Chapter 8 - Aleksey
Three days. That was how long I’d managed to keep a wall between myself and whatever the hell happened in the parking lot with Karter.
Three days of trading locker stalls, skipping our tutoring sessions, and taking back-to-back midnight shifts at the Food Mart just to have a concrete excuse to be somewhere else.
But you can’t run on a team bus.
I hauled my oversized duffel up the steep steps, the freezing night air following me inside. The bus was a dark, cramped tunnel of dim phone screens and hushed voices. Seniors had already claimed the front rows, leaving the freshmen exiled to the back.
Perez sat halfway down the aisle, his knee bouncing with its usual restless energy. He pointed with his chin to the empty cushion next to him, popping his gum. “Sit down, man. You look like shit.”
“I’m fine,” I said, shifting the strap on my shoulder.
“Eh, bullshit,” Perez said, leaning out into the aisle to block my path. “You’ve been like a ghost all week.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to the back.”
Perez stopped chewing. His sharp eyes tracked toward the back rows before snapping back to me. He saw where the only other empty seat was. And he knew who was sitting next to it.
“You sure?” Perez asked, his voice dropping the casual, joking tone. He leaned back, giving me a hard, assessing look. “Keeping your head down is working, bro. Coach is off your back. Don’t go doing something stupid now.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I said. It was a lie, but it was the most efficient way to end the conversation.
Perez raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he held his hands up in surrender. “Suit yourself, man.”
I squeezed past his seat and kept walking, as my grip tightened on the strap of my bag. Perez was right about keeping my head down, but the truth was, keeping up the silent treatment was getting too hard to maintain.
Dodging Karter took more energy than fighting him. I was done running.
Karter was in a window seat near the back. Three rows up, his brother was already out cold, head slumped against the glass.
I shoved my bag into the overhead rack and slipped into the empty aisle seat next to Karter.
Taking it probably looked like I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. I did. But I’d learn early on in life that if you spend all your time ducking a hit, you just end up backing yourself into a corner.
Avoiding him gave him the power. So, if Karter wanted to throw challenges at me in parking lots, fine. I’d sit right next to him, crowd his space, and show him how ugly this could get. Let’s see how much reality the legacy kid could stomach before he panicked and backed off.
I settled myself in my seat, while beside me, Karter went still.
His hand slipped from our shared armrest to rest on his leg, his fingers digging into his thigh. “You’re actually sitting here,” Karter whispered.
“Nowhere else to sit,” I said.
“Perez had an empty seat.”
“He talks too much.” I settled deeper into the aisle seat, tilting my weight so my shoulder crowded his space. “So do you.”
“Not tonight.” The thin glow of a passing headlight outside the bus swept across Karter’s face, catching the pale green of his irises before the dark swallowed him again. “You’ve been the one talking.”
“I haven’t said a goddamn word in days.”
“Yeah, well.” Karter’s teeth sank into his lower lip, a quick flash of white before he let it go. “Silence is a statement too.”
“Everything’s a statement to you.”
“Your knee is touching mine.”
My jaw tightened. It was.
“The bus is cramped,” I said.
“No. It’s not.” Karter’s thigh didn’t shift. Neither did mine. “You’re avoiding my question. And me.”
“I picked up extra shifts at work.”
“And skipped Tuesday’s study session.”
“I can highlight a textbook perfectly well without you holding my hand,” I said.
I stared straight ahead, but I could practically hear the gears turning in his head.
When Karter spoke again, his voice had that unhurried, steady rhythm he always used—the one that sounded like he’d never had to fight for a chance to speak in his life.
“Right. So, are you going to stare straight at the back of that seat for the entire trip to the U.P.?”
I clenched my jaw, glaring at the gray upholstery in front of me. “No.”
“No, what?”
I turned my head to look at him. He was waiting, hazel eyes locked on mine, challenging me. I thought about the parking lot. I thought about the bluff.
“I know I’ve been dodging you,” I said, keeping my words clipped and my voice dead flat. “I’m done. You wanted me here. Now I’m here.”
Karter drew in a quick breath. He didn’t look away, and he sure as hell didn’t back down. Instead, he just let his shoulder drop, settling a fraction of an inch closer so our arms were almost touching.
The bus lurched into gear, pulling out of the lot and hitting the highway. I faced forward again. The constant rumble of the diesel engine vibrated right through the floorboards into my boots. Karter hadn’t flinched. He wasn’t running.
Shit.
We didn’t even make it to the highway on-ramp before Karter tried to push his luck.
“So, what does ‘now I’m here’ actually mean?” he asked, his voice low, clearly testing the boundary.
“It means shut up,” I hissed, keeping my head still. I cut my eyes sideways, clocking the rows around us. “You want to talk with twenty guys awake? With your brother three rows up?”
Karter worried his lower lip with his teeth, his gaze dropping to his lap.
“No,” I said, answering for him. “You get me sitting here. That’s all I’ve got to give you right now. Take it or leave it.”
Karter didn’t say a word. He just nodded once, shifting his arm further onto the shared armrest, deliberately placing his forearm flush against mine.
He was taking it.
An hour passed. The bus heater blasted dry, stale air against my shins, slowly knocking the team out.
When I scanned the rows, I noticed that Elliot and most of the team were dead to the world, his head resting against the glass.
At the very front of the aisle, the small yellow circle of Coach Corby’s book light was the only thing cutting through the lowlight.
Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Karter in the quiet bus was tearing away the last of my already-shot defenses.
Every time the bus hit a bump, his thigh brushed mine, and every time it did, a fresh spike of irritation hit my chest. I hated how hyperaware of him I was. I hated that this pampered Johnston was making me drop my guard.
But mostly, I was angry that he smelled so damn good.
I wanted to wipe that stubborn, quiet defiance right out of him. A part of me wanted to slam him up against the window and remind him of his place at the bottom of the team food chain.
But my brain was locked on a different kind of punishment. If he wanted me so badly, I decided I’d show him what the reality of that looked like. Right here, where he had everything to lose.
I shrugged off my oversized winter coat and casually spread the thick material over my own lap at first. A few minutes later, I dragged the edge of my coat over Karter’s knees.
Karter looked down at the bulky fabric. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice dropping.
“Taking my coat off. It’s hot,” I said flatly.
“Aleks...”
“Stay quiet,” I warned him.
My gaze stayed locked dead ahead on the gray seat back. Under the cover of the jacket, I slid my hand over the denim of his jeans, finding the lean muscle of his thigh. But I didn’t ease into it. I clamped my hand down hard, my thick fingers pressing into the muscle of his leg.
Karter flinched, his breath catching sharply next to my ear. He opened his mouth to protest, but I eased my grip, dragging my hand higher until I brushed the ridge of his cock through his jeans.
The protest died in his throat. His muscles jumped under my palm.
“Right here?” he choked out.
“Yes,” I muttered, leaning my head back against the seat. I kept my hand locked down tight, trapping him. “You told me you wanted this. You pushed for it. Now we’re going to see if you can actually handle it.”
Karter’s chest hitched. He didn’t try to shove my hand away, but his fingers clamped onto the plastic armrest between us, his knuckles turning white.
“Are you insane?” he whispered, his composure cracking. “Seriously?”
“You cornered me in the parking lot,” I muttered, leaning in just enough so my voice wouldn’t carry over the rumble of the diesel engine.
Under the coat, I tightened my grip, the heel of my hand pressing firmly against his growing erection.
“You told me to show you what this is. Well, this is it. It’s not some private, safe room in the Ice House.
It’s right here. Under a jacket, with your brother sleeping three rows away. ”
Karter swallowed hard. I could actually feel the tremor starting in his thighs. “Aleksey, someone will see,” he whispered, though his body betrayed the panic in his voice. His hips shifted, tilting a fraction of an inch deeper into my hand.
“Then tell me to stop.”
I kept my eyes locked straight ahead on the dark aisle, my profile completely unbothered, but my heart was hammering against my ribs.
“Give me the word,” I challenged him, my tone dead flat. “Say you don’t want it. Tell me no, and I’ll take my hand back. You go to sleep, and we never talk about it again.”
I waited. The heat of the bus suddenly felt suffocating. If he said no, I’d pull away. I’d respect the boundary, but it would prove I was right—he was just a tourist playing with fire.
Karter let out a shaky, uneven breath. His teeth sank hard into his bottom lip, a dead giveaway of his anxiety. But he didn’t say the word. Instead, with a stubbornness that threw me off balance, his legs parted just slightly, giving me better access.
Karter dropped his head closer to my shoulder. “This is a bad idea,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” I agreed. My fingers found the metal tab of his zipper. “Stay quiet.”
I pulled the zipper down. The metal teeth parted with a slow, harsh rasp. It sounded loud enough to wake the whole damn team, but the constant drone of the bus engine buried the noise.