Chapter 1
CHAPTER
ONE
Axel
Ten years later
Fencing. I should have gone into fencing.
I could really use a sword to wave in Enzo’s face. Maybe then he would know better than to appear in my locker room, nodding at my friends, as my coach introduces him as our newest team member.
Our team is doomed. The season will be disastrous.
Enzo is in Boston.
Like, this Boston. Not far-off Boston, England.
And worse, he’s on this team.
As if it’s not bad enough that he’s in my dreams all the time, he has to invade my real life. So much for nightmares not stalking you into the real world.
Enzo is the Dark Lord himself, just with glowing smooth skin, umber eyes that look innocent and uncertain, as if someone cast a deception spell, and full lips that are always twisting into an expression I can’t read and that are definitely not covered by a wild beard.
Enzo was too near when he was in Los Angeles, even though we played in separate conferences.
I’m grateful when Jason shows him to the coffee room, since Enzo decided showing up sleepy to the first day of work as a new Blizzard was a solid career move.
Absolute idiot. Like when he stayed up half the night to help me study for my philosophy final just because I said Kant was incomprehensible, even though he had his own tests to study for.
Not that academic work was something he struggled with.
I rip off the tape on my hockey stick and ignore the worried looks from my teammates.
Someone has set the temperature of the locker room to boiling, and I glare under the way-too-hot lights. I won’t faint. No way. I won’t.
“Dude.” Troy slides onto the bench beside me and lowers his voice. “Are you okay?”
“If Sauron casually moved to the Shire, would you be happy?”
Troy blinks. “That depends. Am I a hobbit in this scenario?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes. And Sauron is living in Hobbiton and planting cabbages beside you.”
“If I were a hobbit, I would prefer to work in a pub,” Troy muses. “More people to talk to. They could tell me about dragons and fairies and things. Way more interesting than cabbages.”
“Whatever. The point is, this is a disaster.”
Troy opens his mouth, and I brace for sympathy. His face goes soft. A comforting platitude is coming for sure.
Troy is the caretaker of the team. Something about being the goalie or something. Like he wants to have the whole teammates’ backs no matter how terribly we play.
When Finn and Noah had a misunderstanding after they got married, Troy moved Noah into the apartment he shared with Luke so he would be taken care of.
I turn to Troy, wondering what words of wisdom he’ll say that will make me feel better about this situation.
He smiles. “You and Bellanti used to be great friends. You went to college together. Maybe you can consider being friends again?”
Well. That was deeply unhelpful. Troy is supposed to be understanding, not a jerk.
I toss my stick onto the floor. It bangs, and Troy winces.
I smirk. “That was awful advice.”
“But—” Troy’s forehead crinkles.
“Enzo and I will never be friends. Enzo is untrustworthy and unlikable, and, uh…revolting.”
“But you used to like him—”
I wave my hand away. “I used to think Disney films were the height of entertainment. I begged my mother for Tarzan bedding. Do you have any idea how many loincloths can fit on a twin comforter?”
Troy blinks.
“We all grow. I have.” I march from the locker room.
Okay, strictly speaking, this isn’t professional. In fact, it’s probably wildly unprofessional. And that’s bad. Yada, yada, yada.
But being forced to play with the guy I hate most in the world is not cool, even though Troy has a questionable grasp of fantasy lore.
In fact, the only person who would understand how disastrous it is to place Sauron in the Shire is, ironically, Enzo himself. He’s the only person I ever met who could quote every line from Lord of the Rings.
Both of us played hockey in college. We even used to be roommates together at Concord University.
I shudder at my youthful naivety. My teammates would have been more understanding if they hadn’t seen me talking about my great friend Enzo constantly, partying with him whenever our teams played in a two-hundred-mile radius, and visiting him in LA each summer.
But that was youthful naivety. I’ve become more intelligent, living beside Harvard finally paying off, the osmosis doing its invisible thing, even though I’m not sure why I didn’t spot red flags about Enzo before, and why I still can’t spot them in hindsight.
Not that I can tell Troy. He would likely say something sympathetic again and maybe talk about misunderstandings and the overall importance of communication.
The important thing is that Enzo is despicable. If he weren’t, we would be friends. My case rests.
I storm down the contemporary wood-paneled hallway, the calm the architects were going for completely not working, and when I hear footsteps follow, I know it’s Enzo.
“Axel?” he calls.
I quicken my steps.
He jogs after me, and I whirl around.
And there he is.
Enzo’s thick lashes flutter over his dark expressive eyes, wider set than most, and his chiseled cheeks go pink like in that cologne spread he did this summer, matching his lips. He’s currently biting his lower one, and I force my gaze away.
He looks good. He always looks good.
There’s a reason he spends the off-season modeling platinum watches and silk ties, even though the Enzo I knew never wore a tie and his flip phone sufficed as a timekeeper.
“This is my team, Bellanti. Why did you follow me to my team? You have the West Coast, I have the East Coast. And we never, ever speak.”
His nostrils flare, something wounded in his eyes, which is ironic, because he started everything.
“Can we please talk?” he asks.
“Nope.”
His jaw does this quivering thing I fucking hate. He probably learned it after watching how-to-manipulate videos on YouTube or something. “We used to be friends.”
“I didn’t end this friendship, you did.”
“No one can blame me,” he mutters.
“Seriously?” I shake my head. “You are amazing. And I mean that sarcastically.”
“I got that,” he says. “Look. You know it’s important…”
“What the hell, Bellanti?” The name doesn’t feel right on my tongue. Because when I first met him, he was just my roommate Enzo, and when I knew him better, I called him by nicknames.
But Bellanti is a good name for someone I don’t know well, and I have to remember that my memories of Enzo were wrong. Because he made it clear three years ago, out of the blue, that he didn’t think we should be friends anymore.
“Do you not know how groveling works?” I close the distance between us, and he steps against the wall. He flinches, and I grin. “You’re not supposed to insult me.”
“You deserve to be insulted!” Enzo exclaims.
“So why do you want to talk to me?”
“Not to praise you.” He flings up his hands. “What’s your address?”
“Why would I give my address to somebody who hates me?” I ask. “I’m not an idiot.”
Enzo rolls his eyes. “You can’t hide from me.”
“Whatever,” I say, though he’s probably going to get his way, now he’s joined my team.
At least in offices you have cubicles to hide behind. Where’s my grey fiberboard when I need it?
This sucks so much.
To think I ever helped his sister with her little issue. Not that it worked, but still, I was willing.
I slump against the wall.
The worst thing about having Enzo here is that I’ll remember what it used to be like between us. Enzo used to be my best friend. The first guy I would call if I found out there was a party to go to, the guy I would eat dinner with at school, the guy I would share everything with.
Coach strides down the corridor, his face too red, like it always is, as if the temperature in Boston is too warm and he needs to be back in icy Sweden. “Knight! In the hallway you do not holler. At new teammates, even less.”
Shit.
“That was a personal matter,” I say.
“Bellanti is an exceptional hockey player. We’re lucky to have him. After Dmitri left—” He shakes his head.
I understand. We all liked Dmitri. Enzo, technically, is a better player though. He’s higher ranked.
“We received a first line player,” Coach says. “An Olympic player.”
I glare at him. “I’m a first line player. And an Olympic player.”
“But now we’ll have a real shot at the cup. You are supposed to want that.”
“I do!”
Coach shrugs. “It wasn’t clear. You should be celebrating.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “Bellanti is the reason we won’t get the cup. It’s impossible now!”
I wait for realization to hit Coach’s face. I wait for embarrassment to show up. Instead, his face is somber.
“You can’t trust him,” I say, aware my words sound lame. I feel like Gandalf warning everyone about the ring, and everyone thinking that surely a cool-looking piece of metal can’t be that bad. “He’s not good.”
Because of course he’s not.
Coach’s eyes go ice cold, scary Swede-mode activated, and my lungs do a twisting thing they normally don’t do. “Knight, you will behave like a professional while Bellanti is on the team.”
“I am a professional—”
Coach’s glare becomes more ferocious. The man could totally audition to be an Orc. His piercing pale blue eyes would terrify. The man missed his calling. If only he’d been in New Zealand twenty-five years ago.
“You must take this seriously,” Coach says.
“I do! I am!”
Coach does another one of his scary expressions, like he got his management style from looking at scary paintings of invading armies and contorting his face into their expressions.
Coach turns on his heel and leaves.
I press my lips together to resist the impulse to break into swears, even though the situation absolutely calls for it.
Bellanti will ruin the team, that’s for sure. And even though I’m warning them, no one is taking the situation seriously.
God, I hate him.
I hate that I still don’t know why he left. I hate that seeing him makes my chest feel like I’m at the bottom of a collapsed human pyramid, and I hate that even now, even angry, part of me wants to grab him by the collar and celebrate that we’re finally playing on the same team.