Chapter 20 - Aleksey #2
But tearing the paper up meant Karter got dragged straight into the fallout.
A public Title IX scandal would stick a target on his back for the whole campus.
Every bit of dirt they wanted to throw at me would splatter onto him.
On the ice, my whole job was taking the hits so my teammates did not have to.
I was not about to step out of the way and let Karter take this one for me.
I stared at the blank signature line, then folded the crisp paper in half and shoved it into my jacket pocket.
Standing up, I walked toward the equipment room to grab my skates. I had to do something, anything, just to delay walking back to the dorms for as long as I physically could. At the rink door, I swiped my keycard. The scanner flashed a dead red light.
I tried again. Same flat blink. Nothing.
Locked out. Whether Corby had filed the suspension paperwork or Hastings had moved quickly to kill my access himself, the result was the same. The one place I knew how to survive was sealed shut.
With nowhere else to go and no way to avoid the reality of my situation anymore, I dropped onto the concrete steps outside the arena. The bitter wind stung my face as the last gray light bled out of the sky.
I pressed my phone to my ear. The static crackle of the long-distance connection to Detroit filled the silence.
The call rang exactly three times. My mother always answered on the third ring.
“Lekha?” she said.
Hearing her use my old nickname brought a sudden ache to the back of my throat. It was a familiar piece of home, but sitting out in the dark at my absolute lowest point made the sound of it feel heavy as a stone. Her voice was thick with sleep and worry.
“You are calling too late,” she said. “What time is it there? Aren’t you sleeping?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m done, Mama. I’m coming home.”
“Home? Sweetheart, what happened?”
My elbows dug into my knees. The thought of walking back into our small Detroit apartment, smelling the bleach from her double shifts, and watching her stretch every dollar until it screamed hit me like a brick. But sitting there in the cold, I could not lie to her.
“I messed up,” I said quietly.
“How did you mess up? Did you lose the scholarship?”
“I got distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
My gaze drifted out across the empty parking lot. “Someone. I met someone.”
I tried to keep it vague. No names. But I was running on absolute zero sleep, and the filter in my head was completely shot. Lying took energy I just did not have anymore.
“And this person made you lose everything?”
“No. It is my fault.” I dragged my free hand down my face. “I let myself want something I couldn’t have.”
Silence stretched across the line.
“Who are they?” she asked.
How do you even explain Karter?
“Someone from a completely different world. Rich. Entitled.” A harsh breath punched out of me. “But... he doesn’t give up. And he does not flinch when I push him away. And when I am with him, I stop thinking about the next bad thing. He makes me forget to be careful.”
I froze. I just said he.
My hand clamped around the phone, tight enough to crack the phone case. Squeezing my eyes shut against the wind, I braced for the dead silence to explode into a massive freak-out.
But my mom just let out a soft sound, a click in the back of her throat like a key finding its groove after years in the same lock.
“He?” she asked.
The wind bit at my face. “Yeah, Mama. He.”
“Okay,” she said. The word was soft, but there was zero judgment in her tone. “And this boy... he is the reason you are walking away?”
I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat.
“I scrubbed floors for years to get you out of this neighborhood, Lekha,” she continued, the deep exhaustion bleeding through the phone. “If you are giving up your future for him... this boy had better be worth it.”
A single tear tracked hot down my freezing cheek. She knew. She had caught my slip, and she was not pushing me away.
“He is worth it,” I whispered. “That is why I have to walk away. To protect him.”
“Oh, Lekha...”
“I’m sorry, Mama, I’ve gotta go.” I rasped the words out fast.
Hanging up quickly spared her from hearing my voice break.
The cold soaked through my thin jacket until my arms felt almost numb.
I stared at the empty parking lot and was just about to start the long, freezing walk back to the dorms when a familiar black SUV turned off the main road and pulled into the lot.
The headlights washed over me, blinding me for a second before the engine cut off.
A vehicle door slammed. Elliot emerged from the car. His breath puffed white in the air as he marched straight toward the concrete steps.
He had clearly come looking for me.
I stood up. Shifting my weight, I planted my feet flat on the pavement and dropped my hands to my sides.
Every muscle in my body coiled, ready to take a punch.
Honestly, I welcomed it. After the string of selfish, garbage decisions I had made over the last few weeks to drag myself and Karter into this mess, I fully deserved to get a tooth knocked loose.
Besides, a real physical fight would be a relief compared to the pain of the phone call I had just had with my mother.
Elliot stopped two feet away. He glared at me, his shoulders heaving under his hoodie.
He had the exact same eye shape as his brother, but the similarities ended right there.
Karter’s hazel eyes were always warm, looking at me like I mattered.
However, Elliot’s blue-gray stare was entirely guarded, watching me like a stray dog he could not trust.
“My brother.” Elliot’s voice dripped with absolute disbelief. “You and my damn brother! Are you kidding me?”
I held his stare and let a dark, unapologetic smirk surface. “It took you what, three days of avoiding him to find me and state the obvious? Yeah, Elliot. Me and your brother. And I am not going to apologize for it.”
His hands balled into fists. For a second, I thought he was going to swing. Instead, he let out a harsh breath, shook his head, and sat heavily onto the concrete steps.
“I told him to stay away from you,” Elliot muttered, staring out at the dark lot. “I told him guys like you would just drag him right down.”
“You were right,” I said, but I did not sit down next to him. I stayed standing, keeping my distance.
Elliot shifted, resting his elbows on his knees. “Karter is honestly going to try to defend you. He seriously thinks you are going to fight this investigation with him.”
“I am not,” I said flatly.
Elliot looked up, his brow furrowing. “Huh? What?”
“I am signing the withdrawal form tomorrow. I am stepping down. Karter stays right out of it.”
Elliot stared at me, trying to figure out my angle. He probably expected me to use his family name to save my own skin. “You are just quitting?”
“I am surviving, so I’m out,” I corrected him. “Just like you wanted.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute. The wind whipped across the empty lot, biting through my jacket while Elliot just stared at the concrete, as if he were turning the whole thing over in his head.
“Trenton is having a field day in the group chat,” Elliot said, his tone turning disgusted. “He keeps posting these cryptic jokes about taking out the trash. Basically, he’s taking credit for getting you benched.”
My hands curled into fists inside my pockets. Trenton was not even trying to hide it.
“Honest to God, he thinks he is untouchable,” Elliot spat, his voice dropping low.
“Like he can use my brother as collateral damage just to weed out the guys taking his ice time.” Elliot stood back up and brushed the dirt off his track pants.
Stepping closer, he got right in my face.
“I do not like you, Zotov. I think you are a fucking asshole and a walking disaster.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I replied.
“But I hate being played even more,” Elliot said. “Trenton thinks he runs this team. But I am going to remind him who actually wears the captain’s letter.”
“You are going after him?”
“I am handling my locker room,” Elliot corrected. He pointed a finger at me. “You just focus on keeping your distance from Karter. Do not make this harder on him than it already is.”
“I am leaving tonight,” I told him.
Elliot gave a stiff, single nod. He turned around and walked back to his SUV without another word. He was not offering to save me, and we were definitely not friends. But he was not going to let Trenton burn the whole house down either.
The walk back to the Ice House was a cold, miserable blur. I took the wooden stairs two at a time, ignoring the loud creaks as I climbed them. Pushing into my room, I grabbed my beat-up duffel bag from the closet and tossed it onto my bed.