Page 23 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)
At ten minutes on ice, muscle function begins to fail. There’s severe pain and shivering so intense you feel like your organs will vibrate out of your skin. A human body can last six to ten minutes with effort and conditioning.
But once you reach the tenth to eleventh minute, core body temperature drops. Dangerously. By thirty minutes, unconsciousness becomes likely.
I didn’t trust Uncle Jasper not to push the envelope—in fact, I knew he would.
He wanted me to be more than human and I’d pissed him off.
Tate wanted to play hockey in college. I said he could.
It was the bargain I had with Uncle Jasper—I made decisions for Tate—but he’d never promised not to make me pay for decisions he didn’t like.
He thought of the ice bath as a test, as a reckoning. Had I made the right choice? Was I certain my loyalties were where they should be? He believed he was doing me a favor.
My teeth chattered, and I hadn’t even entered the pool yet, but I’d done this before. I knew how horrible it was. Thinking about that wasn’t going to save me, though. I took a deep breath, collected all my mental fortitude, and submerged my naked body into the ice.
The cold was violent, slicing through my skin and ricocheting up my body.
Even as trained as I was, that first minute was always hell.
My brain screamed at me to get the hell out by overloading me with devastating amounts of pain.
And there was no such thing as calming it down, either.
My body’s pleas were a protection hard-wired into the nervous system.
I had to find the will to ignore the cries as I was being devoured by the ice-cold water.
But I kept myself in the pool. I knew the rules. Silence was obedience.
Each second felt like an eternity. My seizing muscles fucked with my head—was it now? Was this the moment my body would succumb to hypothermia? Even if I didn’t die from this, would I suffer irreversible damage? Is that the piece of me he wants this time?
There was no way to be sure.
“When will you learn, Lucas? He’s not who you think he is. He’s not worth your soul.”
But he was. Tate was beautiful and pure, unlike me. I wanted him to stay that way. I wanted him to have whatever he wanted.
Uncle Jasper could have my soul, but he wasn’t taking the part of me that loved my brother.
I began to shake as my body shivered in a desperate bid to create warmth. Uncle Jasper poured himself a bourbon from the patio cart as I danced with death.
“What’s the other reason we do this?”
“L-L-Loyalty, s-sir.” My teeth were going to break off, or I was going to bite my tongue just to feel the warmth of my blood. If I was still alive, it was still warmer than this fucking pool.
“Yes. Are you still obedient?”
“Yes, s-sir.”
Tate would be home soon. I wanted this over with before he could see. I was embarrassed. Debasing myself like this in exchange for what little mercy Uncle Jasper had.
I stayed in that ice, forcing myself to remain until I couldn’t feel anything but the pounding in my skull, until my hands felt like bricks, each breath harder to pull into lungs that were freezing like pork cutlets.
Uncle Jasper downed the rest of his scotch. “That’s enough.”
But by then, my limbs were useless. I wasn’t getting out without his help. I used the strength I had left to reach out to him.
“Please.” My voice was slurred as if I were the one who had been drinking the bourbon.
His arms came up under me, and he pulled me out of the ice, but the cold never left.
Every moment I stayed in that ice was payment, so I could buy Tate’s freedom from the prison I was living in. I paid it happily. The difference between then and now is that Tate didn’t ask me to do it. He didn’t know the kind of sacrifices I was making on his behalf.
But it hits me. He doesn’t know what he’s asking me now any more than he knew what I was giving up for him then. How could he? He said it himself, he “got the idea from me”. He thinks what I’m doing with Ace is a fucking game.
Because.
Fuck.
Tate’s never fallen for anyone. He doesn’t know the pain of it. The helpless, literal falling sensation in your chest and gut—every minute of every day. He has the goddamn luxury of playing games with hearts because his hasn’t been stolen, taken out of play.
Good.
I hope he never has to live in this kind of hell.
I shake my head, shoving shit into my bag. I need to get out of here before I fucking throttle him. That wouldn’t be fair. I did this. But it doesn’t change the very real fact that if I don’t get out of this gym now, my fist is slamming into his jaw.
“Why are you so fucking pissed?”
Because I’m going to have to be the one to make the real sacrifice, again. Because I have to get back into the goddamn ice.
What other option do I have? I was supposed to take this job to help him, not risk his career. I know that.
But.
Yeah.
I wanted it. It’s wrong and ugly, but I wanted him to put himself on the line for me. It’s not going to happen. Tatum VanCourt only takes risks for his own aspirations.
I leave without saying another word.
The days had been brighter, the birds cheerier, and my steps seemed to float instead of lugging my heavy body around like they usually do.
Not today.
The birds are dead.
The rain is fucking cold.
And I’ve never felt so much like I was living in a vat of nearly dried concrete as I have today.
I’m a bit sore from too much training, but that’s not the reason for my sudden one-eighty, and I’m a liar if I say otherwise.
I choke down a protein shake in the morning, packing my gym stuff, because after classes, that’s what I’m doing. Though, maybe I should change it up today and go for a long run to allow time for the skin on my knuckles to grow back.
But I’m just as happy to bring on the pain.
Anything’s better than the suffocating loss of someone who’s still living, who you ache for, but can’t fucking have.
Especially when I’m struggling to cling to the reason I was giving up Ace in the first place after hearing about Tate’s self-serving plan.
Tate hasn’t technically betrayed me—how could he when he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know? Yet, it feels like betrayal.
In class, Ace beams in my direction, but knowing what I’m going to have to tell him, I can’t bear to look at him.
It kept me up all night as it is. How I’d do it, what I’d say.
I tried framing it on a timeline. Maybe we wait until the season’s over.
But if he heads on to the NHL like he keeps saying he will, news is going to get out that his boyfriend was his ex-professor.
That’s still going to affect Tate until he no longer works at this school.
The timeline is never. We can never be together.
I snap my fucking pointer cane in half and throw it across the room. Three hundred and ten fourth-year English students freeze.
“Class dismissed. No homework.”
“Alright!” one of Ace’s hockey hooligan brothers hoots.
Standing, palms flat on the desk, I refuse to look, to watch Ace walk out the door. Maybe like a coward, I’ll just leave the school. I don’t want to see his face when I reject him. Ghosting him will hurt, but it will hurt less.
The idiot doesn’t leave, though, and when I turn, he’s standing there, bag slung over his shoulder.
“Luke.”
“Get out.”
“What happened to your hands? It looks like they’ve been in a garburator.”
“None of your business.”
“Is this because of what I did in your office? Or the drawing? Didn’t match your likeness enough? Want me to redo it? You’re right, it needed wolf fangs, kept me up all fucking night when I realized.”
He almost pulls a laugh from me. Instead, my heart clenches.
“Go, McKinnon,” I say softly.
“Luke,” he says with a little catch in his voice. Without me having to say it, it’s dawned on him that I’m not just saying “get to class” but “get out of my life”.
For a second, I think he’ll cry, but then his eyes darken. “No and fuck you, you fucking coward. This isn’t over, Luke. We’ll talk about it later. I’m going to practice, and then there’s something important I have to do, but after that I’m finding your ass, capiche?”
I nod, but only because he’s right about the coward part. He deserves more. Maybe in a few hours, I’ll have the words that eluded me all night.
“Get out, McKinnon.”