Chapter 2 - Aleksey
Two hours of sleep wasn’t enough to fix the ache in my shoulders, but the alarm vibrating against the floorboards didn’t care.
I swiped the cracked screen of my phone to shut it off. And my back ached as I pushed myself up from the mattress on the floor.
It was five in the morning. The attic was freezing, and my bare skin stung in the sharp, cold air as I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and pulled them on.
The phone screen was still glowing in the darkroom. I opened my banking app.
Forty-three dollars.
I glared at the green numbers. That was all I had to my name until next week. My hockey scholarship covered tuition and the dining hall, but every dollar of my stipend went straight to Detroit. Forty-three dollars wouldn’t even buy a decent pair of skate laces and a tank of gas.
I turned away from the phone and caught sight of the framed photo of my mother on the stand next to my bed. She was smiling in the picture, but exhaustion lined the corners of her eyes. She worked double shifts at a nursing home and cleaned offices at night just so I could play hockey.
The feeling of guilt in my stomach pulled tighter. I was taking her money while scraping by on zero sleep, and forty-three dollars was a pathetic return on her investment. I reached down and flipped the picture face down. The wooden frame hit the tabletop with a small tap.
“Sorry, Ma,” I muttered.
I then grimaced. Hiding her away sucked, but looking at her tired smile ripped my focus to shreds. I closed my eyes, forcing the image out of my head, locking the guilt behind a mental door so I could get through the day.
Morning lifts, team drills, and another brutal night shift at the Food Mart were waiting. My muscles were already sore from yesterday’s workout, and the damn day hadn’t even started.
I grabbed my duffel bag and shoved my phone into my pocket.
I stepped out into the narrow hallway. A sliver of bright yellow light bled out from under Karter’s door next to mine.
I hadn’t heard that brass handle budge at all since I’d tried it.
Testing that flimsy lock last night was supposed to rattle him, maybe send him running back to his brother’s fancy apartment. Instead, the kid had stayed quiet, and now his light was on like he’d never once considered leaving.
“Fucking tourist,” I muttered to the empty hall.
My fingers dug deep into the strap of my bag.
The legacy kid had just left the light burning as if electricity was free.
He had never worried about a bank account in his life.
From the rumors going around the house, I’d heard that he grew up in a mansion in Boston, never having to work for shit.
Which figured. After all, his brother lived in a brand-new apartment complex down the street, which meant that Karter could be over there right now, warm and comfortable.
Instead, he was slumming it in a broken-down house that guys like me had no other choice but to live in.
I was twenty-one years old, a senior fighting every single day just to keep a roof over my head and my mother fed, and this kid was treating my everyday reality like it was a fun little vacation away from his mansion.
The sheer arrogance of it pissed me off. And the designer clothes he wore around the place were a constant insult.
But a different fear bothered me underneath the anger.
My life at Ridge Cross was entirely borrowed.
One bad grade or one blown knee would send me straight back to Detroit with nothing.
Meanwhile, Karter treated this whole setup like some tourist attraction, happily playing games in my reality just for kicks.
I stood in the freezing hallway and glared at the yellow light under his door. Part of me wanted to kick it open just to see the expensive luggage and designer clothes he had left strewn around.
He wanted to pretend he belonged down here with the rest of us? Fine. I shoved my hands into my pockets, heading for the stairs.
The rich kid was going to regret stepping out of his luxury bubble when I caught up with him at morning lifts.
The walk across campus was brutal. Wind whipped off the nearby lake, slicing through my thin coat. By the time I pushed through the glass doors of the college athletic facility, my face was numb.
Inside, the air conditioning always lost the fight against the humidity. Sweat and iron made the whole room smell thick and stale.
I spotted Karter right away. He was using a bench press near the far corner, all by himself.
The barbell wobbled unevenly in his hands, and his elbows flared out too wide. The steel shook as he struggled to push it up. Those expensive personal trainers back in Boston had clearly babied him. They probably never forced him to suffer.
I walked over and stopped right behind his bench. My hands hovered near the bar.
“Your form is fucking garbage,” I said.
I noticed his eyes widen as he lost his rhythm, right before his arms gave out. The steel dropped fast toward his sternum.
My fingers clamped around the metal. I caught the bar a second before it crushed him, lifting it easily before slamming it onto the uprights, causing the iron plates to rattle loudly.
A second later, I stepped around to the side of the bench and looked down into his flushed face.
Sweat dripped from his forehead, darkening the collar of his shirt.
“No private trainers round here, legacy,” I muttered. “They teach you to flare your elbows like that in Boston, or was that all instinct?”
Karter’s chest heaved as he frowned up at me. A sharp, stubborn glare sparked in his hazel-green eyes as he shoved himself upright on the bench. “They taught me to lift without the constant commentary.”
“Well, clearly they skipped a few chapters.” I tapped the bar with two fingers. “Another rep like that and you’ll crack your sternum.”
“Lucky you were right here to rescue me.”
“Lucky I don’t charge by the hour.”
Karter swung his leg over the bench and stood. Even upright, he had to tilt his chin to meet my eyes. “Are you done?”
“Not even close.” I settled my weight, blocking his exit. “You look a bit lost. Hesitate like that where I’m from, you’d lose your gear and your wallet.”
“Good thing we aren’t in Detroit,” Karter said, his voice flat.
I raised an eyebrow. “Been reading my roster bio, legacy?”
He didn’t answer. He brushed past me, shoulder clipping mine, reaching for his sweat towel on the nearby rack.
My hand shot out. I grabbed his wrist, squeezing the bone tight enough to bruise. I leaned in close until my mouth was right next to his ear.
“Daddy’s money can’t lift the bar for you here, princess,” I muttered.
A slight tremor vibrated through his arm. But instead of shrinking back, Karter shifted, then drove his elbow hard into my side.
“Shit.” Pain flared sharply in my ribs. It wasn’t enough to drop me, but the sheer audacity of it froze me in place. I expected him to cower, to shrink, to cry for his captain brother.
Instead, the kid actually hit me.
My thumb pressed into his wrist. The frantic jumping of his pulse beneath my grip wasn’t panic. It was pure, unadulterated adrenaline.
He wasn’t submitting.
“You held that bar like you’re trying to impress me, Aleksey,” Karter said. He yanked his arm, but I kept my grip firm. “It’s pathetic.”
He stepped closer instead of pulling away, locking his jaw. The utter lack of fear in his stance threw me totally off balance.
“If you wanted to hurt me, you should’ve let it drop,” Karter added. “But now you’re just wasting my time.”
My grip loosened slightly in genuine shock. My assumptions about this pampered brat were dead wrong. The kid had actual teeth, and the realization sparked a reluctant, irritating hit of respect.
My lips pulled into a grin. I let go of his arm and took a step back.
Karter snatched his towel. He didn’t say another word, turning and walking straight toward the locker room.
As I watched him go, a dark sense of intrigue mixed with my frustration.
My focus was shot; there was no way I was getting a safe lift in now.
I abandoned the idea of a workout entirely, grabbed my bag, and trailed him into the locker room.
By the time I stripped off my cold sweats, the showers were already running.
Thick clouds of white steam rolled off the wet tiles as I stepped under the hot spray in the senior players’ section.
Tilting my head back, I let the intense heat melt the tight knots out of my shoulders.
Now you’re wasting my time.
Karter’s voice replayed in my head. I scrubbed soap over my face and looked through the white haze.
The team rules worked the same way every year. Upperclassmen took the hot shower-heads on the far wall. Freshmen got the freezing ones near the door. It was basic hazing, designed to make the new guys bow their heads and learn their place fast.
I found Karter right away. He stood directly under the ice-cold spray. Goosebumps covered his lean back. He chewed his bottom lip, but he didn’t shiver, and he didn’t complain.
“Hey Karter!” I called out over the hiss of the showers. “Water cold enough for you over there?”
Karter didn’t flinch. He stayed planted under the icy spray, shoulders squared against the cold, and reached for the soap. “It does the job.”
“A cold shower’s supposed to do you good,” I let my words hang in the steam. “But, I’m pretty sure such a good boy like you has enough of that already.”
“Guess I’m overqualified.”
The flat retort annoyed the fuck out of me. I glanced around at the other faces in the room, but the other freshmen kept their heads down, pretending not to hear. “Then go run to your brother’s place if you want a warm bath,” I said.
He rinsed his hair, letting the freezing water run down his back in sheets. “Nah. I think I’ll stay right here.”
“Suit yourself.” The words came out tighter than I meant them to. “But don’t expect a medal for suffering.”
“I’ll settle for a towel.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Half a smirk, gone before it registered.
And then he turned around, facing me full on.
Most freshmen glued their eyes to the wall, but Karter kept his locked on my face. The water cut tracks down his chest, slipping over the lean ridges of his stomach, and my palm throbbed with the phantom memory of his heart-rate jumping against my grip, back in the weight room.
The heat crawling up my neck suddenly had nothing to do with the steam as a tight knot caught in my throat.
This was the one guy I wanted to destroy—the rich kid playing tourist in my miserable life—and my exhausted body was betraying me by wanting him.
I forced a harsh breath out through my nose, clamped my teeth together, and pasted a sneer on my face to cover the slip.
Karter didn’t look away. Didn’t backdown. He just stared back, unbothered, before calmly turning around to grab his soap.
My palm pressed flat against the wet wall tiles. The cold ceramic bit into my skin, anchoring me in place when every other instinct screamed to cross the room and wipe that calm off his face. Breaking this guy was going to take way more effort than I bargained for.
Instead, I reached out and turned off my water. I had to get Karter Johnston out of my head.
The rest of the day was a blur of exhausting classes and brutal afternoon practice. By the time I dragged myself into work for my graveyard shift, my legs felt like lead.
The commercial freezer units buzzed a loud, uneven rhythm down the frozen food aisle. And the painfully bright store lights beat down on my head. My shoulders burned as I pulled another can of soup from the cardboard box.
It was pushing two A.M., and I’d been awake for over twenty hours. It had totally wrecked my body. Sleep felt like a lifetime ago. Stripped of the hockey attitude I usually carried, I was nothing but a tired guy running on fumes.
“Zotov, you are moving entirely too damn slow,” Derek yelled from the end of the aisle.
“I’m stocking them as fast as they go up,” I said, sliding a can onto the metal shelf.
“Stock faster. Those shelves look bare, and I want this entire pallet cleared by three.”
“Got it.”
I hoisted the next cardboard case of soup into my arms, but my focus kept slipping. The sharp point of Karter’s elbow dug into my ribs all over again. The steady thump of his heartbeat beat against my palm. I kept seeing the fading bruises on his fingers, the water tracing down his stomach.
A rich legacy player had absolutely no business taking up this much space in my head. I needed this job to pay for my life back in Detroit. So I couldn’t afford to waste time and energy thinking about the guy living across the hall from me.
But then the sharp memory of Karter fighting back in the gym flashed through my head, snapping my focus. Between the exhaustion and a sudden, unwanted spike of adrenaline, my overworked grip just gave out.
The cardboard case of soup slipped right through my fingers.
The box crashed onto the cheap linoleum. Cardboard ripped open, and metal cans rolled everywhere, hitting the baseboards with a loud clatter.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Derek yelled, marching down the aisle. My manager’s face turned bright red. “Do you have any idea how much soup costs?”
“The cans are dented,” I said, looking down at the mess. “They aren’t open.”
“They are damaged goods now, Zotov. That comes right out of your paycheck.” Derek pointed a thick finger at my face. “I am writing you up. One more screw-up and you are done here.”
“Fine,” I muttered.
Derek stormed off to the front register. I looked down at the scattered cans.
I dropped to my knees and started grabbing them up. My hands shook. I gripped a dented tin of chicken noodle so tightly my fingers throbbed in protest.
Karter was actively ruining my focus.
I scrubbed my palm roughly against my jeans, trying to erase thoughts of Karter from my mind. Still, the physical struggle of wrangling the rolling cans matched the chaotic mess in my head.
Letting my guard down was literally costing me money I didn’t have.
Cleaning up the mess took another agonizing hour. I finished the miserable shift and finally walked out into the freezing night at three in the morning.
My face stung from the bitter cold on the walk back to The Ice House. My feet dragged heavily on the cracked pavement. All I wanted was to go into my empty room and shut down.
Once I’d arrived at the walkway leading towards the house, I stopped on the dead grass outside, watching the bright yellow glow of Karter’s attic window against the pitch-black sky. Then I shoved my cold hands into my pockets, hating the fact that I cared if he was awake.