Chapter 28
B ack when he’d been a child, the notion of his mother flying on her own to see him would have been absurd. It was always his dad who acted independently. But when he found her at the airport, she just looked tired.
At least until she caught sight of him and her face crumbled. A moment later she was dragging him down into an embrace that was not far from strangulation, breathing ragged. She pulled back only to look up at him incredulously. “What on earth...?”
“It happened yesterday,” he explained, realising she’d expected to see him on the wheelchair. And he hadn’t told her, like a total dick, because he’d been too busy worrying about what the White Cats might do to him. “I’ll tell you in the car, okay?”
Levy had argued that he shouldn’t drive so soon after, and Kallen got his concerns, but it was his decision. He knew he was fine, just like he knew he was sad.
It wasn’t great, but he thought it was a good sign, that he could feel it.
Rescuing her suitcase, he took her by the arm to lead her to the car park. “I’m okay,” he said. “Do you need some food?”
“Kallen, I don’t care about food right now. Have you... Have you changed your mind?” Her voice had gone thin and terrified.
He stopped in a corner to face her. “No,” he assured her. “I swear. I’m not staying, okay?”
She watched him, green eyes just like his own looking back at him warily. “Okay.”
He’d taken her to a cafe in his neighbourhood he’d always thought looked nice and found them a secluded table. Not that he thought anyone knew there who he was or cared.
And even if they did, they wouldn’t for long.
It would be nice not to worry about being in the public eye.
“You look sad.”
Kallen glanced up from his drink. “Yeah.”
In the car, he’d shared how once he’d told Levy his decision, he’d been able to move his legs again. Going to sleep had been tough, but the failed sex had distracted him from the possibility of waking up paralysed again. And then Brad had shown up and successfully derailed his thoughts to much more realistic concerns.
“I’m sorry.” She grabbed his hand, her grip a little too hard. All his life, everyone had told him that he’d inherited everything that made him good at hockey from his father. No one had seen his mum talking him up, asking him about school and holding him when he cried. Letting him cry.
“I really thought it was worth it,” he admitted, feeling foolish and hurt and so small. His throat closed up and he had to blink fast to keep from making a spectacle of himself. God, he was a right mess.
“Kallen.” She tugged at his hand. “It’s not your fault. We shouldn’t have let you get so close. We should have protected you.”
He shook his head, rubbing the back of his hand over his cheeks as he lost the battle with the tears.
“You just loved it so much,” she whispered. “It’s a poor excuse, I know. But you loved it, and he loved sharing it with you. I thought— No, I convinced myself that he’d keep you safe.”
Kallen snorted, sniffling a little. “Me too.”
She nodded; her own eyes reddened. “I think he wanted to believe it too, that he was so strong that he could protect you from all this—” She cut herself off, and then her face twisted and she spat the word after all, low but vicious. “Bullshit.”
He watched her, wide-eyed. He’d never heard her swear before. His mother was the type of person who said ‘sugar’ when she dropped something and called terrible drivers ‘silly’. It hadn’t seemed to matter when Kallen, her youngest child, had started to drop the occasional bad word in her hearing, she’d kept speaking the way she always had.
“But you are quitting,” she said now, straightening in her seat. She was a full head shorter than him, but there was steel in her eyes that made him echo the pose.
“I am,” he said, low and raspy, glad she was on his side. He took a sip from his coffee and tried again. “I am quitting.”
She nodded, lips curving upwards despite the lingering sadness. “Good. No one’s going to hurt you again, Kallen. Maybe those hockey people think omegas are weak, but that’s only because they haven’t seen an omega protect her children. I will do whatever I have to, but you are going to be okay, and you are going to be safe.”
And it was ridiculous, because he was nineteen years old, an adult fully capable of protecting himself, but he turned his face to the side, pressing his lips together and covering his mouth with his free hand as a sharp sob escaped. His mother was on her feet faster than he could have moved in skates, pressing her body to his side so he could hide his face into her shoulder as he started crying in earnest.
She held him close, fingers in his hair, not speaking, just being. It’d been a long time since she’d stood between him and the world, and he hadn’t thought he was allowed this comfort anymore. He’d been told he wasn’t, that if he wanted to play hockey then he had to toughen up and become independent, capable of handling it all on his own. Unfeeling, truly, because only someone who couldn’t feel could tolerate the life he’d signed up for.
The worst part was that he was so ashamed. Because he’d wanted to believe the lies. He’d always known, deep in his gut, that it wasn’t possible to sleep with his whole team and be okay. He’d been terrified from his very first heat with the White Cats, well before anyone had done anything to prove him right. They weren’t innocent, but neither was he.
Maybe they believed the lie because it benefited them, the alphas got someone to fuck, and Management got to raise kids to become hockey superstars and make it all into a narrative of family for their fans.
His mother walked him to the toilets, but she didn’t ask him to stop crying, only rubbed his back. The door opened once while they were there, and he heard a quiet apology before it closed again. He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t, like he’d stoppered it all up inside for so long, now he didn’t get a choice anymore.
By the time he could breathe again, he stumbled to the sink to wash his face and blow his nose. “I’m sorry,” he told his mum, waving at her wet jumper.
“Don’t be silly.” Passing him some tissue and then using some more to pat at the wet spot on the wool, dabbing at it delicately in a way that made him smile. It was the exact careful touch she’d used to clean up skinned knees.
“Are you okay to go back to the table?” She was looking at him steadily, seemingly not at all concerned with them monopolizing a public toilet.
“Sure, tell me what Mrs Hendrich is up to this week.”
Their elderly neighbour had always been odd, but in the years since Kallen had moved out, her behaviour had got positively bizarre. There was no harm in any of it—lights spelling poems on the grass and gnomes who were moved one step further across her own garden each day, but his mother took pictures when she could and shared them with him and his brothers.
“Oh, you won’t believe it!” his mum said, immediately sounding happier.
BY THE TIME THEY MADE it home, he couldn't stop yawning. It was barely noon, but too much had happened and crying always took a lot out of him.
Maybe Brad was right, and he was on the lookout for trains now because he could sense the danger in getting too close to hockey right now. It wasn’t worth it , the life of misery and humiliation he’d signed up for to have it, but it was still worth a lot to him. He could see there was no other path, but it didn’t mean this one wasn’t breaking his heart.
That morning, Levy had knocked on his door, looking uncertain in his game day suit, and even the formal attire had made Kallen nostalgic. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?”
It was sweet of him, even if Kallen had already told him they didn’t have tickets. “Yeah, I’ll be here. And we can go out for dinner with my mum. My treat.”
His friend hadn’t tried to argue. The previous night he’d already said Kallen’s mother could stay with them, but Kallen had insisted and booked his mum a room in the nearest bed it was the only way out. “That’s where it happened, where McKinley...”
“Oh.” She was still for a moment, then tugged one of her hands free to clutch as him instead. “That arsehole .”
Kallen laughed, a little watery but real. “Yeah. But if the recordings are still there...”
“We must get them,” his mother said at once. “It hasn’t been that long, has it?”
He had to take a moment to think about it, then grab his phone and check the calendar. “Eleven days.” He shook his head, suddenly a little overcome. “Eleven days ago, I played my last game.”
“ Not your last,” she argued. “You will play again. Maybe not like this, but you will play, with people who respect you. You will play and you will love it, and no one will make outrageous demands from you in exchange for you winning games for them. You don’t owe them a thing, you never did.”
She was right, of course. He’d bargained himself away anyway, like his talent wasn’t enough. He’d believed them when they told him it wasn’t, that he wasn’t.
But he was done with that.
And he was going to screw them over so hard, the White Cats would need nine lives.
THEY’D DECIDED HE’D still go back to Terali with her since it would be safer all around. Staying with Levy would put his career at risk when Kallen started legal proceedings and obviously he couldn’t go back to the Johnsons. And Maslow wouldn’t be showing up at his door whenever he pleased if he was in another city hours away.
He wanted to tell his friend about the cameras, but this was no longer about getting justice but revenge. The damage he hoped to do to the team wasn’t something he could ask one of its members to support. Levy would do it, he knew that instinctively. Just like he’d exposed himself with his confession because it was the right thing to do.
But Kallen didn’t need that from him. So he could leave Levy a friend, one who could begin to focus on his own life again once Kallen was gone.
It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was the best either of them could hope for given the circumstances, wasn’t it?
He knew it was a cowardly thing to do, but he still texted Levy when they booked the tickets for two days later. It felt like shit, but he selfishly didn’t want to see if it didn’t hurt Levy as much as it was hurting him.
And if it did, he figured, then he could at least offer him some privacy for his pain.
The argument had barely held together in his head, and then he got home from taking his mother to a museum that could have shown paintings or dinosaurs for all he’d seen, and Levy had gone to the Johnsons’ to collect anything Kallen might have forgotten there.
“Oh, that’s...” He licked his lips, eyeing the bags by the entryway. “Thank you.”
“I...” Levy was sitting on the sofa, and he could almost have looked small from where Kallen stood by the doorway. “We are still friends, right?” he checked. “Like, I hope I didn’t do anything to fuck that up.” He straightened and met Kallen’s eyes, his own openly hurt.
Kallen’s throat immediately closed up. Fuck, it’d been all bullshit, hadn’t it? Since when did Levy ever want to hide his pain? That was Kallen through and through. He managed a nod and then stepped fully into the room.
Levy’s beautiful hazel eyes followed him almost warily until Kallen flopped at the other end of the sofa, two whole cushions away, every inch like a weight he was desperate to unload. “You are.” His voice came out low and raspy. “I’m— I’m fucked up, that’s all.”
The alpha opened his mouth, then closed it again, shaking his head. “Anyone would be. Just... I’m on your side, you know that, right? I know I’m not doing enough, but—”
“Stop.” He raised a hand between them. “You don’t have to do anything, mate. You are on my side, and I know that. That’s enough. And what I gotta do... Well, I gotta do it.” He was digging his fingers a little too hard into his own thighs, but he allowed himself to keep doing it while he pushed something much more painful out. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”
“Me too.” Levy’s voice was rough enough to make Kallen wonder if he was close to tears too. “But... I’m proud of you.” He cleared his throat. “For doing this. For saying ‘fuck you’ to... to everyone who doesn’t deserve you.”
And he meant it. He didn’t know what Kallen was doing and yet, it almost sounded like he was giving his blessing.
Their eyes met like they’d choreographed it, and for a long moment, Kallen couldn’t find any words. And then, as easy as sliding over frozen ice, they came to him. “Thank you. For everything.”
The next few seconds were a staccato of details. The way Levy’s eyes shone like a beacon. His breath hitching as Kallen stood and crossed the distance between them. The warmth of his bare arms under Kallen’s hands as he dragged him to his feet and into a crushing hug. His scent, sandalwood and sweet apples, unique and familiar enough to make his heart ache. And finally, Levy’s arms around his back, a vice strong enough to break him, or hold him together.