Chapter 9 - Karter
The front of my shirt was still stiff with dried cum when the bus shuddered to a halt in the hotel parking lot.
Beside me, Aleksey didn’t wait for the engine to die. He was up and moving down the narrow aisle before anyone else had even unzipped their coats, his expression unreadable.
I stayed in my seat for a few seconds, keeping my breathing even. A few guys across the aisle were stretching and rubbing their eyes. I scanned their faces, searching for a tell.
Had they heard? It’s not like we had been completely silent. But if anyone had caught the sound of heavy breathing or the frantic shifting of clothes, they were keeping their mouths shut.
I’m guessing nobody wanted to be the guy who asked Aleksey Zotov what he was doing in the dark.
Grabbing my bag, I stepped out into the frigid Upper Peninsula air. The sharp, biting cold was a massive relief, shocking my system out of the arousal Aleksey had left behind.
Coach Corby stood by the open luggage bays, his thick coat zipped all the way to his chin.
He tapped a pen against his worn clipboard, clearing his throat.
“Alright, listen up. Freshmen are doubling up for this tournament. I’ll read the pairings; you grab your gear and get inside. No messing around in the lobby.”
He rattled off the names. “Karter and Clay,” Coach barked.
I grimaced. That wasn’t ideal. Clay was a legacy forward who treated every silence like a problem he personally had to solve.
We hauled our gear through the fluorescent-lit lobby, past a handful of hotel visitors, and packed into a cramped elevator. By the time I dragged my expensive luggage into our small third-floor room, I was exhausted.
I needed to shake off the memory of Aleksey’s hands, but the confined space was making it impossible to clear my head.
Clay shoved past me and threw his duffel onto the bed by the window.
“Can you believe we finally made it?” Clay dropped onto the mattress beside his bag, already buzzing with a restless energy that exhausted me just to look at. “This tournament is going to be insane. My dad says scouts are already swarming the lobby. Did you see anyone down there?”
“No.” The zipper on my bag snagged hard. I yanked it free. “Didn’t look.”
“Didn’t look?” Clay propped himself up on his elbows, staring at me like I’d just lost my mind. “Come on. These guys decide if we go pro.”
“They decide if the seniors go pro.” I pulled a clean Ridge Cross hoodie from my duffel. “We’re freshmen. They’re not here for us.”
“Not with that attitude, they’re not.” He flopped back onto the mattress, kicking one foot up to rest on his knee. “My dad says half the scouts start tracking guys sophomore year. You’ve gotta make an impression early.”
The hoodie came over my head, swallowing my ruined t-shirt before Clay’s wandering eyes could catch the stiff white stains. “Your dad says a lot.”
Clay laughed, the sound too loud for the cramped room. “Yeah, he does. You should hear him during games. My mom has to elbow him just to keep him from getting us banned from the rink.”
“Sounds intense.”
“He means well.” Clay rolled onto his side, propping his head up with one hand. “Anyway, do you think your brother’s gonna get an offer? Elliot’s a junior. He’s gotta be on their radar.”
The zipper on my duffel stuck again. I left it. “Probably.”
Folding the rest of my gear into neat stacks on the small dresser gave my hands something to do.
I let my face settle into something bored, the kind of expression that made people like Clay lose interest. Clay’s voice kept going, some running monologue about the tournament, but it all blurred into background noise.
I couldn’t shake the memory of how Aleksey had jerked me off in the dark and then walked off like I was nothing, leaving me to sit in the sticky mess while he went to sleep. Any sane person would be livid.
But my anger felt hollow. It kept getting swallowed up by a sharp, involuntary thrill every time I remembered the tight grip of Aleksey’s hand on my dick.
“I hope Coach puts us on the power play,” Clay said, kicking his shoes off. They hit the wall with a dull thud. “You and me, we could run the offense. Your brother Elliot’s great and all, but the scouts probably know his game already. It’s our turn.”
“Sure.”
Every footstep out in the hotel hallway snapped my attention to the door, making my shoulders go rigid. I was waiting for a knock. Waiting for Aleksey’s voice.
I tried to think of it as simply being a new found habit, something I’d picked up living at the Ice House to avoid getting blindsided by my housemates.
But the tight band across my ribs knew better.
I wanted Aleksey to find me. Wanted proof that the bus hadn’t just been a quick, dirty fix for him, that I’d crawled under his skin the same way he’d burrowed under mine.
And if Aleksey knocked on that door, it meant he was just as rattled, just as hooked on the total loss of control as I was.
“Hey, are you listening?” Clay leaned forward, oblivious to the fact that I was secretly wishing our door would get kicked open. “You look completely spaced out.”
I grabbed my wash bag. “It’s been a long bus ride. I’m gonna grab a quick shower,” I said, motioning a thumb at the bathroom.
Slipping into the hotel bathroom, the lock clicked shut behind me as the harsh smell of industrial bleach stung my nose.
Taking off my hoodie, then my cum-splattered t-shirt, I wadded the shirt into a ball and shoved it deep into the bottom of my bag so nobody would ever see it. Stripping off my jeans came next.
I looked down. Dark, fingerprint-shaped marks mottled my thighs where Aleksey’s rough hands had gripped me.
Pressing my thumb against the darkest bruise sent a sharp ache radiating outward, dragging me right back to the hidden aisle of the bus. Aleksey hadn’t bothered to be careful, taking what he wanted right in front of half the team. The sheer, casual possession of it should have repulsed me.
I cranked the shower handle all the way to hot, letting the rush of water drown out the muffled sound of Clay still talking through the bathroom door.
Stepping under the scalding spray, I worked a bar of cheap hotel soap over my skin.
I scrubbed methodically, trying to wash off the sticky evidence and reclaim some basic level of baseline sanity.
But my hands eventually stopped moving. I stood there letting the water beat down on the back of my neck, catching myself staring at the locked bathroom door.
A ridiculous, vivid image pushed into my head: Aleksey shoving past Clay in the hotel room, forcing this door open, and pinning me against the wet tile to finish what he started. I closed my eyes, my jaw clenching tight.
I wanted it. However, obviously, the door stayed shut.
I turned the water off, dried my hair with a scratchy white towel, and pulled on my team-issued gear with stiff movements.
Late that afternoon, the team bussed over to the arena for our pre-game walkthrough. The locker room was mostly quiet while I laced up my custom skates, guys already dialing into their individual pre-game rituals.
I kept my head down and went through the motions, but my actual focus was off the ice. I was just waiting for the chance to track down the guy who’d shredded my composure back on the bus.
The rubber matting in the tunnel gave way to fresh ice. Cold air hit my face, metallic with Zamboni exhaust. Finding number forty-four in the scatter of maroon jerseys took no effort. I’d gotten good at tracking Aleksey’s location the way you’d track a storm system on the periphery.
He was already running drills, skating past the blue line with that efficient, economical stride, the long reach of his stick eating up the ice.
Perez skated up beside him and said something.
Aleksey tapped his stick on the ice, smirking.
Not a single glance slid my way. The dark bus aisle might never have happened, for all the attention he gave it.
A tight, hollow feeling gnawed at me, but I buried it immediately. Shifting my weight forward, I leaned my forearms across the top of my stick, letting my posture project nothing but indifference.
If he was going to pretend I didn’t exist, then I could play the exact same game.
The sharp cracks of hockey sticks slapping the ice filled the quiet in my head, right up until a hand clapped my shoulder.
Elliot glided to a stop beside me, catching my arm to steer me toward the boards and away from the main warm-up drill.
“Hey. You with us?”
“Yeah. Still waking up.”
Elliot leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Look, I warned you about Zotov yesterday, and Trenton just told me he sat next to you on the bus. Was he trying to start something? Get inside your head?”
I worried my bottom lip with my teeth, fighting a very sudden, dark urge to laugh.
Aleksey had absolutely gotten inside my head. He was living there at this point. His methods just involved a lot less trash talk and a lot more jerking off than my brother was picturing.
I met Elliot’s gaze and lied with effortless, unhurried ease. “No. He just needed a seat. The front was full.”
“Don’t let him push you around.” Elliot crossed his arms, his posture shifting into a familiar, coach-like stance as he glared across the ice at Aleksey. “There are scouts in the stands tonight.”
“He’s not messing with me. Leave it alone, El.”
“Dad’s tracking the stats online, Karter.” Elliot tapped his stick against the ice. “So we need to be dialed in. No stupid mistakes.”
Staring at a black scuff on the rubber floor, I nodded. “I know.”
“Ignore him. He’s an asshole trying to drag you down.”
“I can handle Aleksey. He leaves me alone.”
Elliot sighed, clapping my shoulder again. “Alright. I was just checking in.”
I pushed off the boards, leaving Elliot behind, and carved a sharp, fast curve into the ice. Game time. If Aleksey was going to play the unbothered, disinterested senior, my only objective was to skate hard enough to make it impossible for him to look away.