Page 1 of Rivals on Lockdown

The arena lights buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the ice. Louis Zenith’s lungs burned as he tracked the puck. Thirty seconds left on the clock, and the score deadlocked at 3-3. He could feel Kaden Faulter’s presence somewhere behind him, waiting for him to make a mistake. Seven years since juniors, and nothing had changed—Faulter was still there, always watching, always ready to strike.

The media loved this—the two of them, always circling each other. Zenith and Faulter, hockey’s favorite rivalry, names linked together in every sports column like some cosmic joke. It didn’t matter that they were nothing alike. Kaden Faulter, the golden boy of the league, heir to the Faulter media empire, who probably had designer labels sewn into his practice gear. The blond Adonis, with his lightning speed and a pretty-boy smile that made fangirls swoon. Then there was Louis: dark-haired, broad-shouldered, a defenseman who’d worked his way up from local rinks and borrowed equipment. The fans ate it up, spinning stories about their “charged encounters” on ice, debating every glare and shoulder check like it held some hidden meaning. If they only knew how much they truly couldn’t stand each other.

Coach Martinez’s voice cut through the crowd’s roar. “Zenith! Watch your left!”

The warning came a split second too late. With Louis caught between watching the puck and checking his passing options, a blur of white and blue—Faulter’s jersey—flashed in his peripheral vision. Before he could shift his weight to brace for impact, Kaden slammed into him hard, their shoulders crashing. The puck disappeared from Louis’s stick as he fought to keep his balance. Classic Faulter—making the hit look like a clean defensive play for the refs while throwing his full weight at the perfect angle to knock Louis off-rhythm. Louis pivoted hard, ice spraying as he pushed himself to catch up, but Kaden had always been just a half-step faster.

Faulter crossed the blue line as Louis raced to close the gap. Their goalie, Mike, dropped into position, shoulders squared, but Louis already knew what was coming. Seven years of watching the same shot—quick stick-handle, a slight shoulder dip, then top corner. The puck left Faulter’s stick just as Louis lunged to block it. Too late. The final buzzer pierced the air as it hit the back of the net.

Visitors 4, Home 3.

Louis slammed his stick against the ice, the crack lost in the eruption of cheers from the visiting crowd. Two goals tonight, and for what? Just to watch Kaden fucking Faulter light up the scoreboard in the final seconds.

Kaden let out a victory whoop that cut through the noise. “That’s how it’s done!”

Louis forced himself to look up, watching his rival embark on his trademark celebration lap. Hands raised to the crowd, that million-dollar smile flashing as he soaked in the attention. Some of the home fans were even cheering for him now—traitors. Louis’s grip tightened on his stick until his knuckles ached. It was only mid-playoffs, not the end of the world, but losing on Christmas Eve made the defeat sting that much worse.

“Shake it off, Zenith,” Coach Martinez called out behind him, but Louis barely heard him over the blood rushing in his ears.

The teams lined up for the traditional handshake, a parade of sweaty jerseys and forced sportsmanship. Louis tried to regulate his breathing as the line inched forward. He could do this. He could be professional. He could—

“Merry Christmas, Zenith,” Kaden drawled as they came face to face, his voice dripping with false sweetness. “Consider this my gift to you—a reminder that some things never change.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Louis growled, meeting his gaze. “Your circus act’s getting old.”

“Maybe,” Kaden said, lips curving into a venomous smile. He leaned in closer, breath visible in the cold air. “But you still can’t help falling for it, can you?”

“ Fuck you ,” Louis breathed, plastering on a smile for the reporters even as his jaw remained clenched. Camera flashes exploded around them like lightning—the photographers never missed their precious rivalry moments.

Kaden chuckled. “Aw, don’t be like that. You know you’re my favorite plaything.” He leaned even closer, his lips ghosting the shell of Louis’s ear. “Nobody else gets that pretty flush of anger quite like you do.”

“Get bent,” Louis spat, shoving past him.

Kaden’s low chuckle followed him down the line. “Sweet dreams, Lou. I’ll be sure to think of you when I’m polishing my trophy tonight.”

Louis forced himself through the remaining handshakes, each one a blur of motion he performed on autopilot. The locker room beckoned—a refuge from the celebrating crowd, from Faulter’s smirking face, from everything.

He was the first one through the door, dropping onto the bench in front of his stall. The familiar scents of athletic tape and sweat couldn’t mask the staleness of defeat. One by one, his teammates filtered in, their usual post-game chatter subdued to murmurs. Nobody looked his way. They knew better.

Through the small window near the ceiling, Louis could see snow starting to fall harder, the flakes thick and heavy. The weather alert on his phone had warned of a storm rolling in tonight. His hands moved mechanically through the motions—unlacing skates, peeling off gear, dropping each piece into his bag with practiced precision. The routine should have been calming. It wasn’t.

Tinsel and miniature wreaths decorated the room—Taylor, their equipment manager, had spent hours on the holiday display. Now, it just felt like salt in the wound. Louis reached up and yanked a piece of tinsel from his stall, letting it fall to the floor.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Mike, their goalie, said from the next stall over. His voice was rough with frustration, but he tried for an encouraging tone. “It’s Christmas Eve, cap. Let it go.”

“I’m fine, just give me some space,” Louis said, the words coming out sharper than intended. He knew he was coming off as a jerk, but he couldn’t help it. Something about Faulter always stripped away his composure, left him feeling like he was still that drunk kid at the juniors afterparty, heart racing and shame burning in his chest.

Mike gave him a knowing look but didn’t push it. Smart man. In seven years of pro hockey, three different teams, Mike Patterson was the most perceptive goalie Louis had played with.

“Hey, party at my place is still on,” Santiago Lopez, their power forward, called out to the locker room. “Wife’s got enough food for an army, and Santa’s definitely leaving some top-shelf whiskey under our tree. No one should be alone tonight.”

A few halfhearted cheers went up around the room. Louis kept his head down, focused on packing his bag. He’d already decided he wasn’t going. The thought of making small talk, of having to maintain a brave face while everyone tiptoed around the loss—around him—made his skin crawl.

“That includes you, cap,” Santiago added pointedly.

“I’ll think about it,” Louis muttered, which they both knew meant no.

He reached for his phone in the bag, remembering Aunt Mara’s text from before the game. She always checked in on holidays—but when he pulled out the phone, there was no service in the locker room. Her message sat there unanswered: Good luck tonight, sweetheart. Call me after?

She worried about him being alone during the holidays, even though he’d assured her repeatedly that he was fine. That’s what aunts did, he supposed. He’d call her later, on the way home.

The snow was falling harder now, coating the windows in a thick white blanket. Louis watched it for a moment, remembering winters back home in Minnesota, practicing shots in the backyard until his fingers went numb and Aunt Mara dragged him inside for hot chocolate. Things had been simpler then. Before fame, before the pressure, before hockey became more about fans and media narrative than the pure joy of the game.

Louis lingered in his stall, methodically reorganizing his already neat gear while his teammates filtered out one by one. It was his post-loss ritual—waiting until the room emptied before letting himself really process the defeat. Some guys needed to talk it out, needed the communal commiseration, but Louis had always preferred solitude. Today, mercifully, everyone seemed eager to get home to their families, their Christmas Eve dinners, their lives beyond these walls.

The usual locker room sounds faded gradually: equipment bags zipping shut, boots squeaking against the tile, voices growing distant. Louis counted each departure like heartbeats until, finally, blessed silence descended. He exhaled slowly, shoulders slumping as he let his carefully maintained composure crack just a little.

“Louis?” Coach Martinez’s voice startled him. The older man was standing in the doorway, coat on and a bag slung over his shoulder, peering into the dim locker room with concern etched on his weathered face. “You doing alright, son?”

Louis straightened automatically. “Yeah, Coach. I’m good.”

Martinez shifted his bag, hesitating. “You got somewhere to be tonight? Someone to spend Christmas with?”

“Of course,” Louis lied smoothly, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. “My aunt’s expecting me.” He didn’t mention that Aunt Mara lived halfway across the country in Minnesota or that their only Christmas connection would be their annual phone call, where they both pretended they weren’t alone.

“Good, good.” Martinez nodded, seeming relieved. “Well, Merry Christmas then. Don’t stay too late—even the janitors deserve to get home early tonight.”

“Merry Christmas, Coach,” Louis replied, waiting until Martinez’s footsteps faded down the hallway before letting out a long breath.

Finally, truly alone.

He took his towel and headed for the showers, cranking the hot water to maximum. The spray hit his shoulders with bruising force, but he welcomed the almost painful heat. Steam billowed around him as he stood motionless under the stream, losing track of time as the game played on an endless loop in his head. But it wasn’t just the game anymore—Faulter’s face kept swimming into focus, not the polished smirk from today’s victory, but a different expression entirely. One he’d spent years trying to forget.

The steam thickened around him, and suddenly, he was back there seven years ago. The music from the house had been muffled by the night air, the pool lights casting everything in an ethereal blue glow. Faulter had followed him outside—or had Louis followed him? The details were blurry now, lost to time and alcohol, but he remembered with perfect clarity how Kaden’s face had looked in the moonlight. How pale he’d been, chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths as he stared at Louis. There had been a moment then, stretched tight like a wire between them, the chlorine sharp in the air and crickets chirping in the darkness.

Then something had shifted in those blue eyes, something raw and terrified, before he’d looked away and brushed past Louis, practically running back into the house. Louis had stood there for a long time afterward, watching the ripples in the pool catch the moonlight.

Even now, Louis’s heart hammered at the memory. God, he’d been so naive back then.

The bundle of emotions in his chest ached, too tangled to properly unravel. The loss tonight wasn’t crucial in the grand scheme of things, but Faulter’s familiar taunts had hit harder today. Seven years of the same dance, and he still hadn’t learned how to let them slide off his back. He couldn’t cry, though—he never cried. Wouldn’t give Faulter the satisfaction of knowing he still had that power over him.

After what could have been hours, Louis finally turned off the water. He wrapped a towel around his hips and left the shower stalls, droplets of water still trailing down his chest. The building had gone quiet except for the distant sounds of the cleaning crew doing their rounds and the familiar hum of the Zamboni resurfacing the ice.

But when he stepped back into the locker room, he stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn’t alone.

“Was that your everything shower?” Kaden smirked, giving Louis a deliberate once-over from where he sat slumped on one of the benches. “Because it took you like thirty minutes.”

Louis felt suddenly cold, acutely aware of his near-nakedness. He stood frozen, water dripping onto the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying the view,” Kaden said, that infuriating smirk still playing on his lips.

He looked immaculate, freshly showered, and perfectly groomed in a tailored shirt beneath what was probably a ridiculously expensive wool coat. No doubt headed to some fancy charity Christmas dinner where he’d charm everyone with that practiced smile. The contrast between them—Louis dripping wet in just a towel, Kaden looking like he’d stepped out of a magazine—made Louis’s jaw clench.

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“You always stay for a misery shower after you lose,” Kaden taunted, his smirk widening. “Everyone knows that.”

“If you came to gloat, I’m not in the mood,” Louis said, heading for his stall. He tracked Kaden’s movements from the corner of his eye—the way prey watches a circling predator, muscles tensed for the inevitable strike.

“I didn’t,” Kaden said as he stood, leaving his bag behind on the bench. His footsteps echoed in the near-empty locker room. “Just wanted to check in on my favorite enemy. You looked so wrecked out there after the buzzer. Almost made me regret that last goal.”

Louis’s shoulders tensed as Kaden drew closer. He busied himself with his gear, but that familiar cologne—probably worth more than his car—filled his lungs with each breath. The trust fund prince, playing at being one of them. Even now, with Louis’s own contract solid enough to secure that downtown apartment and his aunt’s new place, something about Kaden’s casual wealth made his teeth ache.

“Yeah, right. Stay the hell away from me,” Louis muttered, finally turning to meet Kaden’s gaze. The familiar blue of those eyes caught him off guard, and he watched something raw and unguarded flicker across Kaden’s face—gone so fast he might have imagined it, replaced by that same calculated smile that made Louis’s jaw clench.

“Stop pretending you hate me, Lou.” Kaden’s voice dropped lower, almost gentle, and that softness was worse than any taunt. “We both know better, don’t we?”

The words sliced through him with surgical precision, finding the old wound Louis had spent years trying desperately to bury. Ice seemed to crystallize in his veins, but he kept his face carefully blank—a skill learned through too many cameras, too many moments like this. With deliberate movements, he grabbed his thermal shirt and turned away, using the motion of pulling it over his head to hide whatever truth might be showing on his face.

“I don’t hate you, Faulter,” Louis said, voice low and caustic, even as his heart hammered against his ribs. “You’re nothing to me.” The lie tasted like copper on his tongue, familiar and sharp, perfected over years of practice.

Kaden stepped closer again, the expensive wool of his coat brushing against Louis’s bare arm. “That’s cute,” he purred. “Is that why your heart’s pounding?”

Heat flooded Louis’s face, spreading down his neck. There was no way Kaden could know about his racing pulse, but that realization only made his face burn hotter. He hated how Kaden could read him so easily, how every defense he’d built meant nothing under that knowing gaze.

The locker room suddenly felt too small, too warm despite the winter air seeping through the high windows; he could hear the distant rumble of the cleaning crew’s vacuum, the last echoes of life in the building. Louis grabbed his underwear and pants from the stall, anger twisting in his gut. “Can you leave? I want to put some clothes on and get the hell out of here.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Kaden said, voice dripping with false sweetness. He took a few measured steps back and turned away, adding with honeyed venom, “Don’t worry about the size, Lou—I know it’s cold in here, no judgment.”

Louis yanked on his clothes with sharp, angry movements, then sat to pull on his socks and boots. Through it all, he could feel Kaden’s presence—still there, perched on the bench with his back turned like some brooding statue in that ridiculous designer coat.

Shoving the last of his things into his bag, Louis zipped up his parka and made for the door. His fingers closed around the handle, turned—and met solid resistance. He tried again, harder this time, but the door didn’t budge.

Something cold settled in his stomach as his eyes tracked between the handle and the lock mechanism. “What the fuck?” He turned to glare at Kaden. “Did you do this?”

“Do what?” Kaden’s voice held that same aristocratic boredom that made Louis want to punch him.

“We’re locked in.”

That got Kaden’s attention. He stood, all fluid grace even now. “What do you mean, locked in ? I came in like thirty minutes ago.”

“Were there cleaners in the hallway?” Louis demanded.

“How should I know? I was too busy watching you take your pity shower.” But there was an edge to Kaden’s voice now, something less controlled.

“Did anyone come in here?”

“No.” Kaden’s perfect facade cracked just slightly as he crossed to test the handle himself. “I don’t know.”

Louis yanked his phone out of his pocket, but he already knew there was no service in the locker room—there never was, the thick concrete walls blocking any hope of a signal. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a sharp breath. “Well, this is just fucking perfect.”