Page 34 of Full Body Hit, Part 2 (Alpha Omega Hockey #6)

“I…we should have probably talked about this before,” Auston ventured.

Chase didn’t say anything for a moment, just looking at Auston, taking in the tired lines of his face. “Do you regret it?”

Auston let a sharp breath out through his nose. “Baby, I…I can’t regret something I want so much, but…you’re so fucking young. I wish you’d had more time to…I don’t know. To—”

“I wanted it too,” Chase cut in, fierce. “I want this. I want you .”

Auston stared at him. Sighed. He tilted forwards, pressing his lips to Chase’s forehead. “Yeah?”

“ Yes . Do you ?”

“Yeah, baby. Of course. We just…we don’t even live together. We haven’t figured shit out the way we were supposed to.”

Chase shrugged. “We will. Being mated—it’ll help . Right? We can scent each other now. We can…we can learn.”

Auston nodded his head, Chase feeling it more than seeing it, they were so close. The Alpha tucked his nose behind Chase’s ear. “Yeah, I can smell you now.”

A shiver went through him, a bruise of doubt. “Do I…do I smell good?”

Auston snorted. “Baby, I’ve literally never smelt anything fucking better than you.”

Chase grinned, wiggling closer. “You smell good too, Daddy.”

Auston chuckled. “I’m glad you think so. Not sure how this all happened, though.”

“I mean, I have to talk to my doctor, but I’m pretty sure my medication failed.”

“Right. But…what does the medication do, exactly?”

“It suppresses my pheromones—so, like, it controls my heats and eliminates my scent since, without it, I smell so crazy it would be a hazard, you know?”

Auston nodded slowly. “Right. So it failed, you went into heat, I could scent you…was more than enough to trigger my rut.” He buried his nose in Chase’s neck again and took a deep breath, making Chase shiver all over.

“Sorry,” Chase couldn’t help but say.

“I thought you just said you weren’t.”

“I mean, I’m not sorry we mated, I’m just…if this is only because of my scent—”

“Did you mate me just because you were in heat?” Auston pointed out.

“No!”

“Exactly. This is more than that. This is…” Auston had moved back so that their eyes met, an electric current in the air.

He cupped Chase’s face, expression so tender it hurt to look at.

They lay there for a while, soaking each other in until Chase had a thought.

“I should stop taking my medication for good then, huh? The doc said mating would stabilise my pheromones…”

“We should head back home early. Get you to a doctor.”

Chase groaned. That was probably the right thing to do, but they had barely relaxed on the beach before the heat hit. “Okay. It can wait a day, though, right? To recover?”

“You feeling good?”

“Yeah. Perfect.”

“Okay, then. One more day.”

They rested for the remainder of the day.

Auston called for heat and rut cleanup and they ensconced themselves in the bathroom while the hotel staff did their job.

Chase let himself be washed in the bath and be fed little bites of fruit despite not being in heat anymore—it was just good to be taken care of.

He could sense it helped Auston, too, both of them relaxing as they built their own little bubble to float in.

Chase rebuilt the nest when they stepped back into the now-pristine room. He missed their scents even though everything had been crusty with slick and come, but he made up for it by lying on Auston and getting the pheromones right from the source.

The day drifted past, drawing them nearer to reality, but Chase clung onto the peace as long as he could.

***

It turned out that suddenly being able to smell pheromones at the age of twenty-one wasn’t the best thing ever.

The return trip home was hell. The airport was overwhelming and nauseating with scents, and the plane even worse.

Auston got him some menthol Vaseline to put under his nose, which helped, but every time it rubbed away slightly he’d be hit by a wall of stink that had him throwing up multiple times during the plane ride.

Thank God Auston wasn’t one of those people who couldn’t stand the sight of vomit, helping Chase hold the bags the air hostesses gave him, wiping his face and reapplying the menthol afterwards.

He made sure Chase was hydrated, procuring some crackers from somewhere, and almost getting into a fight with someone in a nearby first-class seat who complained about them.

Stepping inside his apartment was the best thing Chase had ever experienced. He could actually smell his own scent, as well as Auston’s—it was weird that their scents had existed there all this time without Chase even noticing.

Thankfully, the doctor helped, prescribing some scent-dampeners that would gradually be decreased, and referred him to a physiotherapist to help Chase learn not only how to deal with other people’s scents, but how to control his own.

He’d explained why the meds had failed too. It was rare, apparently, but spending so much time with a ‘compatible Alpha’ had made their efficacy go down.

Chase had never considered how much work would go into adjusting to his new sense. On the street, people would stare at him, nose wrinkling, and Chase realised it was because his pheromones were constantly out of control, influenced by his moods or a stray thought.

Auston was helpful there, too. Chase couldn’t tell when his own scent was going crazy, so Auston would pull him aside, do one of the exercises the endocrinologist had sent him to control the production of his glands.

And then, of course, there was the whole ordeal of telling the team.

They started with management a few days before the break ended. To say that they were surprised would be an understatement. Chase sat still and small in the chair as they gaped at him and Auston, the Alpha taking charge in explaining the situation without going into the gory details.

“We’ve been keeping our relationship under wraps for the purpose of privacy, but when our heat and rut hit simultaneously…it just happened.”

“Right…” the GM said. “And this is…permanent?”

“Yes,” Auston bit out so harshly that Chase had to smile a little.

Yeah, fucker. It was permanent.

It probably helped that Auston was going to retire at the end of the year—it wouldn’t be the Spirits’ problem for much longer.

It was their teammates Chase was dreading telling the most. Those were the ones whose opinions mattered to him—although, most of all, he’d been worried about Sammy.

With Auston’s approval, Chase told Sammy and Noah first. Chase showed up to their apartment as soon as he could, with the mating mark still bruised and red on his neck, scent all over the place, and let them come to their own conclusions.

“What. The fuck,” Sammy shouted the moment he opened the door.

Noah trailed closer. “What? Who is that?” He stopped short when he saw Chase. “Dude. Why do you smell like that, and oh my God, what is that on your neck ?”

Noah, naturally, had to be filled in on everything—the secret relationship, Chase’s pheromone disorder. All Sammy wanted to know was, What the fuck happened in Cancun?

“So, I went into heat, and…”

“And he bit you?” Sammy demanded. “Just like that?”

“No. He actually—even then he made sure I wanted it. It was good, Sammy. It was…really good.”

Sammy’s face softened. “He didn’t pounce on you?”

“Not in a way I didn’t want.” Chase laughed, remembering how good it had been to be pressed into the mattress and stuffed full of—

Noah sprung to his feet, hand over his nose. “Jesus Christ, Chase!”

Chase went bright red, concentrating on his glands, on pulling the scent back. “Shit, sorry. I, um…it’s gonna take me a while to learn how to control my scent.” Adults did it without thinking when it came to things like arousal, but Chase didn’t even remember he had a scent half the time.

Sammy had his nose wrinkled, but he was laughing. “Wow, okay. How does it feel? The bond?”

Chase pressed the heel of one of his palms to his sternum. “It feels…really good. Like…something glowing there, you know? Something safe and steady.”

Sammy nodded slowly, a small smile on his face. “You’re happy, then?”

Honestly, it hadn’t really sunk in yet.

He had the bite on his neck and the light in his chest and the hazy memories of his heat, but he wasn’t quite convinced this was happening to him.

He was peering through a looking glass, seeing the details of someone else’s life, some alternate universe he’d cooked up during his lonely teenage nights when the darkness had convinced him nobody would ever love him.

He was mated to Auston Mazdaki. Auston said he didn’t regret it. That he wanted to keep the bond. That he wanted to build a life with Chase.

Chase had been convinced he was never going to mate, let alone to someone like Auston—so mature and kind and loving.

Was he happy? He was, in a distant sort of way. Most of him, though, was waiting for this illusion to crack and for reality to come spilling through.

“Yeah,” he replied anyway.

“You guys moving in together?”

Chase chewed on the inside of his cheek. They’d been alternating since they returned to New Orleans, things feeling too hectic to breach the topic. It was silly to think Auston wouldn’t want to, but something kept him from asking. “I dunno. We haven’t talked about it yet but…I guess so?”

Sammy hummed. “Do you want to move in with him?”

“Uhm…yeah. It’s nice having him around. I don’t really like sleeping alone anymore,” Chase confessed.

“Okay, then ask him. He’s your mate, Chase…I feel like you can trust him enough to ask him for things?”

Chase nodded, chastised.

He waited until they’d told the rest of the team to bring it up. The guys reacted like they’d been told Auston and Chase had been part of a terrorist cell, judging by the amount of stunned faces and incredulous exclamations.

The team had to get adjusted to Chase’s scent, too, especially on the ice where he didn’t have the mind space to concentrate on reeling it in.

The more Chase practiced, the better it got, though, and it helped to have Auston there, a sturdy support beam lifting all of the other shit away from Chase’s head.

It was a couple of weeks after they’d been back when Chase finally asked.

They were in Chase’s closet-nest, Auston hilariously large for the space, forcing them to smoosh up against each other.

The place smelt so much like them that Chase was sure the landlord would need a professional to scrub the scent out.

It was impossible to hide anything from Auston for long, pheromones giving him away. “You good?” Auston asked, running fingers through Chase’s hair, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah. I was actually thinking…what do you think of us moving in together?”

The hand paused. Started up again. “Would you want that?”

“I asked you first.”

Auston chuckled. “I mean…yeah. I’d love us to live together. But we don’t have to just because we’re mated—if you want your own space—”

“I do want to. Live together, I mean,” Chase cut in, not wanting Auston to go into another one of his ‘I don’t want to take advantage of your youth’ spirals. “We spend all day together anyway.”

“Yeah, but, you know, if you ever did need space—”

“I’ll go to Sammy’s. But if you want to slow down or whatever—”

Auston laughed for real this time, although the sound had a little bit of an edge. “That’s not the problem. It fucking scares me how much I don’t want to slow down.”

Irritation clawed through Chase. He should probably say something comforting. Something understanding. But… “You need to get over this.”

Auston blinked at him.

“I’m in this with you. The whole…‘Oh my God, I’m guilty of this terrible sin’ thing is kind of annoying.

I get it. You’re older. But I am an adult, and I am making my own decisions, so.

You need to start treating me like I know what I’m doing instead of just being influenced by you. You’re not that influential.”

A beat of silence. Two. And then Auston barked out a laugh, face splitting in a grin. “Oh-kay. Sorry for worrying,” he said sarcastically, but the smile remained.

“I’m just saying! We can’t do this song and dance every time we wanna take a step forwards. We mated. It’s done. Let’s just…fucking do this,” Chase said, frustration turning into bravery.

“Okay,” Auston said, softer this time, pressing over Chase and kissing his neck.

Chase could hear his heartbeat, and out of that pulsing sound—

“I love you.”

Chase froze. Had he imagined that? “What?”

Auston didn’t lift his head. “I love you,” he repeated, a little quieter this time.

A second of stillness, and Chase sprung to life, wrapping his arms around Auston. “I-I love you too,” he said, the words tripping in his mouth, strange but not foreign, they’d lived at the back of his throat so long.

Auston finally untucked his face from Chase’s neck, eyes glowing darkly. He raised his hands, resting them on Chase’s cheeks, thumb rubbing there. “I honestly don’t know how I got so lucky.”

Chase spluttered. “ I’m the one who got lucky,” he argued.

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“Nope.”

“Ye—” Chase shouted as Auston’s fingers tucked into his ribs, tickling him. He kicked out, wiggling madly, laughing and shouting. “Daddy! Stop!”

Auston did, catching him in a kiss right after, laughing into each other’s mouths, fairy lights glittering over them as they kissed.