room freezes. The reporter’s eyes widen like he’s realizing too late that he just stepped into traffic.
Elias stops breathing beside me. Dead silent.
The reporter fumbles. “Are you saying Elias is… your wife?”
It’s like someone shut the barn doors on a thunderstorm.
Every whisper, every shuffle, every dumb cough from the back—gone.
Even Cole stops chewing gum. Shane’s posture goes straight.
Mats lowers his phone. Viktor looks like he might vaporize the man where he stands.
And Elias—my center, my chaos, my fucking heartbeat—is choking on his own spit beside me, hand flying up to his mouth.
He’s blushing hard enough to sizzle through skin, freckles glowing, wide green eyes locked on me.
The press doesn’t laugh this time. They don’t dare. Because they felt it. The weight in my voice. The finality. The threat. And the truth so thick in the air it tastes like metal.
My eyes cut to him. "Not yet.”
The silence that follows could bury cities. No follow-up. No stupid laugh. Just that sentence hanging in the air like a match hovering over gasoline and Elias, wide-eyed beside me, looking like he forgot how to function. His lips part as he stares at me.
I don’t look away. Not from the press and certainly, not from him.
Another reporter coughs into the silence like it might hide his fear. Everyone’s still reeling, still digesting not yet like it was a grenade lobbed into a wedding aisle, and the fallout hasn’t even finished settling before the poor bastard opens his mouth. “So… uh… any comment on the Bastards?”
The room exhales in collective relief—yes, please, let’s talk about anything other than whether Damian Kade just casually proposed to his rookie center on live television.
I lean forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped. “They’re hungry. Fast. Mean. They hit hard and chirp harder. They’re also third in the league for penalty minutes, and they cracked two ribs on their last center during Round Two.”
Elias finally moves. Shifts beside me like he’s trying to reboot his brain. I don’t look at him.
“But they’ve never played us.” That gets a ripple. The reporters perk up, pens twitching, eyes narrowing, hunting for soundbites. “They’ve never played a line like mine. Never skated against a defense that hits before the whistle and after. And they’ve never faced a goalie like Shane.”
In the corner, Shane perks up.
“And our center?” I tilt my head, finally turning to Elias. He’s still pink around the ears, tie crooked, eyes blown wide. I smirk. “He’ll eat them alive.”
Elias blinks, then lets the grin spread slow and deliberate—real unhinged—as he leans in and murmurs, almost pleasantly, “Better make sure they’ve got dental.”
The press room door swings shut behind us, and the second we hit the tunnel, Elias takes off like someone lit a fire under his ass. He’s five steps ahead of me, shoulders tense, curls bouncing with every frantic stride. The jacket flaps as he moves.
He’s trying to run. Cute.
“Pup.”
He halts so fast his sneakers squeak on the concrete. Spins on his heel and plants himself right in front of me, wild-eyed, flushed, vibrating. “Are you insane?!” he shrieks, half an octave too high to be legal. “You can’t say shit like that in front of reporters, SIR!”
I blink down at him. My eyebrow lifts just slightly. “Did I lie, baby?”
His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “They called me your wife!!” he whines louder, stomping.
Behind us, Cole howls, feral laughter echoing off the walls.
Elias doesn’t hesitate. He reaches into the front pocket of my jacket, yanks out a pen, and hurls it at Cole’s head with the precision of a man who’s clearly done this before. “You little bitch!” he barks.
Cole ducks and cackles harder. “He said not yet! I’m gonna get a tux!” And he means it. Cole will show up to our wedding in a sparkly velvet suit, probably live-streaming from the aisle, screaming that he called it first. Because under all that noise, he’s the most loyal bastard I know.
“Language,” I murmur, amused.
Elias whips around and glares up at me, jabbing a finger into my chest right over my heart, hard enough that the badge on my coat presses painfully into my skin. I look down at the finger, then back at him, my head tilting as the moment stretches. Brat.
“Did you want me to deny it?” I ask, low and unhurried. “Tell me, pup—did you want me to lie?”
He freezes completely, mouth moving without sound as his eyes dart once before locking back onto mine. “I…” he starts, falters, then tries again, quieter. “You…”
“No, sir,” he finally whispers, the words barely there.
My chest pulls tight, but I keep going. “Do you want me to hide you?”
His stare sharpens. “No, sir…”
“Do you think it’ll affect your career in any way?”
He exhales, long and shaky, like something just drained out of him. “No… sir.”
I wait a beat, watching him. “Then why this little tantrum, baby?”
And that’s when he says it. Soft. Half under his breath. Like he doesn’t mean for it to be heard, but needs it to be. “Maybe I wanted to be your husband…”
Everything stops. My pulse. The hallway. Time itself. He says it like a sin. Like he’s confessing a crime that’s lived in his bones for months. And I swear—if I moved too fast, if I blinked—I’d miss it. But I don’t.
I hear it. And it’s everything. I step in close. One hand finds his jaw, fingers steady, palm warm against his flushed skin. I tilt his face up, let my thumb stroke under his chin once, just enough to hold him still, to make him look at me when I speak. “Then say it like you mean it, pup.”
Elias jerks back like I burned him, curls bouncing, eyes wild. “I want to be your husband.” It’s too soft. Too small.
He means it, but I want the world to hear it. “Louder, baby,” I tease, voice low and cruel and full of heat. “I don’t think Viktor heard you all the way back there.”
Elias narrows his eyes, lip twitching. That dangerous little glint sparks behind his lashes, the one he gets right before a penalty or a blowjob. “I want to be your husband,” he says again, a little louder, a little more feral.
“Baby…” I grin, slow and sharp. “Vik’s old. His hearing isn’t that good.”
Behind us, Viktor snorts. “I’m twenty-nine, you fossil.”
“Exactly,” I mutter.
Elias groans dramatic, loud, dragging both hands through his hair like he might lose his mind if he doesn’t commit a felony soon.
He spins, stalks three feet away, and finds a chair that looks half-collapsed from someone’s pre-game nap.
He climbs onto it, the too-big jacket flapping around him, arms flung wide.
Then he screams. “I WANT TO BE YOUR HUSBAND!! IS THIS LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU, CAPTAIN? PETROV, CAN YOU FUCKING HEAR ME?!” His voice echoes through the tunnel.
Bounces off the concrete. Reaches the doors. The arena beyond.
Cole howls. Shane wheezes so hard he starts coughing. Mats shouts something in Spanish I’m pretty sure translates to finally. And Viktor? Viktor just stands there, deadpan as ever, and mutters, “Heard you fine the first time, Mercer.”
Elias flips him off. Still standing on the chair.
And I just stare up at him. This brat. This storm. This firecracker in my jacket, cheeks flushed, curls wild, and every part of him trembling with how hard he wants me. I let it sink in and let it settle, because the ring’s in my pocket and he has no idea.
Then I haul him off the chair, one arm around his waist, the other gripping his thigh to keep him from flailing.
His body slides down mine, warm and reckless and vibrating with too much energy for one goddamn tunnel.
“You met me seven months ago, baby,” I murmur against his ear, teeth grazing the shell just to watch him squirm. “Don’t you think it’s a little rushed?”
He gasps, offended. “I drooled over you for over eight years. Shut up!”
Behind us, someone snorts. Probably Shane. Or Cole. Or hell, all of them—they’re still here for some reason, watching this chaos unfold. I don’t even know why they haven’t left. Masochists. “You’ve got a mouth on you today, pup,” I growl, low and sharp.
Elias blinks up at me. His lips curl into a pout that should be illegal. “Always had one.”
Oh, he wants war.
“Next time you mouth off in front of everyone,” I say, loud enough for the team to hear, “I’m putting a collar on instead.”
The tunnel goes deathly still. Elias stares.
Then, the little fucker smirks. “DAMIAN KADE IS THE BEST FUCK OF MY LIFE!” he yells, echoing through the entire damn hallway so loud Cole nearly eats shit.
And before I can move, Elias dives a hand into my jacket, snatches the car keys right out of my pocket like he’s pulling off a heist, and bolts—laughing, sprinting down the tunnel like a gremlin in stolen luxury fabric.
My hand slips into the other pocket. The ring’s still there. I press my thumb to the velvet box and watch Elias disappear around the corner, still yelling something obscene, probably aimed at Viktor.
I’m going to make him beg so hard his knees turn blue.