Chapter 3
KAINOA “KAI” MASON-MAIAU
When I step into the gym, I know I’m being watched.
The reasons are always the same. When they start to stare and how long they do it for gives it away every time.
When it’s lust, their stares linger the moment I take off my hoodie.
When it’s suspicion, their stares probe at my every move the moment I start working out.
As disturbing as it always feels, it barely fazes me today.
What gets under my skin is the way Diana treated me in class on Monday.
“It was so weird, man.” I crank the cable handle back with a grunt. “Usually, people badmouth me or try to get in my pants. But Diana? I don’t get it. One moment she’s nice to me, and then the next, she’s treating me like I have a disease.”
“Why are you so surprised?” Heavy breaths saw in and out of Rowan’s lips as he lifts dumbbell weights. “You know guys like us are nothing to girls like her.”
I cock my head, letting go of the cable handle. “Remind me why the fuck we’re friends again?”
Rowan smirks. Sweat beads across the hockey captain’s lips. “Because I let your cheap ass use my Prime account?”
“He’s right, Kai.” Luke rises from the weightlifting bench and swings his arm around my shoulders. “We can’t provoke our only source of survival. We gotta tread carefully in his presence. Avoid all eye contact. Make no sudden movements.”
Rowan drops the dumbbells with a glare. “Keep talking like that, and my next workout will have you barreling into that wall.”
Luke laughs, smirking smugly. “See what I mean?”
Even though they both play defense, Luke and Rowan are opposites in every way.
Luke King is the guy you bring home to your parents.
He disarms every person in his vicinity with his dimpled smile, tousled, blond ‘90s haircut, and lake-blue eyes that crinkle together whenever he laughs. That’s why it’s so much scarier when he’s pissed off.
Luke is tall and ripped enough to do something about it.
His knuckles are still scraped up from all the fights he got into last season.
Rowan Kaneshiro, on the other hand, is the shadow to Luke’s light.
Slightly taller, yet just as built, Rowan’s black hair sweeps back in thick curls that make him look like a prince.
He has the calm, steady wisdom of one. But the comparison ends there because Rowan takes no shit from anyone.
Not with his sarcastic, smirking mouth that rarely holds back.
It’s what makes him the type of captain people are too intimidated to challenge and speak back to.
I shove Luke away, making him laugh.
“Seriously, man! Forget about Diana,” he scoffs. “So what if she treated you all weird? There are a ton of girls who wouldn’t. Look.”
He grabs my shoulders, panning me left and right.
Girls around the gym toss suggestive smiles my way.
At this hour every Friday, half the girls at DHU like working out here because that’s when the hockey team have their early morning workouts before their late day practice to accommodate everyone’s academic schedule.
Unlike other Division I programs, DHU is hellbent on giving us a solid education in case we never go pro.
A blonde and freckled girl suddenly strides up to us. “Hey, are you guys going to the Wing and Flame?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Luke promises.
Her eyes flit to me, and expectation flickers in them. “Are you?”
The annual Wing and Flame is a bonfire party that kicks off the start of the hockey season on October 1st. After the first game, the Griffins and the fans lose themselves in too many bottles of booze, too many plates of hot wings, and too many hookups.
I shrug and crack a small smile. “Maybe?”
“Well, I think you should.” She winks and walks past me, her hand subtly brushing against mine.
“Dude!” Luke smacks my chest. “See? Who needs to get all worked up about Diana Huang when you have girls like that coming up to you?”
I groan and rake my hands through my hair. “Look, after Andrea, I don’t—”
“Date.” Rowan playfully rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Yes, we know. We’ve heard the speech before. Luke and I won’t forget all the nights in first year when you were ranting about her after she cheated on you.”
“She didn’t just cheat on me with anyone. She cheated on me with that asshole.”
Simon Valdis. The one behind my loss and my downfall.
“You don’t have to date anyone. You can just hang out for stress relief,” Luke proposes. “Judging by what you’re shouldering this year, I think that’s exactly what you might need.”
I let myself consider the idea for a split second before shaking my head. “No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Because my life is complicated. My relationship with my family is complicated. The pressure to score a second chance of getting signed with a hockey team before graduation makes everything fucking complicated.
I sigh, rubbing a hand over my face. “The answer is still no, Luke. So you can stop sneaking condoms into my pockets.”
“You gotta be safe out there, man. No glove, no love.”
“Hey!”
I dart around. A short guy with a buzzcut and beady brown eyes glares at me. He nods at the cable machine. “You done with this?”
I smile apologetically. “Uh…actually, I’m not.”
The guy rolls his eyes and snorts. “Come on, you can cut the act.”
My smile drops just as my entire body goes stiff. “What are you trying to say?”
He scowls at the muscles cording my arms and my legs. “Everyone knows you being in here is just for show.”
His accusation brings me back to the day I lost everything in first year. My contract to play for the Winnipeg Narwhals. The confidence and the faith my team and the entire student body had in me.
I still remember exactly how it happened.
It started with my phone blowing up. Photos of me taking my anxiety meds in my locker cubby were circulated online. The caption was everywhere: “Kai Mason-Maiau, a star athlete or a doping fraud?”
The rumors weren’t even the worst part. It was everything that came after.
“Mr. Mason-Maiau, please hold still.” The nurse forces my arm down and positions the needle over my vein.
My jaw tenses. Tears burn my eyes as I stare at the buzzing fluorescent beams lighting up the DHU medical clinic.
The media pounds at the doors outside. They call my name so loudly; I swear the walls are rattling.
A cold sweat breaks down my spine. My heart tenses.
Suddenly, I’m sinking back into that time when nurses poked and prodded at me to find a drug that was never there, when journalists questioned me to make me confess to rumors that were never true.
It’s been three years, and it still feels like I’m reliving those days over and over.
Buzzcut stares me down, his suspicions fueled by my breath coming out short and my hands shaking at my sides.
Rowan and Luke step in front of me.
“At least he’s here putting in the effort,” Rowan snaps. “Can’t say the same about you, though.”
“I’m doing more than he is,” Buzzcut scoffs.
“Are you?” Rowan challenges. “Because it looks like you just came here to run your mouth.”
“Fuck you—”
Luke laughs. He shoves his hand against Buzzcut’s chest, pushing him back.
“You take one step closer, and your next workout will have all of your bones popping out of your mouth. Now, you don’t want that…do you, buddy?”
Buzzcut goes white. He gulps, shaking his head.
Luke nods.
“I thought so.” His smile falls, and his blue eyes darken. “Walk. Away.”
Buzzcut glares at me before he stalks off. My breath unhitches. I slouch against the cable machine, fighting to ground myself.
Luke claps a hand on my shoulder. “You alright there, man?”
I nod. “Y-Yeah. Thanks for defending me.”
“Hey, it’s not just shit we do on the ice, bro.”
“Don’t listen to that dick, alright?” Rowan claps his hand on my other shoulder, raising me back to my full height. “You know who you are, and so do we. That’s all that matters.”
I rub my hand over my jaw. “Do you think that’s why Diana was acting so weird around me?”
Luke shakes his head. “Come on, Kai. Diana Huang has too much shit on her plate to mull over fake news from three years ago.”
He has a point. Diana has always been untouchable. As weird as she was in class, Diana has no reason to give a fuck about me.
“You’re right,” I relent.
“Of course I am,” Luke boasts.
“Hey…” Rowan draws in close. “You remembered to take your meds this morning, right?”
“Yeah, I did.” I smile at him, relieved and grateful for how much he always cares. “Thanks for checking in.”
Rowan bumps my arm before he looks at the time on his watch. “Alright, guys, we gotta get to practice soon, or else Coach is going to lose his shit if we’re late.”