Chapter 14 Kai
“Rykov, I swear to God, if I have to spend Christmas in this godforsaken place, I will strangle you with tinsel and use your body as a seasonal decoration.”
Kai pulls the hood of his Moncler parka tighter over his hair. The wind is doing its absolute best to rip it away, howling like it has a personal vendetta against expensive outerwear.
The place isn’t just a town. It’s barely a town at all. It’s a geographical afterthought, a handful of buildings dropped in the middle of vast, unforgiving Canadian nowhere.
This whole charity match debacle was Rykov’s bright idea, born from that disastrous gala where Kai had made the monumentally stupid decision to publicly support it.
He’d done it purely out of spite—wanting to watch the righteous annoyance flicker in Rykov’s dark eyes.
The plan had been simple: drive in, play a game for the kids at a boarding school, drive out. A neat, one-day affair. Maximum good PR, minimum inconvenience.
Except the team owners had only begrudgingly signed off on it, and only after making it abundantly clear this was an “unofficial team activity” with zero PR value in any major market.
Which meant no chartered plane.
Which meant a bus.
A regular, mortal, apparently extremely fallible bus.
Now said bus is making a sound like a dying whale—if whales died slowly and agonizingly on the shoulder of snow-dusted highways.
“The transmission’s completely shot,” Burke announces after a grim-faced consultation with the driver.
“And according to the last weather report I got before we lost signal, this isn’t just a dusting anymore.
We’re looking at the leading edge of a major system.
Could drop a foot of snow in the next six hours. ”
A collective groan ripples through the bus, followed by some extremely creative cursing from Miller three rows back.
“So we’re stuck?” Sam asks from the seat behind Kai. “Like, actually stuck?”
“Not stuck,” Burke says, his voice taking on that no-nonsense tone he uses during losing second periods when everyone needs to shut up and focus.
“Stranded. Temporarily. There’s a motel about five miles up the road—the driver says it’s the only one for forty miles in any direction.
Another bus won’t be able to get through this until tomorrow morning at the earliest, maybe longer depending on the storm. ”
He pauses, letting that sink in.
“We walk,” he finishes.
“Walk?” Miller’s voice shoots up an octave. “In this?”
As if the universe has a sense of comedic timing, the wind howls and throws a sheet of sleet against the windows hard enough to make everyone flinch.
“Five miles isn’t that far,” Bachman says from the front, ever the voice of calm leadership. “We’ve done worse in conditioning.”
“Yeah, but conditioning doesn’t usually involve potential frostbite,” someone mutters.
Just then, a vehicle appears through the swirling snow—a rusted but formidable-looking pickup truck with a snowplow blade attached to the front. It rumbles to a stop beside their disabled bus like a mechanical savior.
The driver rolls down his window.
“Looks like you fellas are in a bit of a pickle,” he yells over the wind.
Burke climbs down from the bus to negotiate. The conversation involves a lot of gesturing and head-shaking before Burke climbs back up, looking resigned.
“Alright, here’s the situation,” he announces.
“This gentleman—his name’s Dale—can take five people and essential gear to the motel right now, before the road becomes completely impassable.
The rest will have to wait here for a second trip, which Dale says he can make in about forty-five minutes if the weather holds. ”
“And if it doesn’t hold?” someone asks.
Burke’s expression answers that question clearly: Then we’re all fucked.
“Alright,” he says, pointing. “Callahan, Rykov, Sam, Chase, you’re with me. Grab your overnight bags. Let’s move.”
Kai doesn’t argue. He’s learned that arguing with Burke is like arguing with plate tectonics—theoretically possible but ultimately pointless.
He grabs his duffel and the cat carrier containing a deeply unamused Bonifazio.
The cat had been making his displeasure known for the entire three-hour bus ride with intermittent yowls.
“Aha, you brought the cat.” Rykov’s voice is a low growl beside him, his breath forming clouds in the frigid air as he single-handedly wrestles three heavy gear bags out from under the bus. “To a charity match. In rural Ontario. In December.”
“He has separation anxiety,” Kai says crisply, adjusting his grip on the carrier. “We’re a package deal.”
“The cat has a therapist,” Miller adds helpfully from behind them. “I’ve seen the bills on his counter.”
“Thank you, Miller, for that completely unnecessary contribution to the conversation,” Kai says without turning around.
The truck cab is cramped.
Kai ends up squashed between a frosted window and the solid, unyielding wall of Nazar Rykov’s shoulder.
Every jostle of the truck—and there are many, because Dale seems to have a personal philosophy about suspension systems being for cowards—presses them closer together.
Kai can feel the heat radiating off Rykov through layers of winter clothing. Can smell his deodorant. Can feel the rise and fall of his breathing.
He needs a distraction before his brain completely short-circuits.
“You know,” Kai says, projecting over the rumble of the engine and scrape of the plow blade, “this whole situation has the defensive chaos of the Maple Leafs from 2002 to 2006. Systemic breakdown, poor planning, and zero contingency. A disaster waiting to happen.”
Sam chuckles. “That’s specific.”
“I contain multitudes of sports knowledge, most of it depressing.”
Chase grunts what might be agreement or might just be gas. It’s hard to tell with Chase.
Rykov just stares out the windshield, his jaw tight enough to crack walnuts.
Kai feels the familiar, self-destructive urge to poke the bear.
It’s his fatal flaw—an irresistible compulsion to focus all his attention on the one person in any given room who could not possibly be less interested in him.
He’s always been drawn to these icy characters, these emotionally barren persons. It’s probably some deep-seated psychological issue that Mrs. Butterly would have a field day analyzing.
It’s also—and here Kai allows himself a moment of dark humor—fitting. A man who makes his living on ice, pathologically obsessed with a man made of it.
“And to think,” Kai continues, a little louder, “we could all be at home right now. Watching the World Juniors. Drinking overpriced hot chocolate. Critiquing seventeen-year-olds for their lack of professional poise and defensive zone awareness. A true Christmas tradition.”
“Some of us were actually going to see our families,” Sam says glumly. “My mom was making pierogies. She only makes them once a year.”
“My condolences on the pierogies,” Kai says sincerely. “That’s a genuine loss.”
Burke clears his throat from the passenger seat. “Alright, that’s enough commentary. We’ll get there, get checked in, hunker down for the night. It’s not the North Pole.”
“Feels like it,” Chase mutters, his breath fogging in the poorly heated cab.
“Could be worse,” Dale offers from behind the wheel, his eyes never leaving the road. “Could be stuck out here without a truck.”
“That’s not the reassurance you think it is,” Kai says.
Burke pulls out his phone, squinting at the screen in the dim light. “Can’t get a signal for the GPS. Everything’s timing out. Rykov, see what you’ve got.”
Rykov grunts—his favorite form of communication—and pulls his own phone out. He leans forward slightly, angling the screen so Burke can see it. Sam and Chase lean in too, creating a small huddle of anxious players peering at a tiny blue dot on a satellite image.
“There,” Rykov says, his voice a low rumble that Kai can feel vibrating through his shoulder. “That turnoff coming up. Should be it according to the last cached map.”
“How far?” Burke asks.
“Two miles, maybe less.”
As they lean back into their seats, disaster strikes in the form of a coat button.
Rykov’s thick wool sleeve—he’s wearing some kind of utilitarian military-style jacket that probably costs forty dollars and will last twenty years—catches on one of the oversized decorative buttons of Kai’s Moncler.
It’s the kind of stupid, insignificant thing that happens a thousand times in everyday life and means nothing.
Except this time it tethers them together in a cramped truck cab where personal space is already a laughable fiction.
Kai’s breath catches in his throat. He tries to pull his coat away—a casual, natural movement—but the fabric is snagged tight on the button’s stem. The more he pulls, the more tangled it becomes.
“Just—hold still,” Kai mutters, fumbling with the button. His fingers are suddenly clumsy, refusing to cooperate with his brain’s increasingly frantic commands.
Rykov, for his part, just sits there. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t help. A statue carved from granite and fury, his arm now resting unavoidably against Kai’s chest, warm even through multiple layers of expensive fabric.
Kai’s heart starts pounding a frantic, stupid rhythm against his ribs.
He’s acutely aware of how close they are.
Of the scent of Rykov— a sweat from carrying the gear bags and something else underneath.
Something uniquely him that Kai’s traitorous brain has apparently memorized like it’s evolutionary important information.
He has to get free. He can’t be this close.
He angles his body slightly, trying to get better leverage on the button without pressing even closer to Rykov. His thumb finally finds the right angle and the wool comes free with a soft sound of fabric on fabric.
Kai jerks back immediately, putting a precious inch of space between them. He makes the catastrophic mistake of looking up.
Rykov is staring at him.
Not with anger. Not with annoyance. Not with any of the expressions Kai has cataloged over months of hostile proximity.
Just an intense, focused stare, his dark eyes unreadable in the dim light of the truck cab.
For a long second, the world shrinks to the space between them. The truck, the snow, the other players, Dale’s commentary about road conditions—it all fades into meaningless background noise.
Kai breaks the contact first, turning sharply to face forward.
As he moves, Rykov’s body jerks—a subtle, aborted movement.
His hand lifts slightly from where it was resting on his thigh, muscles tensing as if his body prepared to reach out before his brain vetoed the command.
It’s over in a flash, but Kai sees it. Catalogs it. Adds it to the growing collection of moments that don’t mean anything except they clearly mean a lot.
He busies himself with Bonifazio’s carrier, using the cat as a shield and distraction. “How are we doing in there, Your Majesty?” he murmurs, his voice not quite steady. “Is your little crown still on straight?”
He peeks through the mesh. Bonifazio glares at him with the concentrated hatred only a cat forcibly removed from its comfortable apartment can muster.
“I know, buddy. This is beneath both our dignities.”
Kai risks a glance at the others. Sam is looking out the window, watching the snow accumulate. Chase is on his phone, probably playing Candy Crush. Burke is talking to Dale about the history of snow removal in Ontario.
No one saw. No one noticed.
But they’re walking on a knife’s edge now. He and Rykov. A single misstep, a single knowing glance from someone with a working brain cell, and the fall would be brutal.
Kai knows exactly how that story ends.
If it came out—if this thing between him and Rykov became public knowledge—it wouldn’t just be another scandal in the long, storied history of Why Kaisyn Callahan Is A Problem.
If it involved Rykov, if it involved this strange, terrifying, exhilarating thing that Kai can’t name and can’t control, he’s afraid it would be different.
He’s afraid he wouldn’t have the strength to put on the mask and play the part this time. He’s afraid, for the first time in his life, that he would just shatter completely.
And unlike expensive outerwear and sports cars and all the other material things his father’s money can replace, you can’t buy a new personality after the old one breaks.
“There,” Dale announces, pointing ahead where the faint outline of a building emerges from the snow. “The Millbrook Motor Inn is on the left. Finest accommodations in forty miles, mainly because they’re the only accommodations in forty miles.”
“Looks cozy,” Sam says, in the tone people use when something is definitely not cozy.
“It has heat and a roof,” Burke says. “That’s all we need.”
Kai catches Rykov’s reflection in the frosted window. He’s still staring straight ahead, but his jaw is clenched tight enough to make the muscle jump.
Kai wonders if his own face looks equally wrecked.
Probably worse, knowing his luck.