Chapter 13
Damien
The crowd in the away arena is loud enough to shake the ice.
Four months ago, barely anybody outside of Market City gave a shit about the Tigers unless they were betting against us.
We were decent enough to fill seats at home, but nobody traveled to see us.
Nobody screamed our names as we walked into rival arenas.
Now, everything is different.
The second we step onto the ice for warmups, the crowd erupts. People are holding signs with our names on them. Some of them are ridiculous enough that I have to actively stop myself from reading them.
ATLAS + DAMIEN FOREVER.
KISS HIM AGAIN!!!
HARROW CAN RUIN MY LIFE.
That last one makes Atlas laugh hard enough that he nearly misses a pass from Carter. “This city gets me.”
I crack my neck, trying to ease some of the tension in my shoulders. “You’re deeply embarrassing.”
Atlas skates closer to me and leans down to my ear. “You like me anyway.”
A few people in the crowd whoop at our closeness.
I roll my eyes and skate away before he can keep talking. Unfortunately, that only gives me a better view of him.
Atlas looks good tonight.
The arena lights catch the gold trim of his jersey while he skates backward near center ice, smiling and waving toward a section of screaming fans like he was born for this kind of attention. Maybe he was. Everything about him looks effortless under bright lights.
The confidence and charm, the easy way he moves through crowds and noise and pressure like none of it touches him…I hate how attractive I find it.
Atlas catches me staring from across the ice, and his grin widens immediately.
Then he blows me a kiss.
I flip him off.
The fans nearby lose their minds.
The game starts aggressively. The Pirates always play rough against us, but tonight feels worse than usual because the rivalry has gotten bigger this season—bigger crowds, more media attention, more pressure…more reasons to start stupid fights.
Exactly ten minutes into the first period, one of the Pirates defensemen shoves me hard into the boards after the whistle. I shove back immediately.
“Cry about it,” he snaps.
“Fuck you.”
He grabs my jersey. I grab his. Suddenly we’re chest to chest while the refs skate toward us, yelling.
The guy swings first, with a weak punch that probably wouldn’t even wake me up.
But it’s enough to start something. I handle it fine. Better than fine, actually. Months ago I probably would have snapped, but now I just drive him backward and keep him pinned long enough for the refs to separate us before it turns into a full fight.
The crowd screams louder. Blood drips slowly from the split on my chin where his glove caught me.
And behind me, someone wolf whistles.
I turn around in disbelief to see Atlas leaning against the boards, grinning like an idiot.
“That’s my boyfriend!” he yells.
I actually laugh, even while wiping blood off my jaw.
The ref looks deeply unimpressed.
Atlas looks delighted with himself.
“You’re insane,” I tell him while skating past.
“You looked hot!”
“Shut up.” But my smile stays anyway.
The Pirates’ captain, Eric Larson, says something to Atlas that looks like a threat.
Atlas shoots him a glare, but doesn’t say anything.
By the third period, the game is tied. Everybody’s exhausted. The arena noise has become constant now, a living thing pressing down over the ice while both teams throw everything they have left into the final minutes.
I feel Atlas before I see him. I know where he is instinctively, the same way I know where the puck is without needing to look directly at it. The chemistry between us has stopped feeling explainable. It just exists.
Carter passes to Atlas.
Atlas immediately shifts around a defender before sending the puck straight toward me. I catch it cleanly. The opening appears for half a second. That’s all I need.
I shoot. The puck slams into the back of the net so hard the sound cuts through the entire arena.
Holy shit.
Everything explodes—the crowd, the bench, my teammates surging onto the ice. The goal horn screams through the arena while adrenaline crashes through me hard enough to make my vision blur for a second.
We won.
Holy shit.
We actually won.
I barely have time to process it before Atlas crashes into me.
His arms lock around my waist hard enough to lift me slightly off the ice while he laughs directly into my ear.
“You did that,” he says breathlessly.
I can’t stop smiling. I probably look insane. The rest of the team piles around us, yelling and shoving and celebrating while cameras flash brightly enough to blind somebody.
Then Atlas grabs my face and kisses me for the whole world to see. Usually, when we kiss in public, there’s still some awareness underneath it—of the cameras, the performance, the crowd.
This time, I don’t think about any of that. Not even a little, because Atlas is looking at me like I just hung the moon, and my chest feels so painfully full that I stop caring who’s watching.
So I kiss him back. Properly.
Not for the fans or the cameras, and definitely not because Joanna told us to sell the relationship.
I kiss him because I want to. Because we just won the biggest game of the season and Atlas is smiling against my mouth like he can barely contain how happy he is.
Because somewhere along the way, loving him stopped feeling fake.
The crowd screams louder around us. Neither of us pulls away for a long time.
Atlas finally breaks the kiss, breathing hard, his hands still holding my face like I’m something precious. His eyes are bright and warm, like I’m the only thing he sees in this ocean of people.
“I’m so proud of you,” he says softly.
The words hit harder than the winning goal.
Nobody has ever looked at me like this before.
Not with pride.
Not with affection that asks for nothing in return.
My throat tightens.
So instead of saying something embarrassing, I grab the front of his jersey and kiss him again.
Atlas laughs softly against my mouth.
And underneath the arena lights, with the crowd screaming around us…
I realize I’m completely fucked.
The energy after the game is unreal. The locker room is chaos, everybody yelling over each other while music blasts through the speakers loud enough to shake the walls.
Patrick is already half undressed and standing on a bench screaming about how he always believed in us, which is complete bullshit because he spent the entire first half of the season threatening to fake his own death every time we lost.
I barely hear any of it because Atlas keeps touching me. Every few seconds, his hand brushes my back or his shoulder bumps mine or his fingers curl briefly around the back of my neck like he needs to reassure himself I’m actually here.
And every single time it happens, my chest tightens more.
Something shifted between us tonight. The kiss on the ice felt different.
Real. Dangerously real.
Atlas is still looking at me like I hung the moon when Joanna finally herds us toward the buses that will take us back to the hotel.
“You two are sharing the suite upstairs,” she says, looking between us like she knows a delicious secret. “You earned it tonight.”
Atlas grins immediately. “Hell yeah.”
I roll my eyes, but my stomach flips anyway.
Being alone with him right now feels dangerous, like we’re both standing too close to something neither of us can walk back from.
The ride to the hotel is loud and chaotic, but Atlas stays pressed against my side the entire time, his arm slung lazily across the back of my seat while our teammates keep replaying clips of the winning goal on somebody’s phone.
I watch the way Atlas dropped his stick and immediately skated to me.
The way he ripped off his helmet and pushed back mine to get to my mouth.
Eventually, Carter shouts from three rows back, “You guys are disgustingly in love.”
I flip him off without looking back. Atlas just laughs quietly beside me. That laugh stays stuck in my head the entire elevator ride up to the suite.
The room is ridiculous. Huge windows overlook the city skyline, soft golden lights stretching endlessly outside, while the suite itself looks more expensive than some apartments I’ve lived in.
There’s champagne, a giant bed, and a massive Jacuzzi built into the bathroom.
“Oh, that’s dangerous,” Atlas says, eyeing the hot tub.
The nervous energy between us builds slowly while we move around the suite. Atlas tosses his bag near the couch while I loosen my tie, both of us quieter than usual now that we’re finally alone. The adrenaline from the game still buzzes under my skin…and so does something else.
Atlas watches me from across the room while I pull my jacket off.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
The question feels heavier than it should.
“Yeah, I’m great.”
He nods once. Neither of us moves for a second.
Then Atlas clears his throat slightly. “Do you wanna?—”
“Yes.”
He blinks. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“The answer’s still yes.”
That finally makes him laugh, and some of the tension breaks.
Atlas convinces me to join him in the fancy tub. He turns the jets on too aggressively and nearly floods the bathroom while I sit on the counter laughing at him. He keeps pretending to be deeply offended every time I mock him for struggling with basic technology.
Eventually, he fills the tub and we end up in it together.
The hot water loosens the lingering tension in my muscles, steam curling softly around the room while Atlas settles behind me with his legs on either side of mine.
I lean back against his chest without thinking. That’s becoming a problem—how easy this is, how natural.
Atlas wraps his arms loosely around my waist while the Jacuzzi hums softly around us. Atlas’s phone is playing a random soft jazz playlist.
Neither of us talks for a while. We just sit there. Warm water. Slow breathing.
Atlas’s fingers trace lazy patterns against my abs. It feels intimate in a way that has nothing to do with sex.