Page 14 of Full Body Hit, Part 2 (Alpha Omega Hockey #6)

CHASE

C hase wasn’t sure how he was supposed to function now that he knew every intimate conversation he’d had with Aunix had actually been held with Auston. Every secret he’d only ever told Aunix was now Auston’s too.

The embarrassment ate him up at night, his face stuffed in his pillow. It was Auston who called him baby. Who’d gifted him that big, perfect dildo. Who had trained him up, stretched him slowly. Who got to say when he got to come.

It was impossible to fully accept. Chase tried to put the pieces together but they’d grind against each other, never quite fitting.

At practice, in games, Auston was perfectly polite. Not cold, not distant, just…cordial. Chase had to sit there and realise how close they’d gotten the past few weeks.

How hard Auston had worked to make that happen.

Because that was the thing that truly didn’t make sense.

Auston knew who he was. Knew that Chase didn’t have a scent. Knew how he was at work, on the ice, out with friends, when he was sick and concussed. Auston knew everything and still wanted him.

That was where his thoughts always ended. Not in the betrayal but in the undeniable fact that Auston wanted him enough to do anything for him .

He couldn’t meet Auston’s eyes. Could barely look at his phone. He kept turning to it, the impulse to text Aunix right at his fingertips, and then reality would intervene, a shot to the heart.

Chase knew he should confess everything to Sammy—his friend could tell something was up, but even the idea of admitting that Aunix and Auston were the same person out loud made Chase cringe so hard he felt like passing out.

He just had to clench his teeth, keep his head low, and hope some holy light would shine on him and illuminate the path he should take. Something that made sense , because it was logic he should be using. Some balanced equation to calculate if his heart would be able to survive Auston.

And yet all he could think of was Aunix.

He’d watch Auston during practice and remember every kind word Aunix had murmured in his ear. Chase would sit on the bench in his stall and close his eyes, picking out Auston’s voice, finding Aunix there—the melodic cadence of his vowels, the sharp bark of his laughter.

At night, he’d crawl into the nest built with the materials Auston had sent him, clutching Joey the duck to this chest, and try to think , but all his body could feel was the absence of Aunix.

He waited and waited and waited, days and then two weeks passing, hoping that some big event would happen, that Auston would prove himself somehow, but life just limped on, wounded but alive.

Auston gave him space, just as he promised, only approaching him after one game when Chase had gotten banged up pretty bad.

The Alpha had passed him in the locker room with a soft, “Are you okay?”

It was the first time Chase saw Aunix there, the concern softening Auston’s voice. It was like a ghost went through Chase, a thing he’d thought was dead coming back to life—

There was Aunix. There, in front of him, eyebrows bunched in a concerned frown, the brown of his eyes shining through.

“Yeah,” Chase had choked out, and Auston had paused, obviously wanting to say something else, but he’d nodded once instead and moved on, shoulders tight and straight.

Chase wanted to be stronger than he was, but his skin itched with longing, craving Aunix so much it was a physical hunger. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, disoriented, cheeks wet, trying to feel for something on the other side of the bed that had never been there in the first place.

It was strange to watch Auston so closely, in a way he hadn’t been allowed to before.

Now, with the shields between them knocked to the ground, he was free to observe.

Auston seemed…unhappy. He engaged in the locker room, was present and hardworking during practices and games, but his face was a little more gaunt, skin under his eyes puffy.

Sometimes, Auston would catch him staring, and the strangest expression would flash over his face, as if he’d seen something grand that had hurt him, a bright memory filled with grief.

There was something wrong with how much Chase wanted to cast the doubt aside and take Auston back. To burrow into him—Aunix, Auston, Daddy.

He’d imagined a whole future with him. A million more moments, a million more experiences yet to be had.

It was too goddamn painful, mourning something he was killing.

He tried, though.

He learned not to check his phone every few minutes, stomping on the impulse every time it flared.

He figured out how to ignore the ache that bloomed at night.

How to think desperately of something else.

To exhaust himself so much during the day that he tumbled into unconsciousness as soon as he got into bed.

He learned not to look at Auston and imagine Aunix there. Searched for distractions at every opportunity—staying late at the arena, working hard at the gym, going out with Sammy whenever he could. Everything else he stuffed deep, deep, deep where it wouldn’t poison him.

And yet, every time Auston was near, Chase’s whole body went alight. It had grown another sense, sensitive only to Auston’s presence, both longing for his touch and so oversensitive to his proximity that it hurt.

It was fucking exhausting. The more he tried not to think about it, the more his head was crowded with it—with the feeling he was losing himself, tripping into the dark and wading through it stubbornly instead of turning on a light.

The road trips were the worst. At home, he had his routine, the guard rails that would help him put one foot in front of the other without thinking too much.

On the road, though, it wasn’t just in the arena that he had to share space with Auston.

It was the plane, the buses, the restaurants, the hotels.

The late-night bars after games, adrenalin still humming inside him, blood burning with it.

“Yeah,” Chase agreed. He wasn’t sure what the Alpha on the stool beside him had been saying, but it must have been the right reaction, because he kept going.

The guy was…handsome, in a bookish sort of way. Tall and lean, dressed in a cable-knit sweater, stubble on his face. His pale skin was a little translucent, blue under the eyes, his hair a wild mess, adding to the harried-professor look.

In another universe, maybe Chase would be flattered that he was getting the attention of this stranger, but everything felt so…fake.

God, the feeling he’d had when he was talking to Aunix. As if he were bigger than himself. Lighter. Better. As if he could shut his eyes and rest and he’d be…safe.

It had been home .

His gaze was pulled to the table he knew Auston was at.

The world was muffled as their eyes locked—Auston was staring, caught in a moment of disinhibition.

The breath in Chase’s chest locked up at the expression on Auston’s face—the open hurt that creased his eyes, the dip of his mouth. It was desperate. Longing.

It vanished a second later, Auston turning away, but it was too late—Chase had seen it. It had already punched him in the stomach, a bruise that would take time to heal.

“Right?” the Alpha beside Chase said.

Chase refocused on the conversation. “Right.”

Nausea made his gut roil.

This wasn’t where he belonged. He didn’t want to do this—sit at the bar and talk to some strange guy about nothing.

He wanted to be in the nest built with the things Auston had given him. That Chase had made because Auston had convinced him it was okay to want that—the comfort and peace of self-soothing.

He wanted to be taken care of. To take care of someone in return.

He tried to slip out of the conversation as soon as he could, but it took him almost ten minutes to make it to where the team was sitting.

Auston was gone.

“Hey, I’m gonna head back to the hotel,” he said to the table. He gave Sammy a hug and waved to everybody else, hurrying out to catch a rideshare.

He knew Auston’s room number—a lot of the guys were on the same floor, and he’d seen Auston unlock his door when they’d first arrived.

Chase stood in the hallway, staring at that same door, pulse in his head, his throat.

He didn’t know if this was the right thing to do.

The shock of the revelation of who Aunix was—of the fact that Auston had known for weeks —it was supposed to last longer.

Surely, Chase should be angrier. More betrayed.

He should fight and claw and demand Auston prove himself again and again for Chase to even think of taking him back.

He just…didn’t want to.

Fuck, he just didn’t want to.

He knocked, hand shaking as he retrieved it. A second passed. Another. Another.

Maybe this wasn’t—

“Oh.” Auston blinked at Chase, mouth a perfect ‘O’ before flattening out. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

Chase’s heart clenched. How was Auston’s first instinct to worry about him, still . “No. I was just wondering if we could talk? Sorry, I know it’s late, I can—”

“No! I mean—that’s fine.” He stepped aside, and Chase followed his lead, trailing into the room.

He looked around, but nothing went into his brain, hyperaware of Auston behind him.

“You wanna sit?” Auston offered, gesturing to the only chair in the room. Chase didn’t, actually, was too jittery to hold still, but he did anyway, knee bouncing immediately.

Auston watched him from a few feet away, silent and still, face betraying nothing.

Chase clenched his hands, trying to calm his heart, to find words, but all he managed to blurt was, “Sorry.”

Auston twitched. “Sorry for what?”

For talking to that Alpha. For ignoring you. For wanting you so badly. “I don’t know,” Chase whispered.

“Chase…are you okay?” Auston asked.

A laugh burst out of Chase, and another, and then he couldn’t stop until he wasn’t sure if what he was doing was laughing or some breathless, desperate sound.

“Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.” Auston was right beside him suddenly, a glass of water somehow in his hand. “Breathe, baby. You’re okay.”