Chapter 3
Rhys
I get back to the house and I’m ready to collapse.
Every part of me is heavy — legs, arms, eyelids, the specific bone-deep tired that only comes after a game where you played your ass off and it still wasn't enough.
The worst kind of tired because there's nothing to blame it on except the gap between what we're capable of and what we actually did out there.
How dare he say I don’t put in the work.
Guy’s got a stick so far up his ass I’m surprised he can still skate with it.
If I had more time, I would give it all to hockey.
But I don’t. I have a full schedule. Classes, labs, studying, and hockey — that's my entire life, no room for anything else, constantly running on empty.
And yeah, I'm occasionally late to practice because the chem lab does not care about Coach Fitch's schedule.
But I show up. I always show up. And when I'm out there I'm good and he knows I'm good and the fact that he acts like I'm some kind of liability instead of an asset he's wasting is—
I drop my bag inside the door and then pick it up and throw it across the room instead, because I need to put it somewhere and the wall seems as good a place as any with the way I’m feeling.
A low whistle cuts through the room.
“So. Not a great game, I’m guessing.”
Blake is sitting on the couch with a beer, grinning at me like the asshole he is.
My roommate. My best friend. The biggest prick when the mood strikes him, which is always.
I cross the room and plop myself down next to him, close enough that it counts as a greeting, and plant my legs on top of Blake with a heavy sigh.
“Not great,” I confirm. “And I hate our captain. Self-righteous douchebag.”
I don’t know when Jamie Nash became the person my entire mood depends on. I just know it’s pathetic.
I pick up Blake’s beer and finish it in one go. He makes a noise of protest that I ignore completely.
Blake and I are both chemistry majors, which means our lives are basically an endless rotation of labs, problem sets, and the quiet despair of people who chose the hardest possible path and have to live with that every day.
Blake handles it fine because hockey isn’t in the equation for him — he’s full time academic, zero distractions, the kind of organized that makes me look like a hurricane by comparison.
I handle it by sleeping four to six hours a night and running on pure spite. He doesn’t fully get how I manage it. Honestly, neither do I. You just keep moving until you drop, I guess.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asks after a moment.
“Fuck no.”
We watch some random basketball game playing on the TV in comfortable silence.
Neither of us comments on it. That’s what I love about Blake — he knows when to push and when to just exist in the same room as you, and right now existing is exactly what I need.
After about thirty minutes I drag myself off the couch and get ready for bed.
Five hours of sleep if I’m lucky. Fantastic.
――――――――
The next morning I lie in bed for what feels like forever, staring at the ceiling. I keep coming back to the game. To the locker room. To Jamie Nash and the way he gets under my skin like nobody else manages to.
I transferred here at the start of the school year in September, so I knew walking in that captain was never going to be mine — you don’t hand that to someone new, no matter how good they are.
I accepted that. What I didn’t accept was him constantly pushing me.
I don’t see him treating anyone else the way he does me.
For the past four months, all he’s done is constantly ride me for every little thing when everyone else gets a pass. He’s infuriating.
Acts like he’s God’s gift to earth and I’m an inconvenience.
He thinks he’s the only one carrying anything.
Like showing up to optional sessions and coming in early and leaving late makes him the only person here who gives a damn.
Meanwhile, I’m running on absolutely nothing at all hours of every day, keeping my grades way up, while still putting up numbers that half this team can’t touch.
I roll over and pull the pillow over my face and scream in it.
He thinks he’s so far above everyone else.
Fine — lead then. That’s what a captain is supposed to do.
Lead. Not lecture. Not push us so hard to the point we’re past exhaustion.
If he can’t figure out how to actually pull this team together, I’ll go over his head myself and I don’t care how that looks.
I want to win. That’s the whole point.
The smell of bacon drags me out of my spiral before it can get any worse. I follow it like a cartoon character, barely conscious, shuffling into the kitchen with my eyes half open.
“Blake.” My voice comes out somewhere between a mumble and a groan. “I love you.”
“I know.” He doesn’t even look up from the stove. “Sit down and shut up, it’s too early.”
He slides a plate in front of me — bacon, eggs, toast, assembled with a care I absolutely do not deserve — and I stare at it for a moment with genuine emotion.
Blake is honestly my common law husband at this point.
He has slightly more capacity than I do right now, so he fills in the gaps without being asked.
Cooks, cleans, even reminds me when I have assignments due.
I would absolutely marry him if he were gay. His loss, truly. I’d be an attentive husband. I’d treat him good. But he’s been with Nessa for about three years now, and they’re so in love it’s disgusting. Doesn’t stop me from reminding him weekly I’m here for him when she leaves him eventually.
I decide a plate like this warrants a physical response. I grab him by the shoulders, plant a loud, sloppy kiss on his cheek, deliver a firm spank to his rear, and push him back toward his seat.
He sits down slowly and just stares at the wall.
“I feel dirty,” he says.
“You’re welcome.” I reach for the butter, fighting a grin.
We eat in silence after that, two chem majors preparing ourselves mentally for a full day of calculations that will make the game last night feel like a distant, fond memory, hopefully.