Page 27

CHAPTER 26

I blinked against the pale winter light bleeding in through the blinds, my limbs heavy with exhaustion.

The first thing I registered was the soreness. A deep ache low in my back, between my thighs, and across my hips. I groaned and shifted onto my side, feeling the protest of overstretched muscles and the dull throb of bruises that hadn’t even formed yet.

Last night came back to me in flashes.

Ethan’s teeth biting into my shoulder.

His fingers tunneling into me roughly.

His shaking hands gripping my hips.

The wet heat of his tears on my skin as he’d broken apart inside me.

The way he’d growled “mine,” and how I’d believed him.

I reached across the mattress, my palm sliding over empty, cold sheets.

Something heavy settled in my chest—disappointment, though I didn’t know why. After everything that had happened, the desperate way he’d claimed me afterward, of course he’d run. Of course he’d retreat.

That was what Ethan did when things got too real.

So why did it hurt so fucking much to wake up alone?

“I’ll never stop wanting you,” he’d vowed last night, his voice ragged with emotion.

But wanting wasn’t the same as committing .

I needed to remember that.

With a quiet groan, I forced myself upright, the remnants of our passion clinging to my skin, uncomfortable and tacky. My quads screamed from all the time I’d spent on the ice last night, and I hissed as I stood, my legs a little shaky as I shuffled toward his bathroom.

My body was wrecked. I needed some TLC, and I deserved the luxury of Ethan’s ridiculous shower with its multiple massage jets and endless hot water.

I turned the water as hot as I could stand it and stepped under the spray, a groan escaping me as six perfectly positioned jets hit my aching muscles. Water sluiced down my skin, washing away the evidence of last night, but not the memories.

Not the marks.

Rivulets streamed across the perfect imprints of Ethan’s fingertips on my hips. The angry red bite mark on my shoulder looked like it might stay there for weeks. I traced it with my fingers, remembering the exact moment his teeth had sunk into me, when he’d been so lost in the moment he couldn’t contain himself.

Steam filled the glass enclosure as I reached for his shampoo, working it into my hair. Wrapping myself in his scent felt like one last indulgence before I had to face whatever waited for me beyond this room. I took my time, letting the scalding water work its magic on my sore muscles, turning my skin pink under the relentless spray.

When I finally stepped out, the mirror was fogged, my reflection nothing but a vague shadow. It seemed somehow fitting.

Back in his bedroom, I stared at his dresser for a beat before I found myself drifting to it. Ethan’s sweatpants would be a little big on me, but I didn’t care. And his Aces shirt, the one from last season with the collar stretched out, was softer than any of mine. I grabbed it too, dressing in his clothes seeking comfort … or maybe armor.

Once presentable, I padded barefoot through the house, following the scent of coffee to the living room.

Ethan sat on the couch, a steaming mug clutched between his hands. His shoulders were hunched forward, his black t-shirt stretched tight across his back.

I cleared my throat as I entered the living room, not wanting to startle him.

His head swung my way, a flicker of relief crossing his face before his expression changed, his features hardening, gaze dropping to the floor. His knuckles whitened around his mug, and he set it down with a sharp click on the coffee table.

I recognized his expression. The way guilt crawled across his face, tightening his jaw, creasing his forehead.

“Hey,” I said, voice still rough from sleep and screaming his name.

“Morning,” he muttered, not meeting my eyes as I moved to the kitchen to pour myself some coffee.

No way was I doing this uncaffeinated.

The pot was still warm, the liquid inside black and fragrant. I poured some into one of Ethan’s favorite mugs—an All-Star one from three seasons ago—a small act of defiance, or maybe just a way for me to claim another piece of him.

“There’s a breakfast burrito in the oven if you’re hungry.”

I made my way to the couch, lowering myself down with a wince I couldn’t hide, the leather cushion dipping beneath my weight.

“Thanks, but I’m good for now.”

I was actually starving, but my stomach was tied up in knots, and even if I somehow managed to swallow the burrito down, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t come right back up.

He nodded stiffly, his gaze bouncing to the Christmas tree in the corner of the room as his fingers drummed a nervous tattoo against his knee.

I shifted, letting out a small hiss at the sharp twinge between my thighs.

Ethan’s eyes darted to my face, down to my crotch, and then away again, like my pain physically hurt him to witness. “I’m sorry. I was … I shouldn’t have been so rough. I lost control.”

I reached across the space between us for his hand, relieved when he didn’t pull away. His skin was warm from the coffee mug, slightly rough against mine. “I wanted it, E,” I told him, my thumb finding the pulse point at his wrist. “Everything you gave me, I asked for. I welcomed it.” I squeezed his fingers. “I’ll always welcome it.”

He finally looked at me, his dark eyes searching mine for a moment before his eyebrows dropped into a deep vee. “I hurt you.”

“You didn’t.”

He snorted. “You can barely walk.”

He wasn’t wrong. He had hurt me, but I’d asked him too. Probably wouldn’t be doing that again anytime soon, but it was what he needed last night, and I’d never deny this man anything that he needed.

Still, I hated that he felt guilty for it.

I laughed to try and play it off like it wasn’t a big deal. “Yeah, because I got my ass kicked on the ice and then got the most thorough dicking down of my life last night. It’s not like I haven’t done the same to you before.”

Something in his expression shifted at that—remembering, perhaps, all the mornings he’d been the one moving carefully, wearing my marks beneath his clothes. The corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile, before it disappeared.

“You needed it,” I said, brushing my thumb over his knuckles. “We both did.”

He pulled his hand away with a sharp intake of breath, and I felt him retreating—not just physically, but emotionally, too. The warmth in his eyes cooled as he raised his walls back up, brick by invisible brick.

“Ethan,” I said, my voice tight with sudden fear. I set my coffee down with a clunk against the table. “Talk to me. Please. Let me in.”

He took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling with it, and turned to face me fully for the first time since I came out here. “I got suspended,” he said flatly. “Three games.”

“What?” I straightened. “That’s bullshit! Chet’s the one who should be benched for the homophobic shit he keeps spouting. He literally called us fags. Everyone heard him.”

Ethan’s mouth twisted. “Maybe so, but I’m the one who physically attacked him.” He flexed his hands, staring at his fingers like he could still feel them wrapped around Chet’s throat.

I swallowed hard, guilt churning in my stomach. “I’m sorry for how I stopped you from going after him again. For … uh, wrapping myself around you like that. In front of everyone.” I forced myself to meet his eyes.

Ethan swallowed, and something unreadable flickered across his face.

My heart pounded, hope rising even as I tried to tamp it down. Part of me was praying he’d say that it was okay, that he figured it was time to come clean with our teammates.

He didn’t.

He cleared his throat and said instead, “I talked to my agent last night on the drive home. He thinks there’s a way to spin this.”

“Spin it?” What the hell was he talking about? How did you convince people they didn’t see what they very clearly saw?

“Yeah. We can play it off like we’re just really good friends who aren’t afraid to show affection for one another. Non-toxic bros who are breaking stereotypes or whatever. That’s kind of your shtick already, so it fits the narrative.” He spoke faster now, like he’d rehearsed this a thousand times and just needed to get it out. “I … uh … he also suggested I call Lacey.”

I stared at him, my lungs constricting. “Lacey, as in the woman you pretended to date for years?”

“Yeah,” he said, flopping back against the couch cushions and looking up at the ceiling for a moment before his eyes found mine again. “Her and Caroline broke up last month, so the timing works.”

I shot to my feet, crossing the room. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It’s only temporary,” Ethan said quickly. “Just until this whole thing blows over.” His voice was placating, the tone you’d use on a spooked animal. Or worse, a child.

“This whole thing?” I repeated, my voice turning frantic as I paced across the room. “You mean us? You mean me?”

“No, Bell, not you. Never you.” He reached for me as I strode past, but didn’t stand. He let his hand fall back down and curled it into a fist on his thigh. “I’m talking about the rumors, the speculation.”

I turned toward the window, seeing the man who lived across the street wave at me from his driveway, oblivious to the storm raging inside his neighbor’s house. I yanked the curtains closed with enough force that the rod rattled and turned back to Ethan, my arms crossed over my chest.

“So let me get this straight. After everything that happened yesterday—after last night—you’re going to pretend to date your beard to convince our teammates you’re straight?”

“It’s not like that.” He stood now, his face flushed with frustration or shame, I wasn’t sure. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth, and a vein stood out on his forehead.

“Then what’s it like, Ethan? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you fucked me to within an inch of my life last night knowing you were going to do this to me in the morning.”

I took two steps toward him, then stopped, afraid of what I might do if I got any closer. Afraid I’d drop to my knees and beg. Cry and plead. Pull out his cock and try to convince him that he needed me, if not with words, then with sex.

He flinched at my accusation and took a half step back. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” I laughed, the sound sharp and broken and crazed. “You want to talk about fair? You told me—you fucking promised me—that this was real.” I bit back a sob, my throat burning and my eyes stinging. I blinked rapidly, refusing to cry.

“It is real,” he insisted, crossing the space between us until he was close enough to smell the coffee on his breath, see the flecks of gold in his eyes, feel the heat radiating from his skin. “I want to be with you. And I will. Just … not like this.”

“Not like what? Not in public? Not where anyone might see? Not where it might actually cost you something to acknowledge me?” My voice broke, and I twisted away, needing to hide my face.

The mantel was cool beneath my hands as I leaned against it, my shoulders hunched and my head hung forward.

“I don’t want to be forced out of the closet,” he said, his voice soft at my back. “Why can’t you understand that?”

I spun back around. “Because you told me you were worth taking a chance on. You swore you were done running, that you’d get there. For me. For us.” I flung my arm out, nearly knocking a photo off the shelf—a shot of us from a team event earlier in the season, my arm slung casually over his shoulder.

Ethan had made me a promise, and now he was breaking it.

He tunneled his hands into his hair and linked his fingers behind his head, his t-shirt stretching tight across his chest as he pulled a deep breath into his lungs and then let it out in one long gust. “I also told you I couldn’t give you a timeline for when that would be, and you said you understood.”

“Because I thought we were moving toward something, not away from it,” I argued, my voice rising as I closed the distance between us. I pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath my palm, the erratic thud thud thud a match to my own racing pulse. “But I don’t understand. What are you actually afraid of, Ethan? Spell it out for me, because I legitimately don’t get it. I’m out. Miller’s out. And the world keeps on spinning.”

“Except sometimes it doesn’t,” he said, his voice sounding strangely hollow, devoid of emotion.

The sudden shift in tone sent a foreboding chill down my spine.

“What does that even mean?” My hand fell away, but I didn’t step back, couldn’t move away.

Ethan drew in a shaky breath that seemed to rattle in his lungs. He looked past me, through me, his gaze fixed on some invisible point in the distance. Then the shutters came down behind his eyes, his expression closing off. Wherever he’d gone in his mind, I wasn’t allowed to follow. He took a few steps away and leaned against the wall.

“When I was fourteen, I was hooking up with this guy on my hockey team. Just stupid, secret stuff. But then some of his friends started getting suspicious.”

My chest went tight, and my stomach knotted, already knowing in my bones this story wasn’t going to end well.

“But instead of coming clean or just telling them to fuck off, he made up some really lame, far-fetched story about how I kept coming on to him. That I was looking at him weird in the locker room.” His mouth twisted with disgust, the words bitter and unwelcome. He wiped the back of his hand across his lips, attempting to erase their poisonous taste.

“He asked me to meet him in the weight room before school. Said he wanted to mess around again. Suck my dick or something—I can’t even remember now. I was nervous as hell but excited too, because I thought—” He broke off, his voice cracking. “I thought maybe he actually liked me. Wanted to be my boyfriend.”

He snorted and shook his head, muttering, “so fucking stupid.”

My stomach churned, and acid rose in my throat. The room suddenly felt too warm. Was it spinning, too?

“He locked the door behind us and took my hand. Led me over to a corner that was hidden from view. That’s when his friends jumped out of a closet.”

His breathing quickened, becoming shallow and erratic. His eyes widened, unseeing, as the present dissolved around him. He wasn’t here in this room with me anymore. He was back there, trapped in the memory.

“They beat the shit out of me. Said things I’ll never forget. Thankfully, I passed out before it was over, but one of them slammed my head against the floor hard enough to split my scalp open.” He pointed to the faint scar near his hairline just above his ear, the silvery line I’d kissed a hundred times. The one he’d told me was an old hockey injury. I wanted to throw up. “Got this little souvenir from it.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered, stepping toward him, but he held up a hand to stop me.

Stormy eyes found mine. “My coach broke it up. Called the ambulance.” His voice turned flat again, stripped of all emotion, the words mechanical and practiced. A recitation, a narration of his trauma that couldn’t touch him. “When I woke up, I was in the hospital. Concussion. Broken nose. Three fractured ribs.”

I shook my head at the horrors he’d endured, my throat too tight to speak. My legs felt weak beneath me, but I forced myself to stay standing. If he could re-live this for me, the least I could do was meet it on my feet.

“My dad took the coach out into the hallway. They talked for five minutes. When he came back in, he sat down beside my bed and told me it would be best for everyone if I said it was just a misunderstanding. That it wasn’t what it looked like. That I didn’t know why those boys attacked me.”

I reached for him, but he stepped back.

“They told me to lie,” he spat. “They made it sound like they were doing me a favor. Protecting me. But what they were really doing was making sure I understood that being gay— being me —was dangerous. That the only way to survive was to bury that shit so deep no one would ever find it again.” His hands shook as he raked them through his hair.

The pain in his voice stole my breath.

“And I did,” he whispered, his shoulders slumping. “I became the perfect son. The golden boy. Captain of the hockey team. Scholar athlete. Never let myself get close to anyone again. Never let myself want anyone I couldn’t have. Not until—” He broke off, his throat working, that muscle in his jaw twitching.

“Not until me,” I said, my voice rough with unshed tears.

He nodded, a single jerk of his chin. “So yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t care if things are different now. If people are more accepting. Because back then, it wasn’t just some online troll spouting their bullshit. It was people I knew. Trusted.”

Tears burned behind my eyes, hot and insistent. The room blurred, and I blinked to clear my vision.

“Even now, when I think about coming out, all I can do is re-live that moment. The betrayal. The pain I experienced in that fucking room.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. All I could do was move.

I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him, feeling him shake against me. The heat of his body, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the faint scent of his shampoo—all of it anchored me even as I tried to anchor him. He didn’t cry. He just held on, silent and trembling. His heartbeat thundered against mine, our pulses racing in tandem.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into his hair, my lips brushing against his temple, over that fucking scar. “I’m so sorry.”

His fingers dug into my back, clutching at my shirt. “I don’t want to be scared anymore, Bell,” he murmured, the words muffled against my neck, his breath warm on my skin. “But I am. All the fucking time.”

“I know, baby. I know.” I held him tighter, as if I could absorb his fear through my skin.

Outside, a car honked, and the world kept on turning.

But in this room, time seemed suspended as I finally understood the depth of Ethan’s fear—not just abstract anxiety, but a physical memory of pain and betrayal seared into his bones.

And I realized it was so much bigger than I knew what to do with.