Page 42 of Full Body Hit, Part 2 (Alpha Omega Hockey #6)

For the rest of his life, he would be an ex-something, defined not by his present but by what he had once done.

“Auston?”

The voice startled him, and his head whipped around. Chase stood in the gloom, backlit faintly by the light coming from their room.

The bubbling panic that had been clawing its way up Auston’s lungs fell away.

There stood Auston’s future, barefoot and swamped by one of Auston’s T-shirts, eyes sleepy and mouth soft.

“Hey,” Auston whispered, sitting up.

Chase padded closer, running a hand through Auston’s hair as soon as he was near enough. Auston tilted his head on the back of the couch, blinking up at his mate.

Chase’s scent filled him, a balm.

“Let’s go to bed, yeah?” Chase murmured.

Auston nodded. He hauled himself up, letting Chase wrap him in his arms as soon as he walked to the other side of the couch. Auston leaned down for a short, sweet kiss.

Maybe the future wouldn’t be so scary.

Not if it was just like this.

***

If being a hockey player had taught Auston one thing, it was that wanting something didn’t mean you would get it.

There were times when, no matter how hard you worked for something, no matter how desperately every aching inch of your body longed for victory, you still might just…lose.

It wasn’t the last game of the season, but it might as well have been.

If they lost this match-up, the New Orleans Spirits would be mathematically eliminated from getting to the playoffs—no matter if they won the rest of their games and the next-in-line to the wild-card spot lost them all, they still wouldn’t be able to make up the difference.

Auston sat on the bench in his stall during second intermission.

They were playing well against the Denver Leopards, were tied 2-2.

Noah and Sammy were chatting. Koa, the goalie, had a towel over his head, tuning everybody out.

Jimmy was re-taping his stick. Chase had his eyes shut, but he didn’t smell acrid with anxiety.

Everybody in the room believed that they could do it. Playoffs were a different beast—everybody knew stories of teams who had barely scraped into the playoffs and then gone to the very end.

They could do it.

But they didn’t.

The third period was brutal, Auston and his teammates throwing their weight around. Everybody knew they had no more chances if they wasted this one, their rivals included—they were fighting back just as hard.

It wasn’t a flashy play that did them in. The period was held scoreless until almost five minutes to the end, when a Leopard tipped in a blue-line shot. The puck bounced off Koa’s glove and into the net.

The fans in the Spirits’ arena groaned, and that was it. They weren’t able to rally. They pulled the goalie to get an extra skater on the ice, but the Leopards scored an empty-net goal with twenty seconds to go, a final nail into thin, lacquered wood.

Auston’s heart dropped to his feet, the familiar sensation of disappointment, of his fingers skimming but not being able to reach what he wanted.

And then…peace. An odd silence as the last buzzer sounded and they trudged into the locker room.

Noah was the last to go in, looking at his team, face so much older than his years. “They won’t be able to say we didn’t try,” he stated quietly.

The scent of the room didn’t shift, staying sunken in its damp, stifling acidity.

Auston forced himself to step up. “You know, I’ve been here before.

Years of not making it. Of just barely making it.

Of making it and burning to the ground in the first round.

I know it feels shit, and that this might sound like platitudes, but this is the road to the cup.

This fucking disappointment, this hunger that you can’t feed yet—this is what you need to make it.

I know a winning team when I see it, and the core is right here. Don’t you fucking forget that.”

Auston turned to Noah and Sammy and Chase meaningfully. To Koa, who had played his goddamn heart out as first-line goalie. At Grigory, who’d had a break-out year.

Some of the guys in the room wouldn’t be there next year—wouldn’t be there when the Spirits raised the cup—but Auston knew deep in his gut that the group of guys that made the heart of this team would make it.

They just had to suffer through years of disappointment first.

And Auston wouldn’t be there for the ride. He’d expected his gut to hurt at that, but instead, there was a sort of peace. He had been in a room just like this, part of a core that couldn’t stop losing. Had scraped his knees dragging himself up and up on the gravel road to victory.

He’d done it. Made it to the top, the bottom, the top.

Did he want a taste of that again? Yeah. Sometimes, it felt more like a need than anything else.

But it wasn’t. He’d survive without it.

At home, Chase wrapped around him, going on his tip-toes to reach his neck. “Sorry. I wanted you…I wanted us to do it for you.”

Auston squeezed him. “Thanks, baby, but that’s something that we had to do together, not something one could give the other.”

Ironically, the last few games of the season went perfectly. Now that the weight had been lifted off their shoulders, they played loose, having fun with it.

The last game of the season was against the Houston Grizzlies, the current division leaders. It should have been an easy game for them, but the Spirits weren’t taking it lightly.

Auston felt as if he were fifteen years younger, rushing across the ice like both his hips were intact. Every pass connected, every rush exhilarating. This was what he’d been looking for all year with his teammates—the sort of synchronicity he’d felt with the Beasts.

It was fucking perfect.

They won with a three-goal difference. The crowd around them roared.

The win didn’t mean anything in the standings, but it still felt golden, a shot of adrenalin into Auston’s pumping blood.

This pulsing part of him, savage and alive in the cold of the ice, was never going to be let out like this again.

It was Auston’s last game as a hockey player. This was something he’d never feel again.

Time didn’t stop for him. No matter how much it killed him, it trampled on.

The team agreed they’d go out the next day. Even after a win, they all needed to go home and lick their wounds in peace, knowing that however pissed off the Grizzlies were right now, they were just gearing up for the most important part of the season, while the Spirits wouldn’t even get a taste.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Chase.

A conversation for sure—platitudes, comforting words.

Instead, Chase didn’t talk. He sat Auston on the couch with a beer and ordered them food.

They curled up together in the living room nest until the hype of the game died down, and they could go to bed.

Under the sheets, Chase peppered him with kisses—his cheeks, the hard bone of his brow, his nose. Auston wished he could cry. Force out the lump in his throat so he could breathe.

Instead, he gathered Chase close and tried to sleep.

***

Everything was muted the next morning. He’d slept well, deeply, but the world had its sound turned low, the air filled with holes where something used to be.

Chase was already awake when Auston roused, squinty eyes on him, a smile spreading the moment their gazes met. Their pillows were squished together, their faces mere inches apart, the scent of them and bed and sleep everywhere.

“Morning,” Chase greeted softly.

“Mornin’, baby.”

Chase’s smile brightened, leaning over to kiss him on the lips, on the nose, the cheek. Auston laughed, winding an arm around Chase’s middle and pulling him in so there was nothing between them.

They rested there for a while. They had nothing to do—locker cleanup was in a few days, a horrible day filled with packing and media.

Auston would be vague about retirement, announcing it via an Instagram post during the summer and only accepting interview requests from the media guys he liked—mostly old hockey players with podcasts.

That didn’t hang over them now, though. They could lay quietly, Auston stroking Chase’s back under the shirt, feeling all the soft skin there.

It was a blessing that Auston had things to do—he and Mark were hoping to kick things off at the same time the new school year did.

The future wasn’t an empty void, an impenetrable darkness he couldn’t see through—he had something to look forward to.

Something that would give his life order and shape.

Still, this was the beginning of a long off-season neither he nor Chase had thought much about.

“We should go somewhere,” Auston said, breaking the silence.

Chase stirred, blinking up at him. “For lunch?”

“No—I mean, sure, we can grab lunch somewhere. But I mean we should take a little vacation. Go to, I don’t know…Europe or something.”

Chase’s mouth formed a little ‘O.’ “Europe?” He repeated as if Auston had suggested going to Mars.

“I mean, we can stay closer if you want, but why not? We can go to France. Italy. Spain.”

“Spain has nice beaches, right?”

Auston grinned. “I didn’t know you liked the beach so much.”

“I mean, I just…we kind of got our Cancun holiday cut short, so. I liked that.”

“ Hmm . A little honeymoon,” Auston suggested.

Chase’s expression opened, sweetened. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

“And then…we can go meet my family? They’re going to disown me if I don’t introduce my mate to them soon.”

Chase squirmed, shoulders up to his ears. “They have met me.”

“I don’t think a few video calls are gonna count for them.” He kissed Chase on the forehead. “They’re gonna love you, baby.”

Chase grunted, but at least he didn’t argue.

Auston rolled him onto his back suddenly, making Chase squawk, and bit his neck and collarbone playfully. Chase laughed, pretending to push Auston away even as his scent lost that acrid touch.

Auston raised up a little to look at him. “We’ll have a great summer.”

“I have to train, too,” Chase reminded him.

“Of course. You can do it in San Diego when we visit my family if you want.” He didn’t mention Chase’s mom, but her presence hung over them.

She hadn’t spoken to Chase since the revelation that he was mated, and Auston knew Chase was hurt by it even though, secretly, Auston was glad the witch was out of his life.

Still. If they had to go meet her, Auston would put on his best media face and play nice with that fuckhead to make Chase happy.

“Yeah,” Chase whispered. “Maybe if my mom calls me before the summer is over, we can go see her?”

Auston had to bite his tongue to avoid expressing his kneejerk anger. The silence dragged on as he tried to find the right thing to say, frosting the air between them.

“She’s my mom,” Chase breathed.

Auston squeezed Chase’s hips. “I know.”

The silence lengthened and then softened suddenly as Chase sighed. “I’m not choosing her over you.”

“I know—baby, I’m not asking you to choose. I would never—”

“No, I know,” Chase cut in. “But she will. And…I choose you.”

Something inside Auston pinched, a muscle constricting, his heart beating hard.

“You’re not going to lose me if you want to see her.

But I can’t lie and say I like the way she treats you.

I don’t like the way she makes you feel.

The things she gets away with. I don’t like the things she’s done in the past. And I think it’s time for you to try and face the fact that…

she’s made some big mistakes, and it’s okay not to forgive her for them—especially since she’s not saying sorry. ”

Chase avoided Auston’s gaze. “I just…it’s hard.”

“I know. I know it is. But…it’s fucking worth it. And it’s part of growing up.”

Chase swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Auston managed not to let his surprise show, locking it down, but his pulse was thrumming.

This was the furthest he’d gotten with Chase regarding his mom. And Auston knew—this wasn’t going to be an easy fix. There wasn’t a world where he could just swoop in, mate Chase, and take him away from the evil mother as if their story were some fairy tale.

Chase’s mother had made sure to dig in deep. To leave sprouting seeds of guilt and dependence. It would take time and energy to force them out—to kill the roots until they were all gone.

But Auston was there for the long run. He was going to be there every step of the way until Chase—so young and fresh still—matured enough to extricate himself fully.

For now, he just had to be there, armed with a suggestion or two. “I’m not gonna say no to seeing your mom if you really want to, but…”

“I mean…maybe I can just let it be for now? If she reaches out I can deal with it then, but if she doesn’t…that’s her choice.”

Auston nodded, so fucking proud that he could burst. Fuck her , he wanted to say but contained himself. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Chase gave him a wobbly smile. “Okay. Then, um…Spain?”

Auston went with the change of topic easily. Maybe an outsider wouldn’t agree, but this was progress. “Spain. We can go to the south. Or Marbella. Somewhere beachy.”

The light in his eyes returned “Yeah. Wait, let me grab my phone, we can look places up.”

The hackles that had risen at the mention of Chase’s mom lowered. He dragged Chase almost on top of him, back to chest so they could both see the phone screen, ready to plan their first summer together.