Page 16 of Full Body Hit, Part 2 (Alpha Omega Hockey #6)

The grin dropped right off Auston’s face. “Chase, I mean this from the bottom of my heart.…Fuck your mom.”

Chase was pretty sure freeze frames weren’t a thing in real life, but his whole brain stopped working. He could feel his mouth hanging open, eyes blinking stupidly.

“Sorry,” Auston said quickly. “That was inappropriate. I mean, accurate, but inappropriate.”

“I…”

“You can eat whatever you want, baby. You’re a twenty-one-year-old athlete. Having some diner food is gonna have zero impact on you. You like pancakes or waffles?”

“Um…pancakes?”

“Burgers good?”

“Yeah…?”

“With or without bacon?”

“I guess…without?”

“Great.”

Chase watched dizzily as Auston flagged the waitress down and ordered the supreme burger, curly fries, a double stack of pancakes with the works—cream, maple syrup, fruit, chocolate.

“What kind of shakes do you have?” Auston asked.

“Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, maple, birthday cake, cookies and cream…that’s it.”

Auston looked at Chase. “What’s your favourite?”

Chase had never had a shake in his life, but he said, “Chocolate?”

Auston nodded, and the waitress added it to the list. “Anything else?”

“I don’t think so. Baby?”

Chase went hot all over at the nickname, and he could see Auston’s face twitch as if he’d been surprised too. “No, that’s good. Thanks.”

“Sorry,” Auston said as the waitress left. “I know I shouldn’t be calling you…that.”

Chase fiddled with a napkin. “It’s okay.”

Silence descended between them, stuffed full of other people’s chatter, the clink of cutlery on plates.

Chase started ripping the napkin into strands.

Auston cleared his throat. “So. Remember how I told you it’s my nieces’ birthday in a few days?”

Chase perked up. “Yeah. Six, right?”

“Yeah. Well, my present got there early. I thought maybe you’d wanna see a picture of it.”

Chase couldn’t help but grin. “Ooh, yeah, please.”

Auston swiped through his phone, tilting it eventually so Chase could see.

Chase leaned in and immediately laughed. “You didn’t. Oh my God, is that your sister? She does not look impressed.” Auston’s sister was standing beside a massive inflatable bouncy castle, her arms crossed in front of her chest, hip popped out.

“She’s just jealous I always get them something better than she comes up with. It’s the safest one on the market, too—comes with an annual check-up, it’s tied to the ground so it can’t blow away, and it starts beeping loudly if it deflates.”

And there, peeking through the clouds of Auston’s face, was Aunix, buying ridiculously expensive and impractical presents but making sure the people he loved were safe.

Chase bit his lip. “Are there any pictures of your nieces?”

“Yeah, ’course. You can swipe.”

Chase took the phone tentatively and went through a few photographs. “Oh my God, they’re so cute.” The girls were chubby-cheeked with massive, dark eyes and dark hair in messy ringlets. They were just blurry blobs in some pictures as they jumped inside the castle. “Well, they seem to love it.”

Auston took the phone back as Chase handed it over. Smiling at the screen for a few seconds and putting it away.

The biting frost of trepidation that had coated his ribs melted at the sight of that expression—how it softened the muscles around his eyes and high on his cheeks. How it made him human. Approachable.

“They look like you,” Chase pointed out.

Auston straightened, chest-puffing. “Right? My sister and her partner want another one, and my sister says the next one has to look exactly like her wife in order to even things out.”

“Seems fair.” Chase laughed. And then, because his brain-to-mouth filter was shot, “You want kids?”

The humour trickled away, leaving something quieter. “I mean, if you—if my partner wanted them, yeah.”

Chase went hot at Auston’s slip of the tongue. “Only if your partner wants them?”

“Well…no, yeah, I do want them. But I know it can be complicated with, you know. Other responsibilities. Work.”

Chase swallowed. There was a lump in his throat. “So if your partner couldn’t have kids, that wouldn’t be a dealbreaker?”

“No,” Auston replied softly. “Not for…no.”

Chase lowered his eyes, unable to sustain Auston’s glowing gaze, the way its searchlight went right through him, seeking every cobwebbed corner and hidden place.

“What, um. What does your sister think of you working with kids after you retire?” Chase stumbled over the words, desperate to change the subject.

“Well, she says I’ll terrify them, but she secretly thinks it’s a good idea. It’s a youth hockey program with outside funding to help kids without the means to buy all the equipment.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s…that’s really cool.”

Auston gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It was Mark’s idea.”

“Dalton?”

“Yeah.”

That made sense. They’d been teammates for years, had won cups together. They knew what it took to succeed.

Dalton was also an Omega, which shouldn’t make Chase’s stomach churn—Dalton was mated, he was pretty sure—but he was the perfect example of the kind of Omega Auston should actually be with.

Someone established, secure, with their shit together. Not whatever whiny mess Chase couldn’t help but be.

“What about you?” Auston asked. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

If this had been Aunix speaking, it would have been an automatic yes, but it was disingenuous to give such a quick answer to Auston.

He thought about how his early impatience had melted into a smart, thoughtful teacher who had spent endless hours on the ice after practice with Chase, helping him with whatever Chase wanted.

“I think it could be a great idea. You just…you care about this, right? Teaching kids?”

There was a pause. “Yeah. I do.”

Chase gave him a little smile. “If you put that care into it, you’ll be amazing.”

Auston’s expression lightened.

Chase tilted his head, thumb rubbing over the edge of the table, the question that had plagued him the past few weeks bubbling out. “I want to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth.”

In the corner of his vision, Chase saw Auston nod.

“There had to be something about me that made you so irritated when we first met. And I know you said it was my scent, but…there has to be more.”

“Why? Why does there have to be more? I’m telling the truth—that’s the reason.”

“But, how is this gonna work, then? You’re not going to be able to tell what I’m feeling through my scent until we mate .

Until you know that you want to spend the rest of your life with me.

That’s…how are we going to get through that if not having access to my pheromones made you dislike me so much? ”

“No—you know that’s not the reason. Having access to your scent isn’t the problem—it’s the act of masking it—which you aren’t—that was the problem. That’s what I disliked. I…” Auston paused then, a frown on his face, lips half-parted. The struggle on his face was obvious.

Chase let him sort through whatever was crowding his mouth.

“I…I had an ex. Have an ex, I guess. What I mean is—” He paused, hand carding through his hair.

“I was in a relationship with someone who used to mask their scent in order to manipulate me. Would pretend to be distressed so I would stop going out with friends, would just… lie . All the time. And it was the way he covered his scent that allowed him to do that, you know?”

Chase’s gut sank. If that were the case—if Auston needed someone with an open scent—there was nothing Chase could do about it. “I’m really sorry that happened to you. That sounds horrible. But I…I can’t help that I don’t have a scent.”

“No, Chase, that’s not the problem. Manipulating your scent would be a dealbreaker. Not having one because of a medical condition? Yeah, that’s not an issue.”

Chase chewed on the inside of his cheek. “How do you know that, though? What if—”

“Because I’ve known it’s you these past few weeks, and I’ve only fallen deeper in love with you.”

Chase was too stunned to even blush, caught in Auston’s harpooning stare, hook piercing right through his ribcage.

“I trust you,” Auston went on. “I just do. I don’t need your scent to read you—you’re an open fucking book. I’ve just been too scared and dense to see that. But…I started going to therapy. I’m working on it. I promise.”

What in the world was Chase supposed to say to that? To Auston’s obvious effort, to the way he was doing everything possible to become a better person.

A better partner for Chase.

“I…okay. If—” Chase sat back as the waitress suddenly appeared laden with plates.

“Here we go,” she said. “Who’s the burger for?”

“Uh, we’re sharing,” Auston replied.

“All right. I’ll set it all down here and y’all can sort it out. You want an extra plate?”

“Please. Thanks.”

“Back in a sec.” She toddled away, and all Chase could do was gape at the mountains of food.

Auston chuckled as he saw Chase blinking at the burger. “Yeah, it’s fucking huge. That’s why I only got one—we can split it, and it’ll be like a burger each.”

The extra plate arrived, and Auston got to cutting the burger as he talked.

Chase continued talking as he watched Auston sort everything out. “This is a lot to take in. I haven’t known it’s you these past few weeks. We’re at completely different, like…stages.”

“I know. But I’m willing to take this as slow as it needs to go. There are no commitments right now. All I’m asking is that you give me a chance.”

Chase allowed that to percolate.

The truth was, there was no real doubt about what his answer would be.

“Okay. I want to try.”

Chase had to sit there and process the way Auston suddenly glowed , smile the largest he’d ever seen on anybody. “Yeah?”

Chase had to smile in return. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Fucking…great. Here, try one of the fries. They’ve got this special sauce,” Auston offered.

The tension between them defused. This time, the silence was comfortable as they tried the food, Chase humming in approval, blushing when Auston made him try this or that combination, practically feeding him off his fork.

It was a wild ride, going from baring their souls to the intimacy of sharing food.

Chase nodded. It felt like the foundation they were building wasn’t so shaky anymore, cracks filled in with concrete.

This might just be something Chase could stand on.