Chapter 21 - Karter
Ididn’t need Coach Corby’s morning update to know Aleksey was gone.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, waking me up to the chill of the drafty attic room. Glancing over at the corner, I saw Matt’s bed was already made since he always bailed early for breakfast. So I sat up, my back cracking after a restless night of sleep, and grabbed my phone.
I opened my messages first, desperately hoping for a response. But the long string of frantic texts I’d sent Aleksey last night—begging him to turn around after he walked out the door—just sat there unread.
Swiping away from our dead thread, I opened the official team athletics app.
Coach Corby kept his roster update brief: Aleksey Zotov has resigned from the program, effective immediately. Stepping away to address a family financial situation. We wish him the best.
My phone dropped onto my mattress. Half the team would read ‘family financial situation’ and picture a scholarship player who couldn’t afford to stay, and technically, that wasn’t wrong.
But I knew the real reason. Aleksey hadn’t stepped away; he’d been shoved, and Hastings had handed him a script on the way out the door.
I stared at the thin wall separating my room from his. I would usually hear him moving around, whether it was the creak of Aleksey’s mattress or him muttering when his alarm went off. But this morning, the other side of the wall was dead quiet.
Staring at the blank plaster did nothing except drag back up all the memories: the way his face shut down every time he tried to ice me out, the flat tone he used when he reminded me what Hastings would do to a guy with no backup plan.
Aleksey had spelled it out to me a dozen times, and I’d nodded along and then kissed him anyway, because wanting him had always been louder than thinking straight. Now his scholarship was gone, his draft spot was dead, and the only thing my stubborn ass had managed to do was prove him right.
I reached across and rubbed the bite mark on my shoulder, pressing into the scar tissue until it ached.
A dull pressure locked up behind my ribs.
No more weight pinning me to the mattress.
No more rough grip on my hip. The silence in the room pressed in from all sides until breathing felt like work.
I pulled a hoodie over my head and stepped into the hallway. The old floorboards groaned under my weight, and the usual noise of the house, the low chatter, the distant thud of a door closing, cut off the second I cleared my door.
For months now, my last name and Elliot’s captain patch had bought me a thin layer of tolerance in this place. Nodding in the stairwell, maybe a few words here and there. Nothing warm, but functional.
That layer was gone.
Angel Perez stood near the top of the stairs with three other guys. They were talking fast in hushed voices, but the second my door clicked shut, the conversation died off.
Four sets of eyes locked onto me.
Perez held his ground, his upper lip curling before he shook his head and looked away. One of the guys behind him shifted his weight.
“Hey,” I started, taking a step forward. “Did he text you after he left?”
Perez let out a short, ugly laugh and finally met my eyes. “Are you serious right now?”
“I just want to know if he got to the station.”
“He’s gone, Johnston.” Perez jerked his chin toward the stairs. “That’s the whole point. You don’t get to check in on him anymore.”
Before I could answer, Perez turned his back and headed down the wooden stairs, the other three falling in behind him without a single glance back. Retreating into my empty bedroom, I snatched my phone off the bed just to have something to look at.
A voicemail from my mother sat in the queue from late last night. I hit play. Her polished country club voice asked about my classes, chatted about the weather, kept things light in that practiced, distant tone she used to skate over rough patches, and I deleted it before she finished her sentence.
I pressed my thumbs into my eyes until spots bloomed against the dark. Waiting around for Aleksey to walk back through that door was going to drive me insane, and option A was let him go, let the resignation stick, let Hastings win.
I couldn’t do it.
If I’d helped bury him by refusing to back down, then I’d unbury him the only way the Johnstons knew how. Throw money and influence at the problem until Hastings flinched.
Grabbing my keys, I headed downstairs and walked down the street to where my car was parked in the frat house lot. It was the only place I knew of that I could get total privacy for the phone call I was about to make.
I slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut against the wind outside.
Starting the engine, I chewed hard on my bottom lip to steady my racing nerves. As the car’s Bluetooth connected, the loud dial tone for my father’s private number came through the speakers.
The ringing stopped.
“Karter. I’m in between meetings,” my father answered, his smooth boardroom voice filling the car. “What is it?”
“Hey, Dad. Sorry to interrupt,” I started, forcing a polite, casual tone. I needed to play this perfectly. “How are the merger negotiations going?”
“We are finalizing the paperwork tomorrow. Get to the point, please.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Right. Umm, there is a situation with the hockey team. One of my teammates, Aleksey Zotov, just got hit with a totally baseless Title IX complaint. Trenton Wright filed it because he is pissed about ice time. Aleksey is a good guy, Dad, but he cannot afford to fight the administration. I was hoping you could make a call to Mr. Hastings. Maybe send one of the firm’s lawyers to look into it? ”
An inaudible sigh came through the speakers. “I am already fully aware of the situation. Gerry Hastings called me at six o’clock this morning.”
My grip tightened on the wheel. Hastings. Of course, the Athletic Director had the major university donors on speed dial.
“Then you know they are railroading him,” I pressed, trying to keep my voice steady. “We need to help Aleksey.”
“We are not helping anyone,” my father stated flatly. “And you can drop the concerned teammate routine. Gerry gave me the full context of the rumors Trenton is spreading about you and this boy. I’ve already had my people look into Mr. Zotov.”
My heart hammered against my ribs; my dad knew. Hastings and Trenton’s father had just outed me to him.
I gripped the steering wheel and braced for the yelling, the disgust, the explosive anger I was sure would follow. But it did not come. Instead, my father sounded incredibly calm.
For one dizzying second, a spark of hope flared in my gut.
If my dad already knew the truth about me seeing a guy, and he wasn’t screaming...
maybe I wouldn’t even have to have the hardest conversation of my life.
Maybe I didn’t need to explain myself. If he wasn’t losing his mind, maybe he was going to accept me.
“I took care of it,” my father continued. “I had a very clear conversation with Gerry and Trenton’s father. The complaint is sealed. The rumors will be handled quietly. Our family name will not be dragged into a locker room scandal right as we begin backing a major conservative Senate campaign.”
My hope completely died, leaving a hollow pit in my stomach. My father was not accepting anything—he was just managing a PR crisis.
“It is not a rumor, Dad,” I mumbled.
“It is an ugly phase,” my father corrected. “A deviant embarrassment. And you will bury it immediately. This boy is a parasite, Karter. He was brought over from Russia by a mother who cleans floors for a living. They have absolutely nothing. I’n sure he used your naivety to secure his own footing.”
A dry, humorless scoff scraped out of my throat, but before I could fire back, my father kept talking.
“You want to know the real mistake? I let you move into that drafty Ice House in the first place. Living in a place like that when the athletic dorms were already paid for.” A pause crackled through the speakers, and when his voice returned, something almost human surfaced beneath his boardroom tone.
“I respected it at first. Thought you sticking it out there showed a bit of character. Even told your mother you had more guts than I gave you credit for, slumming it with the scholarship boys just to prove a point.”
The leather of the steering wheel creaked under my grip.
“But that was my error,” he said, the brief warmth vanishing. “I should have shut that rebellion down on day one. If I had given you a firm hand from the start, it never would have come to this.”
“None of that is true!” I snapped back. “He isn’t like that. You don’t even know him. Aleks just gave up his entire future to keep my name out of that investigation.”
My father scoffed. “What future? He is a minor investment by the college that did not pan out. You are a Johnston. And you belong on the ice, performing at the level we expect, not playing house with some nobody.”
“He lost his draft spot for me,” I pleaded, my voice cracking. “I am not just going to abandon him.”
“You will do exactly that,” he ordered, anger breaking through the controlled surface he always seemed to present.
“I’ve spent my life building a certain image for this family.
If you refuse to distance yourself from this kid, I will freeze your accounts and pull your tuition.
And you will not see another dime from me. ”
My nails dug so hard into the steering wheel that they went numb. I was practically begging for my father’s love, and he was threatening my bank account.
“Dad, please. Just listen to me.”
“Fix this,” my father warned. “Cut ties, focus on the tournament, and act like you belong to this family. Do not call me back until you have.”
The line clicked dead.
I stared at the dashboard screen, letting the silence of the car settle over me. My dad did not care that I was hurting. He only cared about protecting his political investments, and I was officially a liability.