Page 110 of The Price of Ice

His throat felt too thick to speak and he couldn’t quite look away.

It was Levy who cut through the thick tension between them. “You wanna finish the game?”

Chapter 37

“So I did my homework,” Taylor told him the next time they met up.

“What?” Kallen didn’t remember giving him any.

Taylor shook his head. “Bad joke. I used lure on my partner,” he explained, smiling. “With her consent,” he clarified, possibly because Kallen was looking at him like he’d just taken out a grenade.

“Oh. Okay.”

He had said he thought it was a matter of practice, he supposed.

“It went well,” Taylor said gently. “Just like when we did it; I felt very confident, she felt super peaced out and very happy to do what I asked her.”

Kallen swallowed.

“Which was to get me a snack,” Taylor added in a tone that made clear he knew Kallen’s mind had been in the gutter. He laughed at whatever went through Kallen’s face. “Ah, to be twenty again.”

“Nineteen,” he grumbled, but without real feeling.

Taylor’s smirk said he was only making his point for him, but then his face smoothed out, still pleased but more intense somehow. “So you think you are ready for more students?”

“Who?” he asked, already tensing up.

“Well, let’s say I give you a list of five people I know could use the help, and you choose.”

Kallen shifted on the low beaten up sofa, rubbing at his knees. It was absurd, two days earlier he’d started planning his future as a lure trainer, or whatever it was called. But it wasn’t the same as the prospect of real people. They wouldn’t all be like Taylor, effortlessly ignoring his lack of social graces. “What about the others? I mean, if they really need help...”

Taylor tsked at him. “They got us.” Kallen looked up at the unexpected sharpness in his tone. “I know you want to help, but you gotta pace yourself or you will burn out. Been there, done that, zero stars on the accommodation,” he added with a bitter twist to his smile.

His mother’s words about painting came back to him then. Was it an omega thing? He wondered. To give more than you had so others wouldn’t go without?

“So nothing on a real expert?” he asked, with little hope. He’d never felt like this on the ice, he thought, there he’d needed his teammates, of course, but for most of his career,he’dbeen the one who’d shown up and made things okay. Or not, but he’d always had a good chance if he applied himself.

His fears were confirmed with a rueful headshake. “I’m not giving up, but right now, if you don’t feel ready, I’ll wait until I feel a bit more confident myself and see if I can teach someone else.”

“Oh.” Kallen swallowed. “You can do that?”

The older omega shrugged. “I canhandletrying, at least. I’m... Listen, Kallen, I’m in a good place. I have been in a good place for years now. And I know you are just figuring it out what that place might look like for you, and if you need time for that, or you just don’t want to teach anyone else, you’d have still helped a lot. I wouldn’t ask, it’s only that back then when everything fell apart... Having someone else to wake up for, something else to do that wasn’t football but meant something to me made all the difference.”

Kallen licked his lips, squirming a little. Of course Taylor got it. Hell, hisdadhad got it. And they were right, the moment he’d begun thinking about teaching lure, he’d felt... Hopeful. Not full yet, nothing like the electricity under your skin when you came off the ice after a hard-won victory, but a spark. Something to be alive for.

Hockey had never been easy, not even before the White Cats. It’d required not just discipline but facing men bigger than him, risking getting hurt or benched if he didn’t perform.

He’d done it anyway, just for the spark.

Talking to other omegas at least was very unlikely to result in any broken bones, he supposed. “What are they called? The experts?”

“Um, different things...” Taylor glanced around, as if looking for something. “Omega psychic specialists, I think?” He offered a twisted smile. “The branding wasn’t all that impressive. Guess there aren’t that many of them so they don’t have to worry about that.”

“Do you know... Like, could you tell me their names?”

Taylor blinked. “Sure. I’ll text them to you.”

“Okay.” He braced himself. “Then choose two people, and they can come to the next lesson. But you gotta be there, make sure I don’t fuck up.”

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