Page 4 of Full Body Hit, Part 1 (Alpha Omega Hockey #5)

Obstacle courses were next. They were split into four groups, Chase miraculously in Auston’s. They took turns weaving a puck around blocks and through hoops, ending the drill by scoring into the goal.

Chase fucking aced them. Fumbled the puck a few times, sure, but everybody did.

He grinned as he finished the circuit, eager to see the expression on Auston’s face. Would he be stunned? Impressed?

Turned-on?

He slowed as he caught sight of the Alpha.

Auston wasn’t even looking at him.

He was just staring ahead unseeingly, not paying much attention to the person on the course.

The bubbling in his stomach curdled.

It was fine, though. Auston had been in a million camps. Obviously he wasn’t going to be as excited as Chase.

He’d just have to try harder.

Chase’s body made sense when he played hockey. It was a symphony in perfect sync. Everything aligned, focused, a flow state that caught him in its tide.

He gave in to it, putting every ounce of energy into each task. The coach patted him on the head at the end of practice.

Auston didn’t even glance at him. Not even once . Didn’t matter how hard he pushed, it went utterly unnoticed.

It was stupid to feel as disappointed as he was, as if someone had grabbed an ice cream scooper, emptied out his insides, and replaced it with something heavy, something dirty that would leave a residue even if it was removed.

They weren’t even teammates yet. There was no reason for Auston to pay him any attention. It was his own dumb fault for obsessing over the Alpha. For using him to comfort himself when things got rough.

The thing about not having a scent was that Alphas eventually caught onto the fact that there was something wrong with him. He was good-looking, so they’d fuck him, but every single one would eventually realise there was something missing.

And Chase was totally fine with just hooking up. He was twenty years old. He didn’t want a mate .

Or, at least, he didn’t want to want a mate. Which was practically the same thing.

What was there to complain about, really? He was hot and young and athletic. He could go into any bar, and there would be someone who wanted to fuck him.

It was just that maybe, sometimes, Chase thought about what it would be like to be in a relationship.

To have someone to go home to. Someone safe.

He wondered what it was like to have an Alpha tell him he was good enough, even though there was something wrong with him.

To show him that despite all the pieces that were missing, the ones that were misshapen and ugly, he was worth keeping.

Perhaps his Alpha would even give him big, crushing hugs every once in a while. Not all the time, obviously ; he wasn’t a child, but maybe after he did something really well, like playing a great game. They’d wrap him up in strong arms, squeezing tight. Would tell him that he’d done good.

That he was good .

But that was where Chase had fucked up—not only imagining all those ridiculous scenarios but starring Auston in them.

Every time he used one of his dumb stories to calm down after his mom berated him, or after a bad game, or after one of the Alphas he’d thought could maybe like him told him they didn’t want to see him anymore.

Those had been a million tiny little fuckups that had led him to that moment, standing there staring at a real-live Auston and not getting even a slice of attention.

So he was bound to be disappointed no matter what happened. He’d been expecting too much. He knew that.

So he was totally chill about being ignored that first practice. And the second one. And the one after that.

Chase had to earn his way onto the roster to be friends with Auston, he decided.

And then the coach put them on the same line.

Chase didn’t freak out. They’d been in training for almost two weeks—they were a skip away from the preseason. Chase had habituated to Auston. Or, almost habituated to Auston. Which was practically the same thing.

They were practising two-on-one breakaways. Auston and Chase were supposed to careen towards the goalie while Noah tried to stop them, Sammy far behind, trying to catch up.

Auston had the puck. They were in the offensive zone. Chase’s head was filled with cotton, Auston’s presence burning, fraying his nerves.

Auston sauced the puck perfectly over Noah’s stick and onto Chase’s tape.

Chase took the shot.

The puck bounced off the side of the near post and away.

Chase’s cheeks burned. That had been a perfect feed from Auston; the least he could have done was get a shot on net.

The whistle sounded.

“Again. Chase, your puck this time.”

Fuck . Chase nodded. Breakaways were easy. Either shoot the puck or send it to your partner to shoot.

The point of the exercise was to shoot it to your partner, maybe have the other person bounce it back to you to get the goalie moving. You weren’t supposed to shoot the puck yourself unless you were confident you get it in.

Chase shot the puck. It went over the crossbar, missing the net entirely.

Again.

“Come on, kid,” Auston complained. “I thought you were the next big thing.”

In another world, that would have been a simple chirp, but it landed all nasty, Auston’s voice low and rough, eyes flat. Chase knew it wasn’t just him being a wuss—Noah frowned and Sammy skated between them with a, “It’s all a process.”

Auston didn’t reply, not even glancing at Chase.

They weren’t put on the same drill again.

Chase tried to concentrate on the next four players practising the breakaway, but there was a ringing in his head that wouldn’t stop, the canals of his ears vibrating.

He managed not to embarrass himself during the rest of practice. The coach even slapped him on the back as they left the ice, complimenting his ‘good work.’

Ahead of him, Auston snorted, catching his gaze for a moment. His eyes were no longer beautiful. They were empty and mocking.

Chase nodded at the coach even though he wanted to tell him not to lie. To stop humouring Chase if they were just going to cut him from the team at the end of preseason.

Or even earlier if he kept playing the way he had that day.

He managed to swallow it down, a molten ball of sick that made him burn up. He didn’t know if the red-hot feeling was directed at himself or Auston or a mixture of both. All he knew was that he was crawling out of his fucking skin.

He’d played badly when he’d gotten to Juniors, too. He’d been fifteen and had been trying so hard to pretend nothing got to him, that he was the player his last coach had said he was—something special. Someone with talent, with vision .

But those first few weeks in a new locker room had been hell. He’d been constantly paranoid about his artificial scent—the kids in his team were older now, and he was afraid they’d notice something was wrong with him. That one slip-up would reduce him to a squirming, begging slut.

It was fantasising about Auston that had always calmed him.

He’d sat on the bench at his stall one day, gear on and minutes away from a game, and imagined Auston there.

How all the Alpha’s attention would be on Chase, calling him over, and Chase would know exactly what to do, getting to his knees and bowing his head.

Auston would thread his fingers through Chase’s hair. Would cup the side of his face, maybe, or even slip two fingers into his mouth, casually possessive, showing the whole locker room Chase was good enough to keep.

‘You’re good’, Auston would say. ‘You can do this.’

Somehow, it’d worked. Chase had gone out onto the ice with a steady heart and scored his first two goals of the season.

Chase had been proud of his ingenuity. Now, he couldn’t feel anything but embarrassed for thinking of Auston that way—for being so weak that he’d needed to be reassured by a fictitious version of him.

Chase must have been staring at Auston—the real, cold-eyed Auston—for too long, standing awkwardly in the middle of the locker room while Auston undressed, because the Alpha quirked an eyebrow at him as their gazes locked.

“What?” Auston asked. A few of the guys around them had gone silent. Chase could feel his heart in his throat.

“I’m trying.” The words just burst out of him, washed to shore by a wave of embarrassment. He could feel his cheeks go hot and red. He sounded like a child.

Auston wrinkled his nose. “Are you actually upset?” he poked, and Chase couldn’t make out the tone. Was he making fun of Chase for being upset, or did he not believe Chase was upset at all?

“I…” The words got crushed in his sternum, his throat.

Auston snorted. “Yeah. How about you stop faking it, and then maybe we’ll get somewhere.”

The conversation was over, apparently, Auston turning away as he ripped his undershirt off.

Chase managed to unstick himself from the floor and walk to his own stall.

What the hell was Auston even talking about? What was Chase faking?

A shadow fell over him. “What was that about?”

Chase looked up to see Sammy standing there. “ Uhm …nothing. I don’t know.”

Sammy’s eyebrows knotted together. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay…well, I was gonna say—let’s go to lunch. Just us two.”

He wanted to say no. Wanted to go back to his hotel room and crawl into bed. Maybe make a nest—just for a few hours. It wasn’t like he needed it; he wasn’t that much of an Omega, but it was nice to have one sometimes even when he was out of heat.

Instead, he was going to have to socialise. Be part of the team. He couldn’t risk not meshing with the others and being left out because of that.

“Sure.”

Sammy grinned, delicate features lighting up.

God, the Omega was unfairly pretty.

Life was awful. Chase just wanted to go to sleep.

***

Sammy showed up all dolled up in a soft-looking, oversized cream sweater and one of those Omega necklaces that were so on trend lately. A thin, gold chain wrapped around the base of his neck, an accompanying one tight right under the chin so that it framed his scent glands, enunciating them.

Never in a million years would Chase have thought to wear anything like that.

He literally didn’t know how Sammy was so at ease with his designation.

They were both hockey players—Sammy had to have had similar experiences in locker rooms, hearing Alphas talk about Omegas like they were wet holes to stick their knots in.

Maybe things were different in Switzerland, where Sammy was from. Maybe that country was a fucking utopia of hockey-playing Omegas flaunting their scent like it was nothing.

“Oh my God,” Sammy said as he flopped onto the chair opposite Chase. “Noah has gotten into this new shooter game and is playing it with his brother nonstop . I just don’t understand why there’s so much shouting involved.”

“I don’t get the obsession with those games. They’re so boring,” Chase agreed. He’d tried playing them a few times with past teammates, but everybody got so worked up over literally nothing.

Sammy grinned. “You get me. We should form a club. You, me, and Emilio.”

Chase guessed Sammy was referring to Emilio Torres from the Miami Manatees, who had apparently bonded with Noah’s brother, Beau, over the summer.

The media had made an obnoxiously big deal about it, seeing as Beau had been traded to the Manatees just a year prior…

from their rival team. Which meant they really couldn’t have been dating more than a year—less, realistically.

“Yeah, heard about that. Kind of a quick mating,” Chase pointed out.

Sammy shrugged. “They’re in love. Like…proper, ‘this is the love of my life’ love.” His voice had gotten a little floaty, a little distant, and Chase felt a pang, too.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine someone loving him enough to want that with him, let alone within a few months of meeting him.

Chase seriously doubted he’d ever get there.

It wasn’t something he’d ever admit out loud, but he knew, in a shadowed and cobwebbed part of him, that there was something wrong with him.

Something unappealing. It wasn’t just his lack of scent.

There had to be a reason his mom treated him as if he were a spare item she couldn’t wait to get rid of.

Some faulty machine she kept trying to fix but would only disappoint her.

“That’s nice,” Chase mumbled, trying not to sound too stroppy about it. “You and Emilio are from the same city or something, right?” He heard plenty about it from the commentators every time the Spirits played the Manatees.

Sammy grinned, voice light and frothy. “Yeah. We spent the summer together, actually. Beau was there for a big chunk of it, and then Noah joined us. Those two are ridiculously competitive. You should have seen them wakeboarding…it was like they thought they were in the Olympics.”

“So it was kind of like a double date,” Chase teased.

Sammy rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

“ Mmhm .” He’d reserve his teasing for future occasions.

Their conversation devolved into gossip—who was single on the team, who wasn’t, who was a bit of a slut. “What about you?” Sammy poked. “Are we gonna see how popular you are with the Alphas when we go out after a win?”

“Oh, please. Look who’s talking. Pretty boy over here is asking me how popular I am.”

“Don’t deflect .”

“Whatever. Let’s see if I make the team first.”

“You’re definitely making the team,” Sammy said with such confidence it put Chase on edge.

“Not according to Mazdaki. He’d probably have sent me down by now.”

The skin between Sammy’s eyebrows creased, the edges of his mouth tilting south. “Don’t listen to him. I think he’s just frustrated…kind of seems this is his last year in the show, you know? I wouldn’t take it personal. The coaches love you—that’s what matters.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Chase muttered.

Maybe that was true—the coaches’ opinions were what should matter, but Chase couldn’t ignore the animosity Auston obviously felt for him.

Maybe Auston had seen something in Chase others hadn’t quite caught up to yet. That there was something off about him. Something worthless. Something Chase just couldn’t seem to fix.

Now he just had to wait until the rest of the team saw it, too.