Page 125 of The Price of Ice

Doctor Meira blinked at him. “Of course, Kallen.”

He could feel himself start to smile even before the words came, “I have a boyfriend. I mean, I justgota boyfriend. He was a teammate, before. Or I guess—” He huffed, laughing a little and saw she was waiting. “We were both playing for the same team in Jiro, and we became friends and then he got injured and I kind of... Well, moved in. He lived in the same building ina flat on his own and I was staying with a different teammate’s family so it was no big deal. I liked it. Living with him, taking care of him.” He shrugged a little. “He cooked for me,” he added and realised he sounded a little defensive. He hadn’t talked to Analisa yet and damn, but he was worried about it.

Levy wasn’t like most alphas, and he didn’t treat Kallen like he was there to serve him. The opposite, really, but Kallendidwant to help him, and maybe that was very omega of him. Or maybe it meant he was a good friend.Boyfriend.

“He sounds nice,” the therapist said neutrally.

“He is!” Kallen said at once, too loud. “He quit the team, he said he couldn’t do it anymore.”

She nodded and he thought he detected real approval there. Not that he needed anyone to confirm Levy was worthy.

“I’m a little jealous, and I feel a little guilty. That I haven’t quit yet,” he added, surprising himself with it. He’d told Levy already, in a way, but what was the point?

But Doctor Meira asked him some questions about it, and she insisted his feelings on the matter were important too, even if what he wanted wasn’t the most convenient practically speaking. And that was all well and good, really, except for how he still hadn’t done the budget and now it looked like he was going to have to book a meeting with his lawyer too.

THE CLASSROOM—THAT’Swhat everyone else called it, and Kallen had privately decided that it was fine as long as no one tried to refer to him as the teacher—was already full of chatter when Kallen and Analisa got there the next day.

Kami spotted them first, his little face going bright and happy at once. He wasn’t as young as he appeared. At seventeen, the reason he’d started attending meetings was that he was a good enough fencer to have a chance at making a team. Even thoughhe was a professional athlete himself, Kallen hadn’t realised that sports where one competed individually had requirements for omegas, but it turned out that in some categories, a team of fencers added up their points and took turns confronting other teams, which was enough for them to want the extra oomph a team omega could bring.

Was the oomph even real? Because otherwise it seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to get your team what amounted to a free hooker. He didn’t know how much fencers made, but based on his own salary, hockey teams could definitely afford paid entertainment.

Two thoughts occurred to him at once. That he’d forgotten the budget and that he probably shouldn’t be thinking of prostitutes as an alternative to beingmade into one.

“Kallen?” Taylor was smiling a little, as if he found his distraction amusing.

“Yeah? Sorry, just...” He waved the rest away. “Should we pair up? Leo, I can help you first if you want.”

Except for Taylor, who’d put his private tutoring to good use with his partner and other friends, the other five were at about the same level. Once he’d explained the oasis metaphor, they’d either taken it for their own or come up with something that resonated with them. With that, they could all get themselves calm enough to make their partners look at them three times out of four.

Analisa had claimed she could do that already, but once they’d tested it, it’d turned out to come and go. She was convinced it was better already, though, which helped keep Kallen calm himself. If he could trust one thing, it was for his friend not to bite her tongue.

And that was why he hadn’t told her about Levy yet.

“Did it work?” Leo piped up and Kallen came back to earth. “You are smiling.”

Kallen grimaced. “No, sorry, mate. Got distracted.”

Leo, who was fifteen and had begged Taylor for the chance to come when his alpha dad had told him what Kallen had done, shrugged philosophically. “Well, maybe I helped a bit.”

Kallen laughed, delighted with his optimism. In this, it could only help. He turned his face to the side. “Go on then, see if you can help a lot.”

He’d managed to keep his attention on the far wall, which seemed like a fairer rival for the kid than Levy—a tornado could have gone by and Kallen might have still been thinking of the way it’d felt to wake up wrapped up in him. The tug of Leo’s will felt a bit like hearing an odd sound would, arousing more curiosity than peace. When Kallen turned his head to look at him, the feeling clarified into what he could only describe as gossip. Like Leo had a secret he was dying to tell and knew Kallen would love.

It wasn’t anything like the tranquillity he himself aimed at, but he could see how it was close enough to seduction to make sense. “What are you thinking about?” he asked, and Leo jumped off his chair crowing.

Oh, fuck, they were supposed to be silent, weren’t they? So technically Leo had just got to the next level, not just getting someone to look at him, but todosomething.

“It counts, right?” he asked, stopping to stare at Kallen.

“Yeah,” Kallen told him. “You just caught me by surprise. It felt different.”

Leo grinned at him, smug as all hell. “Well, you said to think about peace because everyone wants that, right? But sometimes you don’t wantpeace, you just want somethingfun. So...”

Kallen nodded his encouragement. The others were starting to turn their way too, clearly distracted from their own work by Leo’s theatrics.

“So, yeah, I thought about this awesome new trick I learned today at practice, and I think you could use it for hockey? So I was trying to say: do you want to know? And then youaskedme!”

It took him a moment to process all that, the hit most of all. It hadn’t been meant that way, naturally. Leo didn’t know anything about Kallen’s career, only that his sport was hockey, it was one of the questions that everyone got asked when they introduced themselves. And then he saw himself raise his head and smile, not quite as brilliantly, but fucking proud. “That’s absolutely amazing.”

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