Chapter 4
Icehouse
Aleks
“No blue shirts,” Faulker says as I stop to scrub the snow off my boots on the mat outside the Icehouse.
I glance around, “Capitals wouldn’t slum it in Brooklyn unless they won and wanted to rub it in our faces.”
Inside, the Icehouse is already buzzing, that post-win hum rolling off brick walls older than most franchises. Music sits just loud enough to blur conversations. Beer, melted ice, and sweat hang in the air.
Dash, Moretti, and Koa peel off immediately, heading straight for their girls. No hesitation. No pretending otherwise.
Faulker watches them go, then nods like he’s thinking too hard. “You ever think about settling—”
“The fuck, man?” I snap, cutting him off mid-thought as I scan the room. “And you don’t say that shit around here.”
He lifts his hands. “I’m just saying. They look happy. You don’t think that could be you one day?”
“Faulker,” I say, sharper now, “shut up.”
“All right, all right. I’m just saying.”
“Well, how about you don’t?”
He sighs and bellies up to the bar. “Two shots of Beluga Gold Line, Mick.”
Mick already has them poured. He always does.
As is tradition, we do one shot after every game before joining the team in the back for the obligatory toasts.
Costello said we needed to be part of the community that supports us, so a group of us started coming here after wins, and eventually it became tradition.
We give them the most precious commodities of all. Time, presence, respect.
Tonight, after a game like that, I’d rather be anywhere else. I’d rather be home in bed watching highlights, learning, growing, becoming the best.
But this is part of it.
“Thanks, Mick,” I say, dropping cash on the bar as he slides over two pints I didn’t even have to order.
Faulker takes one, “Paulaner on tap?” I nod. “You asked him to order it for me?”
“Do not make this weird,” I growl as we move through the crowd, and I hear him chuckle behind me.
We pass the tables directly in front of the player’s section. Tables that used to be all fans, loud and flirtatious and unclaimed. Now, an entire section of that belongs to wives and girlfriends. WAGS, they call them.
“Even the real estate is changing,” Faulker mutters.
“I’m ignoring you for the rest of the night,” I say. “You’ve already ruined my mood.”
“When is your mood not like this?” he laughs.
He’s not wrong.
In the back, the noise spikes as Leo Stone climbs up onto a chair after leaving his wife to join the group. He lifts his beer high.
“Brooklyn’s the real New York,” he shouts. “First capital of the state. Built by dockworkers, builders, and people who didn’t wait for permission. To the number one borough, fucking Brooklyn. We did this for you.”
The bar detonates.
Theo Rivera stands next, beer raised, grin wide. “Home of the Dodgers before someone else took them. Forever home of the Bears because we’re never leaving you, Brooklyn, the real New York.”
The decibels climb higher, rattling the glasses.
Koa follows, calmer but no less lethal. “To smart hockey and making them choke on their own bullshit.”
Dash brings it home. “To winning the rivalry in our barn. You came loud,” he winks at Noelle, “Demanded a victory. That’s Brooklyn.”
Glasses clink. Beer spills. Someone pounds on the tables, and others follow suit.
I raise my pint and take a drink before settling down in the leather booth.
I’m halfway through another swallow when something shifts across the room. Not noise. Not movement. Attention.
I follow it instinctively and spot her near the far wall, just outside the team’s orbit. Sofie Fairfax.
She’s not alone this time. A new group of girls flanks her, all dressed sharper than the Icehouse regulars. Elevated. Deliberate. Heels instead of boots. Coats tailored instead of thrown on. Hair done like they knew cameras would be nearby, even if there weren’t any.
They move like they expect to be watched. Every one of them has a phone in hand, screens glowing, thumbs already working. They stand a little straighter, noses tipped up, as if this place is a novelty rather than a second home. Like Brooklyn is a backdrop, not the point.
Sofie doesn’t look at her phone. She doesn’t have to. She stands just slightly apart, posture perfect without being stiff, blazer immaculate, as if she had planned to be here all along. She’s listening, nodding, saying just enough. Tsarina.
One of the girls laughs, head falling back without concern for proximity. Another angles her camera just right. Someone mutters something, and they all glance toward the team area in unison. Hunting.
Sofie finally looks up, and our eyes connect across the room.
There it is again. That flash. Amused annoyance.
She lifts her glass in a mock salute, barely a smile touching her mouth, like she knows she’s got my attention.
This annoys me, so I roll my eyes, break eye contact, and take another drink.
Of course, she’d bring single reinforcements. Of course, they’d be armed with phones and entitlement and that polished hunger that rich girls like her have for men like us. And of course, irrationally, I blame her for it.
“Dude,” Dash says, nudging my shoulder. “You’re trending.”
“Disgusting,” I say.
“No,” Faulker cuts in, phone already out. “Like, aggressively trending.”
I don’t look, I don’t need to, I already know exactly why. Fairfax edits what makes her uncomfortable. She told me that, like it was a warning.
It wasn’t.
She didn’t look rattled. She looked entertained. Like I was a puzzle, she hadn’t decided whether to solve or throw it off the table. That bothers me more than it should.
Someone turns the music up again. Someone else starts chanting Moretti’s name. And somewhere between the noise and the heat and the win, I realize something I don’t like at all. Sofie Fairfax is not background noise; she’s a problem, and I have a feeling we’re not done circling each other yet.
I’m halfway through a beer when one of the Icehouse regulars slides into my space like she’s been assigned to me.
Short skirt. Glossed lips. The whole routine.
She presses in close, hand skimming my arm, then my chest, like friction alone is supposed to flip a switch. She laughs too loud, leans in, lets herself rub against me like we’re already on the same page.
We are not. My body does absolutely nothing. No reaction. No interest. Just static.
The girl presses closer. “Tonight, will not work for me.”
“I can make it work Killer.”
“Nyet.” I say tipping my glass back as she blinks, confused, then tries again, fingers grazing my thigh like persistence might change the outcome.
It doesn’t.
“It was a rough night,” I finish evenly, lowering my glass. “I’m not in the mood.”
She pauses, clearly not used to that answer. Most guys lean in harder when they’re offered this close. She recalculates, tries to smile like it’s a misunderstanding.
“I can help with that,” she says, fingers brushing my thigh again like she thinks repetition is persuasion.
I catch her wrist gently and move her hand away, careful but unmistakable. “No,” I say, calm and final. “Really. Not tonight.”
There’s a flicker of offense, then confusion, then something like disbelief. She straightens and stands, smoothing her skirt, dignity scrambling to reassemble itself.
“Okay,” she says, clipped, already backing away. “Your loss.”
Maybe.
She melts back into the crowd, already searching for someone easier.
I don’t watch her go. I don’t follow her with my eyes. No, mine lock with Sofie’s.
She raises one eyebrow. Just one. Like she’s clocked the whole thing and filed it under interesting.
And suddenly I’m irritated. Not at the girl. Not at myself. At her. Of course, it’s her fault.
I take another drink, never breaking eye contact.
This is ridiculous. I don’t get distracted. I don’t lose focus. I don’t go numb in a room full of options.
And yet….
“I’m leaving,” I tell Faulker.
“Alone?” he asks, standing too.
“Double duty last night, I’m good. You have fun.”
“I’m good to go,” he grabs his coat. “I’ll order a car; I just have to piss first.”
“I’ll be outside,” I say, needing to get out of here.
Faulker nods, “Give me a minute.”
Cold Brooklyn air hits my face the second I step out. I breathe it in like a reset. The door opens behind me. Footsteps. Unrushed.
“Where are your boo-boo kissers, AK?”
I don’t turn right away. I don’t need to. I know her voice now. Polished amusement, edged just enough to test. I glance over my shoulder.
Sofie Fairfax stands a few feet away, coat buttoned, phone tucked away for once. No entourage. Just her, eyes bright with mockery pulled straight from that elevator conversation this morning.
“Probably licking each other’s… wounds,” I say. “You checking in on my injuries?”
She smiles, slow and deliberate. “No, absolutely not.”
“Where is your entourage?” I ask cynically.
“My entourage are interns working on a special interest story featuring one of the players.” She rolls her eyes, “I’d ask if there was a story behind your obvious issues, but you aren’t TV appropriate, so why bother.”
"You’re intrigued Tsarina, your privilege doesn’t shield that. No matter what floor you reside on, you live behind a wall of glass visible to everyone who bothers looking up.”
“Wow, and I just came for my car.” She picks at invisible lint, pretending to be bored.
I turn fully then and pin her with a look I don’t bother softening and lean in, letting the closeness do half the work, and drop my voice low, just for her.
The way the streetlights slash across her cheekbones makes her look sharp and fearless, but I can see the quick pulse in her throat betraying something softer.