Chapter 4 - Aleksey
Coach Corby slid an open folder across his desk. And my entire future narrowed down to the one name printed in black ink on the top sheet.
My legs still ached from evening practice as I stood in his cramped office.
“Sit down, Zotov,” Coach said, sighing as he took off his cap and ran a hand over his thinning hair before putting it right back on.
The empty chair held no appeal. Crossing my arms, I leaned against the doorframe and kept my face blank. “I’m fine standing.”
Dropping his pen on the desk, Corby met my gaze. “You’re in the red. Your GPA is sitting at 2.3. You know the minimum for your scholarship is a 2.5. Academic advising wants to suspend your eligibility today.”
The air in the tiny office suddenly felt too thin to breathe. A 2.3 meant immediate suspension. No hockey. No scholarship. And a one-way bus ticket back to Detroit and a lifetime of midnight shifts working at places like the Food Mart.
Swallowing hard, I forced the feeling of panic down before it could reach my face.
“I have a plan to fix it,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I’ll ask my professors for extra credit.”
“It’s past extra credit,” Coach said. “Academic advising wanted to suspend you today.”
I shoved off the doorframe, my muscles coiling. “You can’t let them do that. The team needs me on the penalty kill.”
“Let me finish.” Coach held up a hand to stop me. “You miss the showcase, and you’re off the roster for good.”
“I’m not missing the showcase.”
“I’ve had my assistant and half the faculty in my ear all week,” Coach went on, his volume rising. “Between your academic warnings and the locker room tension, they’re suggesting I cut you loose before you become a liability to the entire program.”
“The faculty knows nothing about what I bring to the ice,” I shot back, scowling. “They’re just pissed because I fall asleep in their morning lectures.”
“They know a failing grade when they see one,” Coach countered. “And frankly, I’m tiring of the attitude, too. After that near-brawl on the ice earlier this week, I was ready to bench you myself. I don’t need this goddamn headache.”
A scuff mark on the wall held my attention. The threat stung, but Corby would not see my fear. Detroit was a dead end for me.
Going back wasn’t an option.
“But,” Coach sighed again, leaning back in his chair, “I know how hard you work on the ice when you actually focus. So I pulled rank before academic advising could make it official.”
“What does that mean?”
Corby tapped the open folder. “I’m assigning Karter Johnston as your mandatory tutor. The administration agreed to hold off on suspension as long as you show improvement.”
The name struck me wrong. Irony twisted sick in my stomach.
“The Johnston kid?” Making sure I heard him right took a second. “You have to be joking.”
“I don’t joke about eligibility. The kid’s pre-med. Pulls straight A’s. Placed into upper-level biology after testing out of the intro courses, and he’s shown he’s got enough of a spine to put up with your bullshit. He already agreed to the schedule.”
“I don’t want his help. Get me someone else. Get Perez to do it.”
“Perez is barely passing his own classes,” Coach said.
“This is crazy! I don’t need a freshman legacy kid looking down his nose at me.”
“You need a brain,” Coach said. “And you need to stay on the ice. So deal with it, or you’re off the roster for good.”
The folder slid closer to the edge of the desk.
“He’s waiting in the library archives right now. Seven-thirty. Don’t screw this up, Aleksey. I stuck my neck out for you.”
I snatched the folder, my jaw clenching. Needing the Karter’s help felt like a massive insult, but the alternative was losing everything. Without a word of thanks, I turned around, walked out the door, and headed into the freezing evening to meet Karter.
Pushing through the doors into the library’s sub-basement archives, the building’s dry heat hit my skin. The space was utterly deserted. Motion-sensor lights snapped on with a click as I stepped inside, throwing a cheap, bleached glare down the narrow aisles between the tall metal bookshelves.
Karter sat alone at a scratched wooden table in the far back corner. A stack of thick textbooks formed a wall next to him. A yellow highlighter flipped back and forth between his long fingers, and his teeth worried his bottom lip as he read.
My boots thudded straight down the center aisle.
“Coach didn’t give me a choice, Zotov,” Karter said, keeping his eyes glued to his textbook.
Stopping at the edge of the table, I glared down at him. “You expect me to believe you didn’t volunteer for this? The captain’s younger brother stepping up to fix the team problem.”
“You think I want to waste my weeknights teaching remedial logic to you?” Karter turned a page.
My duffel bag hit the tabletop with a loud smack, the thick canvas sliding across the wood right into his stack of books. Planting my hands on the edge of the table, I leaned over to invade his space.
“I hate this setup,” I told him. “You are holding my eligibility in your hands. You think this makes you better than me?”
The highlighter stopped flipping. Karter didn’t flinch, nor did he slide his chair back to put distance between us.
“Think I’m gonna be your legacy charity project?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “Something you can brag about to Coach?”
Leaning forward, he matched my posture. Our faces ended up so close that the scent of his crisp aftershave filled my nose, drowning out the smell of old paper.
“I think you’re failing,” Karter said, his voice drop-dead flat. “And I’m the only one who can bother to help you fix it.”
The blunt response caught me off guard. Pushing people around was my standard routine because it was the only thing anyone responded to. The kid was supposed to back down or get defensive. Instead, he held his ground.
“I can pass my own classes.”
“Your GPA says otherwise.” Karter dropped the highlighter onto his notebook. “So sit down, shut up, and let me save your scholarship.”
A laugh scraped out of my throat, dry and humorless. “Save it. Like you’re doing me a favor.”
“I am doing you a favor.” He tilted his head, studying me. “You just haven’t figured out how to say thank you yet.”
“My mother raised me with manners.” I braced both hands on the table, the wood grain rough under my palms. “But I save them for people who deserve it.”
“Good thing I’m not here for your manners.” His pen tapped once against the empty chair across from him. “Sit. Or are your legs as tired as your GPA?”
The sheer nerve of the guy threw me off. Seeing right through my bluster, he refused to play along, which was incredibly annoying.
“If you tank my grades to get me off the roster,” I warned him, “Corby is gonna bench you too. Remember that.” I wasn’t exactly sure if that was true, but I would not give in so easily.
“I like playing hockey too much to let you drag me down,” Karter said, pointing his pen at the empty chair across from him.
The legs of the cheap plastic chair scraped against the linoleum floor as I pulled it out. Dropping into the seat, I unzipped my bag and tossed Corby’s folder and my battered notebook onto the table between us.
For the next sixty minutes, the hostile silence made the small table feel entirely too cramped as Karter scratched red ink across my notebook pages. The dry, stagnant heat of the basement pressed in on us, brewing a dull ache behind my eyes.
“You missed the entire second half of this lecture,” Karter said, keeping his eyes on my notebook.
“I was at morning lifts.”
“They record the lectures, Zotov.”
“I work nights at the mart,” I told him. “I don’t have time to watch videos.”
Karter sighed, his pen never slowing.
My eyes zeroed in on his hands. Dark purple bruising colored his knuckles, a jarring difference from his expensive clothes and perfect hair. Blocking shots on the ice meant his skin showed the damage.
Staring at the same chemistry equation three times yielded zero comprehension. Especially when the scent of Karter’s aftershave kept filling my lungs, and my eyes tracked the movement every time he shifted in his seat.
“You’re not even trying,” Karter said.
“I’m trying.”
“Aleks.” His pen jabbed at the page. “The answer’s right there. You just have to actually read it.”
I stiffened. The shortened name felt a little too familiar.
Nobody called me that. Not my mother with her soft Lekha, not the scholarship guys who barked Zotov at me across the ice. Just him. Karter dropped the nickname like he had a right to it.
The silence stretched one beat too long.
Pushing his boundaries earlier was supposed to be my attempt to get the upper hand, but sitting this close only made my skin run hot.
Reaching across my open textbook, his fingers brushed near my notes once again to grab a different pen.
My hand moved before my brain gave the order. I leaned hard across the table, my fingers clamping around his wrist, pinning his arm to the wood.
His head snapped up. The sudden movement brought our faces so close that I felt the erratic hitch of his breath. His eyes went dark, the pupils blowing out fast, but instead of pulling away, he just froze.
Under my thumb, right against the inside of his wrist, a fast, hard beat jumped against my skin. His pulse was hammering like a trapped bird.
“Your heart is racing,” I pointed out.
“Let go of me.” Karter’s voice lacked its usual smooth control. The words came out tight, almost breathless.
“I’m not stopping you.” I didn’t loosen my grip. The heat radiating off his skin was undeniable, grounding me in the sudden tension between us. “Damn, Johnston,” I muttered, my voice dropping low and coming out rough. “You actually like this.”
A beat passed. He then shoved my shoulder hard, catching me off guard just enough to loosen my grip. Karter yanked his arm back, his chest heaving with a frantic breath.
“I prefer to pass my classes,” he snapped. “Which is more than I can say for you.”
A deep blush stained his throat, crawling right up to his cheeks. He glared at me, dragging in uneven breaths. His mouth was talking shit, but his body was telling me a completely different story.
A dark, vicious jolt of adrenaline hit my gut. The golden boy wasn’t untouchable. He was just as messed up over this as I was.
It was a dangerous realization. But before I could push it further, Karter shoved his chair back.
Snatching his notebook off the table, he dumped his pens into his bag, and ripped the zipper closed. Without saying another word, I followed suit, shoving my own stuff into my duffel just as fast.
The elevator ride up to the lobby that followed felt like a tight, hostile standoff. Neither of us said a thing. And it wasn’t until we hit the freezing street outside that I felt the tension ease from my shoulders.
The wind bit into my skin the second we pushed through the glass doors.
Following three steps behind Karter on the icy sidewalk, my eyes tracked the stiff way he walked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark wool coat.
That single piece of clothing probably cost more than my mom’s rent and groceries for an entire month. My teeth ground together. Needing his help was the only way to keep my scholarship, yet walking behind him forced my hands to ball into fists.
The urge to punch a locker spiked. Barring that, pushing Karter until he broke felt like the next best option.
Karter slowed, but didn’t turn around. “Why do you actually hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” I slowed down as well, pausing to kick a chunk of ice into the street. “I hate rich legacy kids who think the rules don’t apply to them.”
“It’s not just because of my last name,” Karter went on, his voice tightening. “You’ve been looking for a reason to snap since the day I moved into the attic.”
I closed the distance, my longer stride easily eating up the space until I was walking right beside him.
“Because you chose to be there,” I snapped.
His eyes remained locked straight ahead. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You could be up in the luxury suites with the rest of your lot.” My voice ran rough with years of resentment. “But you decided to come down to the house to play soldier.”
Karter shook his head. “I’m not playing anything.”
“You’re slumming it,” I argued. “You look at me, at us, at the way we live, like we’re animals in a zoo for you to study.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m not your fucking poverty project.” I stepped right in front of him, forcing him to stop. “And I’m not your ticket to feeling like you’ve seen the real world.”
The snow hitting his face went ignored. His hand reached up, fingers digging into the back of his neck.
“You think this is a game to me?” Karter asked.
“Isn’t it?”
“You think I’m doing this for the experience?” He scoffed, dropping his hand. “I’m in that drafty attic because my last name is a shackle.”
I snorted. “Must be a tough life.”
“Must be easy, deciding you already know everything about me.”
His wool coat was dark with melted snow, shoulders dusted white. Behind him, a streetlamp buzzed and flickered.
“I know your jacket probably costs more than a month’s rent,” I said. “What else do I need to know?”
“That I’m standing in a snowstorm getting lectured by a guy who thinks being poor gives him the moral high ground over me.”
I took a step toward him. “Careful.”
“Or what?” Karter stepped closer, chin tilted up to hold my gaze. The streetlamp caught the hazel in his eyes, turning them almost green. “You’ll shove me into another locker? Dump my gear on the floor? I’ve got news for you, Zotov. I’m still here.”
The wind shoved against my back, and the cold burned in my lungs. Every reason I had to hate him was right there: the coat, the name, the easy way he stood his ground like he’d never once worried about losing.
“For the first time in my whole life, I wanted to be somewhere where my name didn’t really matter,” Karter said, his voice turning raw. “But you’re so busy being the victim of my supposed legacy.”
“Fuck you. I’m not playing the victim.”
“You are.” He held his ground, snow catching in his hair. “And you’re too blind to see I’m trying to burn the same bridge you are.”
The edge in his voice shut me up. Every rehearsed argument I had lined up completely evaporated.
Standing there in the falling snow, the image I’d built of the younger Johnston started to fracture. He wasn’t some arrogant rich kid playing tourist. He was just trying to survive his own bullshit.
And it pissed me off.
Hating him for his trust fund had been easy. Now, my best excuse to keep him at a distance was gone.
I didn’t have an answer for him. So instead of trying to fake one, I turned away from the wind and started walking.
He fell into step beside me as we covered the last few blocks without another word.