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alexsey popov

“Welcome to Anaheim, Popov.”

I was twenty years old, wild and untamed, and absolutely nothing was going to stop me from being the best right wing pro hockey had ever seen. My new coach patted me on the back as I stepped off the bus.

“Coach Crew.” He introduced himself, his voice calm but firm. “I’ve heard good things about you.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I replied, trying to match his level of seriousness.

Coach Crew’s appearance was surprising. He was a smaller, slender guy in his early fifties.

Unlike Coach Santana, my previous coach, who I’d considered like a mentor, Coach Crew seemed quiet and nervous.

Our team was brand new this year, so we got the last pick of the good coaches.

I wondered how he’d handle a room full of rowdy hockey players.

He must have noticed my hesitation because he smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, Popov. We’ll get there.”

Back in Russia, I was a second-rate player. My rival, already recruited by an American team, was a constant reminder of where I wasn’t. The sting of his success pushed me to work harder. When I was seventeen, I decided to move to Los Angeles, chasing a dream that seemed almost impossible.

“Coach Santana will make you a star,” I’d heard. His reputation was legendary in fine-tuning pro-skaters. The first day of training, he’d looked me over with a critical eye. “Skate harder, Popov,” he’d shout. “You want to play pro, you’ve got to earn it.”

I’d collapse into bed every night with aching muscles and blistered feet. College classes were a blur between practice sessions. Two years of grueling work, and here I was, standing in front of Coach Crew, ready to join the Blades after the draft.

“Ready to meet the team?” Coach Crew asked, breaking into my thoughts.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, a grin spreading across my face.

We walked into the arena together, the familiar smell of ice and sweat welcoming me to my new life.

“I believe you know one of the other starters?” Coach Crew asked.

“Yeah. The captain, Dimitri Sokolov, and I actually grew up in the same town.”

Dimitri was a year younger than me, and we were the only two people from our town who’d ever made it big.

“Good. Good,” Coach said and then walked me down the hallway in the back of the arena where the locker rooms were.

“These are the tunnels...” He droned on about what the arena looked like, but truthfully, all these places looked the same once we were beneath the stands.

They were big concrete structures only there to entertain the masses. I had to give this place credit, though, because it was cleaner than most since the arena was brand new.

We finally found ourselves in front of the home locker room, where Coach pushed the doors open. I was the last to be recruited and, therefore, the last to arrive at our first practice. Well, there were other reasons, too, but Coach had already chastised me about those.

Last night in Anaheim, I decided to explore my options, and I can’t say I regret trying out the dating scene here.

Living in Los Angeles, nestled near the city on a college campus, being part of the hockey team made meeting women easy.

If I wanted to fuck, all it took was a snap of my fingers, and my dorm room would have a line out the door.

But when I joined the Blades and moved to Orange County, I wondered what the dating pool would be like.

I was told a lot of older women were looking for a hot, younger guy in this area.

While sure, I appreciate a good MILF from time to time, last night, I wanted to see what else this place had to offer.

Needless to say, the bar near my apartment had plenty on the menu. However, this morning, the woman I met seemed a bit too attached, despite my clear communication that I was only interested in something casual. Hence why I was a few minutes late to practice.

As we pushed open the doors and entered the locker room, it was buzzing with energy. The walls were painted with gold and black, the Blades team colors. Black lockers lined the walls, and the concrete floors were spotless, which wouldn’t last long.

“Everyone,” Coach said softly, and not a single person turned around over the chirping of conversations around us.

This was going to be a long year. There was absolutely no way this guy was going to be able to scream out directions during a game if he couldn’t get the group to be quiet. After another feeble attempt from him, I stuck my fingers in my mouth and blew loudly, which got everyone’s attention.

Coach Crew looked over at me. “Thank you,” he responded softly before turning toward the rest of the group. “I wanted to take a second to recognize Alexsey Popov, our final team player, before we head out to practice.”

There was a resounding “Hear! Hear!” from the team.

“It’s just Alex,” I added and tipped my head at them before I found an empty spot in the corner of the locker room.

I got my gear on, quietly minding my own business, before I heard someone’s skates wobble over to where I was.

“Strange seeing you here,” someone said with a familiar Russian accent as I looked up from the wooden bench.

I stood up and gave Dimitri a hug. We may have been rivals back in Russia, and he may have been a better player than I was, but there was a familiarity in knowing someone you’d grown up playing with.

“Hey, man,” I said as I sat back down to lace up my skates.

“Can you believe this?” he asked, gesturing to the locker room.

I shook my head. Truthfully, I never imagined my life outside of the tiny town I grew up in.

Moving to the big city was an adjustment, and then being shipped off to a foreign country when I couldn’t legally drink out here was a massive change.

Coming to finally play pro in a national hockey league actually felt like the most normal thing that's happened to me the last few years.

“Crazy,” I mumbled, struggling to tighten the laces.

Annoyance bubbled up as my superstition made me believe that taking my skates to a new shop for sharpening had ruined them, convinced they’d tampered with the laces and tightened them too much.

“Did you hear the big news?” he asked.

That got my attention, so I looked back up at him. “No.”

“I figured it would’ve gotten telephoned back to you.”

“Uh... no?” It came out as a question, but mostly because the people at the skate shop most definitely touched my laces because they didn’t fit right.

Fuck. Fuck. I had a routine, and I hated when it got messed up.

“I’m getting married.”

“The fuck?” I dropped my skate and looked up at him as he sat down on the bench next to me.

“Yeah.” He shook his head with excitement, giving me a chance to size him up.

His curly blonde hair framed his face, adding a touch of youthfulness to his otherwise imposing figure.

He stood tall, easily towering over me, with a height of about six foot five to my six foot three.

His lanky build contrasted with my solid frame.

While he had a boyish charm, my broader shoulders and defined jawline gave me a more rugged appearance.

“Who are you getting married to?” I asked. “Anyone I’d know?”

I figured it was since he mentioned that I may have a clue about the news.

“Yes.”

I turned toward him. “Who?”

“Anastasia Illyiana.”

I paused for a second, trying to figure out why that name sounded so familiar. “The ice-skater?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

I cocked my head to the side. She lived in Moscow, but sometimes we’d share the same rink times with the ice-skaters, so I’d seen her in passing, but never really knew her.

“I thought she was in a relationship with her partner. She’s practically a kid,” I remarked, puzzled by the situation.

The last I had heard from gossip sites indicated she was already taken.

Moreover, she was renowned as one of the best pair ice-skaters in the entire country.

It seemed illogical for her to give up such a successful career to come to the States.

Back in Russia, she had fame, money, and recognition—starting new here didn’t add up.

“No, she’s nineteen,” he replied, shaking his head. “So, you do keep up with the gossip?”

“Here and there,” I grumbled and then went back to lacing up. “So . . . marriage . . .”

He nodded. “Yeah. She moved here to be with me.”

Ah. That made more sense. But what I still wasn’t understanding... “She left everything to be with you?”

“Da. I can give her a better life here. She’ll still skate, but her parents and I think she needs to be domesticated. She needs money to skate in the States. I have money, but I need a wife. Anastasia will stay home and learn her place.”

And there it was. This was an arranged marriage. He took her away from her home, isolating her completely just to “domesticate” her. It was fucking cruel. She was a phenomenal skater.

“I’m glad she’s still skating here.”

He shrugged. “Yes, and hopefully with time, she’ll be able to move away from partner skating and more into the individual. She’ll do better there.”

He was so assured in his statement that if I didn’t know anything about figure skating, I’d have thought he was correct.

But switching from individual to partner and vice versa was like starting over.

From my limited understanding, she would’ve needed to learn new routines, get a new coach, even go so far as to practice in an entirely different way, exercising different parts of her muscles.

But it wasn’t my business. I didn’t know Anastasia.

“Well.” I finally managed to get everything laced up. “Congrats are in order then, man.” I stood up, giving the guy a quick pat on the back before we walked out toward the rink together.

“You were late this morning?” he asked.

I shrugged, then gave him a wry smile. “Had to try out what the ladies in the OC had to offer,” I said unapologetically.

He laughed, the sound booming through the empty arena. “Yeah, well, maybe next time I’ll come try some with you.” Dimitri laughed again, but I held out my hand, stopping him.

“You’re engaged, man,” I said, staring right at him.

He shook his head.

I was an asshole, and I loved to fuck, but I had morals. It was the whole reason I never wanted to be tied down. The moment someone relied on me, it would be game over. I had seen how that turned out with my parents, and I refused to be like them.

“On paper, sure?—”

“Wait.” I stopped. “The fuck?”

I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. There was no way he was actually implying that he was going to cheat on his soon-to-be wife by going out with me... Was there?

Dimitri turned toward me, grabbed my wrist, and held on tight. “You heard me. I can do whatever I want with or without my fiancée. Is that clear?”

I threw up my hands. “Whatever.”

I wasn’t about to play whose cock is bigger with this fucking asshole. He hadn’t changed since we were kids—always a pompous dick—and this was no different.

“Got it,” I said, shaking my head in disgust as I stepped onto the ice.

Fuck this guy. If he wanted to cheat on his fiancée, so be it. He was right. It wasn’t my place to be concerned about what he did in his personal life. For us, we’d just have to learn to work together on the ice, and that was all.