Chapter 15 Nazar
The blizzard hits sooner and harder than even Dale predicted, transforming from “winter weather” into “potential survival situation” in the span of five minutes.
At first, they reach a sprawling gas station complex—a worn Esso, a cramped convenience store, and a motel that has clearly seen far better decades. It clings to the highway like civilization’s last outpost before the wilderness swallows everything.
The fluorescent lights of the store buzz and flicker through the falling snow, casting a sickly yellow-green glow on the mounting drifts in the parking lot.
“Everyone out,” Burke says. “We’re waiting this out here.”
Inside, the warmth hits like a physical force after the biting cold.
The convenience store is exactly what you’d expect from rural Ontario—aisles of road trip snacks, a wall of refrigerated drinks, a sad rotating hot dog machine that’s probably been turning since 2003.
Two women are working behind the counter—one middle-aged with reading glasses on a chain, one younger, probably early twenties, wearing a name tag that says “Becca.”
Becca’s eyes go wide the moment Nazar steps fully into the light.
“Oh my God,” she says, grabbing her coworker’s arm. “Oh my God, Darlene, that’s Nazar Rykov.”
Darlene squints at him over her reading glasses. “Who?”
“The hockey player! From the Wolverines! He’s like—” Becca’s face is flushing red now. “He’s really good. My boyfriend watches all the games.”
Nazar forces a smile that feels tight and unnatural on his face, like putting on a mask that doesn’t quite fit. “Hey.”
“Can we—” Becca is already reaching for her phone. “Can we get a picture? I’m so sorry, I know you’re probably tired, but my boyfriend will literally die if I don’t—”
“Sure,” Nazar says, because what else can he say?
He stands between them while Becca holds up her phone at arm’s length, trying to get the angle right.
Her arm wraps around his shoulders—a stranger’s casual touch that makes his skin crawl despite the smile he’s maintaining.
He hates this part. The polite intrusion.
The obligation to perform friendliness for people he’ll never see again.
They take three photos because the first two are “blurry” and the third one Becca decides she “looks weird” in, so they take a fourth where she’s tilted her head differently.
Finally released, Nazar steps away and glances across the store.
Kai is standing by the refrigerated drink section, ostensibly examining the selection of sodas and energy drinks. But his posture is too careful. He’s aware of the fan interaction happening and deliberately staying out of frame.
His cheeks are flushed a bright, feverish red from the cold outside—a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin. The color makes his lips seem darker, fuller.
With his parka hood still up, shadowing his face, snowflakes caught in his blonde hair, he looks like something out of a goddamn fairy tale. A beautiful, angry prince stranded in a fluorescent hellscape.
Nazar forces himself to look away.
Burke is on his phone near the entrance, his expression progressively grimmer as the conversation continues. When he hangs up, he waves everyone over.
“Okay, here’s the situation,” he announces.
“The TV crew that was supposed to cover the charity game is still planning to come pick us up. They’ve got a van with four-wheel drive and a camera operator who used to do extreme weather coverage, so they’re better equipped than we are.
They’re waiting for a window in the storm—the weather service says there should be a break in about two to three hours. They’ll come get us then.”
“Two to three hours?” Sam asks, looking around the convenience store with visible dismay. “Here?”
“There’s a motel attached,” Burke says, pointing toward a door at the back of the store with a hand-written sign that says “MOTEL OFFICE →“. “We can wait in the lobby. It’ll be more comfortable than standing around in here.”
“Define ‘comfortable,’” Kai murmurs, but he’s already moving toward the door.
Nazar grabs coffee from the pot by the counter—his fourth cup of the day. He knows he should stop. He’s already jittery with caffeine and adrenaline.
He drains half the cup in one swallow anyway. The bitter heat does nothing to calm the energy crawling under his skin.
Across the store, Sam is showing Kai something on his phone. Kai leans in, and a small, genuine smile graces his lips for exactly half a second before his usual mask slides back into place.
It’s unsettling how quickly Kai has managed to win them over.
A month ago—hell, two weeks ago—most of the team wouldn’t have crossed the street to help him. Now they orbit him like he has his own gravitational field, drawn in by his sharp wit and that understated authority Nazar is only just beginning to recognize.
Kai has somehow made himself indispensable.
He knows everyone’s coffee order. He remembers the names of their girlfriends and pets.
He gives brutally honest feedback about gameplay that somehow doesn’t feel like criticism.
He loans Sam his Spotify Premium login when Sam’s subscription lapses.
He brings extra phone chargers to away games because Alex always forgets his.
He socializes with all of them in his own arrogant, detached way.
With everyone except Nazar.
* * *
An hour later, they’ve migrated to the attached motel lobby.
The front desk is unmanned, a hand-written sign saying “BACK IN 15 MIN” that looks like it’s been there for significantly longer than fifteen minutes.
They scatter into worn armchairs and a sagging couch, a loose constellation of bored hockey players with nowhere to be and nothing to do except scroll through their phones and wait for the storm to pass.
Burke is on his phone with the TV crew again. Chase and Armstrong are playing some kind of card game on the coffee table. Sam is showing Vyachovsky YouTube videos that apparently involve people doing stupid things on motorcycles.
Kai sits slightly apart from the group, in an armchair near the vending machines, scrolling through his phone with Bonifazio’s carrier at his feet.
The cat has finally stopped yowling and appears to be sleeping, which is probably the most peace any of them will get today.
Nazar watches from his position across the lobby, trying to look like he’s not watching. Trying to look like he’s absorbed in his own phone, reading some article about training techniques that he’s not actually processing at all.
He sees the exact moment Kai gets up. Sees him glance around the lobby, checking who’s paying attention—no one except Nazar—before heading toward the vending machine tucked away at the end of a short, dim corridor.
Nazar is on his feet before his brain has fully processed the decision.
He doesn’t follow directly. That would be obvious, stupid.
Instead he cuts through another hallway that runs parallel to the main lobby—past bathrooms that smell like industrial cleaner, past a door marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY”—circling around to approach the vending machine from the opposite direction.
He positions himself in a blind spot from the main seating area, leaning against the wall, watching.
Kai studies the vending machine’s contents with the same focused intensity he brings to analyzing game footage. His brow is furrowed in concentration, like the choice between Doritos and Cheetos is a matter of life and death.
He doesn’t look at Nazar, but the slight tightening of his shoulders says he knows exactly who’s standing ten feet away.
“Looking for this?”
Nazar pulls a can of Red Bull from the inside pocket of his hoodie. He’d grabbed it from the convenience store earlier—a purely instinctual move that he didn’t question at the time and is questioning even less now.
He knows Kai drinks them in the evenings. Has seen the distinctive silver and blue cans in the Kai’s apartment. Has watched Kai crack one open during film sessions when they’re reviewing gameplay.
Kai’s gaze flicks to the can, then up to Nazar’s face. His expression is perfectly, infuriatingly blank.
Nazar feels a savage little thrill course through him. He shakes the can gently from side to side—a silent, mocking invitation. Come and get it.
He knows this will push Kai over the edge. Knows it the same way he knows when a defender is about to commit to the wrong side on a breakaway.
Kai’s jaw tightens. He glances back toward the lobby—checking, calculating—then turns the corner into the corridor.
“Give it to me,” he says, his voice low.
“Come take it.”
Kai shoves him hard in the chest with both hands—not hard enough to actually move him, but hard enough to make a point.
He opens his mouth to say something cutting, probably something about Nazar’s maturity level or basic human decency.
Nazar doesn’t give him the chance. He crashes their mouths together, backing Kai against the wall, swallowing whatever indignant gasp was about to emerge.
The kiss is hard and punishing.
“Shhh,” Nazar breathes against Kai’s lips, biting the plush lower one gently.
Fuck, it hasn’t even been three weeks since he touched him like this, and it feels like a goddamn eternity.
“What, shhh?” Kai hisses, trying to push him away even as his hands curl into Nazar’s shirt. “Are you completely out of your mind? We’re in a motel lobby. Our teammates are thirty feet away—”
Nazar doesn’t let him finish. He grabs Kai’s wrist and pulls him farther down the corridor, away from the main lobby, checking doors as he goes. The first two are locked. The third one opens—a narrow service hallway, crammed with cleaning carts and stacks of folded linens.
He shoves Kai inside and kicks the door shut with his foot, pushing him back against it. His mouth finds Kai’s neck—that place that makes Kai lose all his carefully constructed composure.
“This is insane,” Kai says, but his voice is already unsteady. “This is fucking risky—”
“Yeah,” Nazar murmurs against his skin. “Especially when you talk. And you talk so much.”