Marcus #3
Late-night solo skating and drill shots have always grounded me and pulled me back into something resembling reality.
It’s a quarter past one when I push through the arena doors. The air’s colder here, stale with old sweat and the faint bite of disinfectant.
The lights are half dead—only a few humming fluorescents left on by some lazy custodian. The rest of the place drowns in shadows. The echo of my boots against the concrete corridor sounds too loud in the silence.
And this feeling of solitude is…comforting.
The coach sometimes calls me a lone wolf, not because I’m not a team player—I didn’t get the captain’s position for being selfish—but because he said I shine best when on my own.
That’s true.
I always did things on my own when Mom was fighting for her life, working more shifts than humanely possible to keep food on the table.
It’s not that Dad never gave us money. He did. But she refused to use it, only dipping into it when things got too dire. She saved the rest in a trust fund for me that I also refuse to use, even when I turn twenty-five.
Dad calls it poor-people pride. It’s not. Mom and I only ever wanted him to be a father, which he barely was. We don’t need his money.
The locker room’s empty. Gear bags line the benches, damp from the earlier game. I drop my keys, run a hand over my face, then stop when I notice my skates are gone and so are all five of my sticks.
A sharp crack like thunder trapped indoors echoes in the air. Then another. And another.
Wood snapping.
I follow it through the corridor, past the equipment cage and the vending machines, until the air changes, turning colder, sharper, cleaner.
My steps slow near the rink when I see who’s there.
Preston Armstrong.
The Vipers sport jacket and jeans look washed-out under the dim lights, but the skates on his feet are unmistakably mine. Broken sticks litter the ice around him as he drifts in loose circles, a ghost looping the same path.
His hair is a mess, damp blond strands falling over his forehead, his lip split, and he winces slightly as he takes a pull from a bottle of Jack Daniels.
And for a moment, I just stand there.
Forget about whatever tantrum he’s throwing or the five thousand-odd bucks’ worth of sticks he’s broken.
Something’s a lot more interesting.
The man himself.
Preston really is a prince. Too golden, too effortless, yet somehow, he still manages to electrify the air around him with something raw and ancient.
The lights pour over his hair and turn it into liquid gold, soft waves brushing the collar of his Vipers jacket. His face is a contradiction—smooth lines, sharp edges, symmetry so exact, it looks to be carved from something more deliberate than bone.
But it’s his eyes I can’t stop tracking.
Green, but not the gentle kind. Not meadow or spring. His are darker, deeper—something closer to dangerous. The type of eyes I could imagine being the last thing I’d see before drowning. They pull and pull, until I forget I’m supposed to breathe.
Maybe they’re enchanted.
Even bruised, with that split lip, exhaustion shadowing his eyes, and half a bottle in his system, he still looks untouchable. Like the universe built him out of pure temptation and then dared the rest of us to try resisting.
He still has that fairy prince face—ethereal, bright, a beauty that feels like you’re gazing into a light bulb on purpose. It’s blinding in all the wrong ways, but I just can’t stop staring.
And maybe that’s why I want to steal that light, bottle it up, and keep him all for myself.
Jostle him a little, punish him a little for daring to forget about me.
Not that I’m salty about something that happened fifteen years ago, but who knows. Maybe I am.
As I watch him, I have the urge to put him over my knee and teach him some fucking manners.
After all, he’s the one who just happened to deliver himself to my door.
I step forward from behind him, my boots crunching on the ice.
My steps falter when I notice something.
Right behind his left ear, there’s a yin and yang tattoo, small and subtle, contrasting against the smooth, pale skin of his neck.
Preston turns around sluggishly, the black ring on his index finger scraping against the neck of the bottle.
I move before my brain catches up.
Standing behind him, I slide my hand up his neck, grab a fistful of his golden hair, and yank his head back so that he’s looking at me.
Up close, his eyes are glassy, unfocused, but something happens when he sees me.
They widen. Just the slightest bit, the look caressing my face so closely, it sends a rush of blood to my head.
The Preston Armstrong, who considers being unaffected an Olympic sport that he excels at better than hockey, can’t seem to control his expression around me.
The sight lights me up, spreading across my spine like a fiery explosion.
Looks like Preston truly fucked up this time.
Because I’m in the mood to test his limits and breach them.
A smile lifts my lips as sadistic tension coils in my stomach. “Well, this is one way to say you miss me, my prince.”