Page 8

Brad

“ A lex, get fucking moving!” Tommy, the freshman vice captain and top dickhead, shouted as we soared down the ice.

Alex had the puck, and we skated in line as I spun around a forward to get us thirty feet closer.

It would be the perfect shot. We just needed to get past two more fuckers, and we were in.

Shouts bounced around the high ceiling of the Redhill Kites rink, music drowning out any thoughts as the crowd slapped the barrier and cheered us on.

Scouts were here, the stands were full, and this was our fucking chance.

There was nothing there but the puck, Alex, and the scrape of the ice.

We glided like fucking swans, and in seconds, we were there.

Four minutes left of the match, and we were tied. This was the second of three games we needed to win to get us to the finals. The Delmer Knights shit on us the last time they beat us, and our pride was on the line.

Alex angled his stick, the puck flying across the ice, just dodging a defenseman as I took the lead.

Twenty-five feet, fifteen feet. I lined it up, everything vanishing except for the puck and the absolute tank filling the net. Eyes on the top left corner, I barely heard Alex’s yell and the slam behind me.

Alex and I had been practicing the maneuver since we were five, and nothing could stop me as I lowered my elbow, skidding that last few feet to get close enough to shunt the puck.

People were screaming before it even got past the goalie’s helmet.

As soon as I hit it, I knew it was a goal. Because I was just that fucking good.

The second it hit the back of the net, the music exploded in the stadium, and I spun on the tip of my skates straight around to grin at Alex, already soaring toward him.

There was no fucking way he wasn’t getting a hug this time.

Our teamwork was always the fucking best, and we were sticking together. The Wranglers scout would have clocked that move, seen how good we were together. And no matter which scout gave us offers at the end of the year, we were a package deal.

My excitement stuttered as I scanned the rink, searching for Alex amongst our white and red uniforms as the guys swarmed me with cheers.

My brow furrowed, that same tension building in my chest that came whenever I was away from him.

We were meant to be independent and whatever, like Alex said he wanted, but it wasn’t right if I didn’t know where he was.

My heart flew to my throat as he crumpled on the ice next to the barrier, an asshole Knight sailing off after knocking him down.

My knee-jerk reaction was to get to him. If someone had injured him, I’d start a fucking riot.

The music was messing with my head, and the commentator’s voice boomed around the stadium as people rattled the barriers. I picked up speed, stick clutched to my chest, shooting toward him.

I couldn’t let him stay down. He had to be okay.

I was almost there, but Chase, one of our housemates, grabbed me in a bear hug, shouting in my ear about how amazing I was—which was totally obvious, but I needed to get to Alex.

By the time I’d shoved Chase off me and swerved around another teammate, Lance was already there, offering a hand. Alex pressed the top of his stick onto the ice and pushed himself up like an old man.

I was in the center of the rink, barely five feet away from them, but I was still too far. I needed to be next to him to make sure he wasn’t hurt.

But time was ticking away, and they were setting up the next faceoff.

“Nice one,” Tommy said as he skidded in behind, shooting me a nod before his attention sped to Alex and Lance.

Alex had lifted the cage of his helmet, smiling at Lance as he took hold of Alex’s arm, keeping him upright. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing as Lance’s thick-gloved hand wrapped around Alex’s, tugging him close enough that their raised face guards thumped off of each other.

As I drew nearer, Lance gave Alex one of those shit-eating grins that pissed me off. I’d always hated the way he looked at Alex. It wasn’t right. My best friend wasn’t a piece of meat to be torn into.

Lance said something to him, chuckling as Alex’s eyes widened.

And Alex blushed. Full-on blushed for him.

Something shot through me that had my stomach twisting and my heart-thumping. I didn't know what it was, but I put on a burst of speed to get to them.

I didn’t know why, but I had to get Lance the fuck off of Alex so he’d stop blushing like a glow stick.

“Get back here!” Coach yelled, and the moment was broken. The six of us skated back over to the barrier to gather around him—with Lance supporting Alex like he was going to fall if Lance wasn’t pressing against him.

“Not you, Owens, you’re on.” he said, jerking a thumb at me. “Alex, you’re off, Tommy, too. Lance, center. I need you in the faceoff.”

I wish I hadn’t seen the way Lance’s gloved hand danced down Alex’s arm, brushing his fingers over my best fucking friend’s.

That super uncomfortable feeling got stuck in my chest again. It happened whenever Alex hung out with other people, so I was used to it.

I was about to shuffle over and tell Lance to fuck off just as Lance took off his glove.

There was absolutely no way he needed to take it off. He shouldn’t even be doing that shit when we were mid-game.

But I watched in slow-fucking-mo as Lance stretched his bare fingers and swept away loose strands of hair that had got tangled in Alex’s helmet.

Right there. Right in front of fucking everyone.

I’d had the shit kicked out of me so many times on the ice that I was basically a pro when it came to taking damage.

But something hit me hard. A feeling of, like, wrongness as Alex looked at Lance like he’d built the entire, stupid, fucking world.

“Hey!” Tommy cut through their extra-special moment as he slid past them. “You going back into the play or are you just gonna keep ogling them?” Tommy’s scowl ran deep, but that wasn’t exactly unusual.

Alex’s head whipped around, his gaze bouncing from Tommy and straight to me.

He flinched back, his eyes wide, as if he was shocked. Like I’d caught him doing something wrong.

A familiar frown crossed his face, and he snapped down the cage just as I reached them.

It all happened so fast, I wasn’t sure what I saw, until Alex fucking ignored me.

His attention fled back to Lance as he whispered something to Alex, an even deeper shade of red flushing his cheeks. He gave Lance a nod as he got through the gate.

“Hey,” I shouted, reaching out for him.

Coach shook the barrier. “Owens! Get out there or I’m pulling you!”

I shot a glare at Lance, but he was just staring at Alex like a creep with a smile that made me want to throw my fist into that asshole’s face.

Seriously, what the hell was that?

***

We’d won, and it was fucking awesome. That last shot I scored before that weird shit with Alex was what cinched it for us.

Scouts were there, everyone had seen it, and it was another point toward me finally getting drafted. It had to be. It needed to be, or I was going to lose my chance to join the Wranglers with Alex.

Then it was our turn to rub it in the Knight's faces. And, man, their expressions were totally worth it. Plus, it helped me forget whatever happened between Alex and Lance.

Even though, you know, it was bugging me like crazy.

I mean, we won and everything, and that was seriously cool, but Alex? I couldn’t find him anywhere.

I’d been waiting for him to come off the ice after our pissing contest with the Knights.

Our ritual was seriously important. A pre-game hug just after we’d kitted up, and a post-game hug when we were drenched in sweat and wiped out. We’d done it every single game, for as long as I could remember. We needed it, so where had he gone?

I’d been wandering around the locker room, feeling like I needed to go into detective mode. Like searching for scraps of information, unearthing clues, asking witnesses so I could seek him out.

It got to the point where my sweat was drying and I was going to get a chill, so I had to have a shower without him. The showers at our home rink always burned like crazy, and I loved them that way. I'd come out all hot and toasty, and normally find Alex waiting for me on the bench. He didn't like showering with the other guys.

But, when I padded out into the main room, he still wasn't there. So, I'd decided I'd wait him out, but it had been nearly fifteen minutes. He had to come for a shower at some point, right?

If I didn’t get my hug, we wouldn’t win the next match.

Tommy slammed his bag down on the bench that ran through the center of the locker room, glaring at me.

He was one of the shortest guys on the team, and he’d broken his nose when he was a kid, sending it skewing off to the right. That was the only thing people noticed about him. Well, that, and his scowl.

If Lance had been all over Alex earlier, then maybe he'd know where he was, but I hated the idea that someone knew better than I did. Lance had been trying to poach Alex for ages.

“Where’s Lance?” I asked Tommy, who was still in his towel, and my eyes hopped over the scar that slashed across his chest.

His upper lip curled as his hand plunged into his bag. “How the fuck should I know? I’m not his fucking babysitter.”

I shouldn’t have bothered. Tommy was always wound up as shit, even when we won a game. It made him an absolute speed demon, and he was always determined to win, but he started the most fights out of any other guys on the team.

I didn't want to sit around with Tommy snapping at me. As I grabbed my hockey sweater from the bench, I suddenly had a thought. One I seriously didn’t like.

Like, I thought I’d maybe seen Lance and Alex kissing two nights ago at the party, but I was already tipsy, and I couldn’t really tell if the long-haired guy was Alex or one of the other freshmen who were always all over Lance. But Alex didn’t swing that way, so it totally didn’t make sense.

I dragged on my sweater as I threw myself out the main door. I don’t know why I was freaking out—I was totally fine with Alex having other friends. It was just I was the friend. I was his main friend, the top friend, his first ever friend. I had the No. 1 spot.

So why the hell wasn't he here?

Without the steam of the showers filling the locker room, the temperature dropped by ten degrees as soon as I entered the rink. But I was used to it. You didn’t spend half your life on the ice without adjusting to the cold.

It had been half an hour since the game ended and all the fans had filed out; no one was left except for the cleaners moving through the aisles and the Zamboni chugging away.

And Alex.

And Lance.

Trapping him against the barrier, Alex’s cheeks between his hands and staring deep into his eyes. I caught them just as Lance bent in toward him, and Alex’s lips parted.

They were both dressed casual, so they must have changed when I was in the showers.

The door slammed behind me as I strode toward them, but they were totally lost in a bubble of their own and didn’t hear it.

“What about here?” Lance said, just loud enough for me to hear him. His thumb swept across Alex’s cheek. “Can I touch it like this?”

Did I imagine the way Alex trembled? Or how he drew in a sharp breath and Lance leaned even closer and—

“Hey!” I shouted as I strode toward them without thinking, my voice bouncing around the rink. “What are you doing?”

My heart kicked into overdrive, that weird feeling getting all messed up inside me.

I sliced through their dreamy bubble as Alex’s head snapped towards me.

He sucked in a harsh breath as he got that scared look again, the one I seriously hated that made me feel guilty as shit.

He suddenly leaped back from Lance, nearly tipping over, and Lance reached out, slipping a hand around Alex’s waist to steady him.

“It was an eyelash!” Alex cut in quickly, pushing Lance’s hand away as he stepped toward me. “I had an eyelash in my eye.”

I didn’t get why he looked so freaked out by it.

“It’s fine, man, you know I’d have done the same for you.” I shrugged.

Except I wouldn’t have looked like I was about to kiss Alex so fiercely I’d leave him breathless as I swiped the damn thing from his eye.

That was the thing, though—Alex wasn’t interested in anyone. He’d talked about people he thought were hot, but he’d never actually dated anyone.

But from the way Lance was smirking behind him, it was obvious something was going on—and that my best friend, the one and only, was lying to me.

Obviously, I totally wasn’t bothered. I mean, first of all, Alex would have told me if he liked dudes. Second of all, Alex had way better taste than choosing someone like Lance Austin. That guy had man whore written all over him, and we all knew he hooked up with at least three different people every week.

“You coming for a shower, or what?” I said one hundred percent casually and not awkwardly at all. Though I was close to grabbing Alex and carting him so far away from Lance that they couldn’t even think of touching each other again for a million years.

I wasn’t giving the game away by narrowing my eyes like the suspicious bastard I was. I didn’t like anyone hanging around Alex who wasn’t Brad-approved, and Lance had been on thin ice for too long, anyway. I’d just grill Alex about it when we got home.

“Sure,” Lance said, pushing himself off the barrier.

Instead of walking toward me, and on to the locker rooms, he turned back to Alex. “So, how about that coffee tomorrow?”

Alex looked up at him. All that shit about being worried I was misunderstanding or whatever just vanished as Lance quirked a brow. I felt like I’d faded into the background as Alex gave him a shy smile.

“Yeah, that would be really nice. I—”

“Actually,” I cut him off as I took hold of Alex’s arm. “We have plans tomorrow.” I super-casually stepped in front of Alex, so I was basically guarding him.

Lance’s attention spun to me, and his lips morphed into a lazy smirk laced with amusement.

It would probably be too much if I wrapped my arms around Alex and hissed at Lance like a pissed-off cat, but he needed to back off.

“Alright,” he shrugged, looking back to Alex, “what about the weekend?”

“Nope,” I answered straight away. “We’re busy this weekend, too.” I didn’t want Lance cozying up to Alex like that until I knew what the hell was going on. They spent enough time together around the house. I wasn’t letting them go off and do secret stuff or whatever. Because the way Lance said ‘coffee’ made it sound like he was going to drag Alex to his bedroom for another kind of hot drink.

Lance reached out for him again, but I tugged Alex back.

“Brad,” Alex’s voice was soft behind me, but I didn’t want to back down.

Lance was one of the best players I’d ever faced, even though I hated to admit it. There was no one that could match him for speed apart from Tommy, but it was his calculating mind that won him the record of most goals scored by any player in our college season.

And he was turning that on Alex, fucking sparkling, before he replied.

“Well, if you have a free moment, just give my door a knock, alright? I’d love to finish our conversation. You know where my room is,” he said with a wink.

I glanced back at Alex, who gave him this weird smile as he tracked Lance swanning away. It was like I wasn’t literally right next to him, waiting for him to notice me.

“What was that about?” I asked him.

Alex looked back at me. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but he just kept watching me like he was waiting for something.

It wasn’t cool. We never had this kind of tension, even when stuff got awkward between us after I sucked him off. We were even fine after, though he didn't talk to me for months.

“Damn, why was he being so weird?” I asked him just to fill the space with some noise. From the way Alex was fidgeting, it was obvious he was nervous; I just didn’t get why. “You’re being weird, too, man. What was that just now?”

“What?” he said, suddenly snapping out of whatever the hell was racing around his brain.

“With Lance… He looked like, you know.”

“I told you, it was an eyelash,” he mumbled, making me not believe him even more. He pulled in a breath. “Look, I’ve got to take a shower. I reek and my shoulder is killing me. That guy slammed me really hard. Can we talk about it later?”

“Yeah, I mean, sure,” I said, reaching for him. “Do you want a massage or something?” I ran my thumb over the ridge of his shoulder, and he flinched back from me.

“I’m fine. I just need to wash it off.” He pushed my hand. I couldn’t let him go so easily.

“But there’s something else we need to do, isn’t there?” I said, opening my arms wide.

His face shifted into an actual smile as the Alex I knew came back to me.

He stepped in close, both of us wrapping our arms around each other as his sweaty smell from the game hit me hard.

And the world went back to normal.