Page 129 of The Price of Ice

It’d been a thing of beauty, and the moment the puck had gone in the net, Levy had turned and met his eyes across the ice, his joy so infectious it’d been almost like Kallen had scored himself.

“So, like, we had good moments?”

“Sure,” Levy agreed. “And I... Well, I can’t say I wouldn’t change them for anything because the bad moments wereshit. But since we can’t get a refund, might as well be grateful for the good ones, right?”

“Are you okay?” Kallen asked because he was putting a great show, butheknew what Levy had lost. In some ways, he wondered if it wasn’t somehow worse for an alpha since Levy had been fully cognizant while he’d been forced to have sex, and as much as Kallen insisted, it was obvious he wasn’t about to declare himself a victim of circumstance and decry all responsibility.

Not that Kallen was doing that, so maybe it was equally shitty.

“I’m... disappointed,” Levy said at last. “But I’m trying to think of the future? It feels like I should make up for it, so... maybe it’s messed up, but what if not playing hockey is sort of a, well, not a punishment. What’s that word for when you do something to make amends?”

“Atone,” Kallen said, heavily. “But I don’t think that’s it. I don’t believe... I don’t think we are being punished, oreven that like, the universe or whatever wants us to suffer for our mistakes. It’s just wemade mistakesand they have consequences that we don’t like, which is literally why they are called mistakes. So it hurts now, but there is nointentionfor it to hurt, it’s just how reality works. You fuck up, you get a mess you gotta clean up.”

Levy exhaled something close to a laugh, though there was nothing happy about it. “I like that; you fuck up, you clean up.”

“It can be our motto,” Kallen suggested, still heavy-hearted, still tired, but not alone and not lost. He could see the work to be done ahead of him, not every step of the way, but thefeelof it, the difficulty of building something strong that required your sweat and your dedication. But not your tears. Those might come anyway, because they were both going to make mistakes again, alone and together, and they’d get unlucky too—that was how life worked, not with a perfect chain reaction where you did the right thing and therefore got the right results, or vice versa. Rob had been a mistake too, hadn’t he? But all Kallen had got was a sweet alpha looking after him, and maybe a month of moping when the older boy had left, but he barely remembered that now. “Definitely an upgrade for me.”

“Me too,” Levy agreed. “And I’ll help you clean up your messes when I can, if you help me with mine?”

Kallen took a moment to let the words go through him. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll take that deal. When we can, and we can’t...”

“We can’t,” Levy echoed, and Kallen could imagine him shrugging. “We both got other people on our team, anyway. We are not alone.”

They really weren’t. In fact, the moment he’d deigned to look around himself, Kallen had realised he was surrounded by people who’d be willing to help and whoneededhelp, and the more he gave, the fuller he felt.

“I wanna move in with you,” he said, brave all of a sudden.

“Yeah?” And there was that smile in Levy’s voice, and he was so tempted to ask for a video call, only that would have meant stopping. “You should, save on the commute.”

Kallen laughed a little, half nerves and half at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. “Thought you were looking in my parents’ neighbourhood anyway?”

“Well, I started there, but... you know that picture where you are looking at the water?”

“Yeah.”

“You just looked so peaceful, and I thought... Well, I found a house. Alittlehouse,” he hurried to clarify. “But it’s on the water.”

For a moment, he couldn’t find the words, the image materialising on his mind so clearly it took his breath away. “Okay,” he said slowly.

“You’ll look at it?”

“Can we... I did my budget,” he explained. “But it’d look different if...” He wavered. “If we shared.”

Levy was silent for a moment. “Oh, you mean, can we afford it?” He laughed. “I have no idea right now. I think so, but, well, I don’t even have the job yet.”

“You will,” Kallen told him once again. “But we could look at the house on the water and some flats as well? I mean, I could go check them out first, since I’m here?”

As soon as the offer was past his lips, he wanted to take it back. He didn’t. He wasn’t going to put himself through a grinder to achieve any goals anymore, but he wasn’t about to stop reaching for more either. Finding a place for them to live without fucking it up sounded terrifying, but it wasn’t actually beyond his skill set. And if it was, there were always state agents to ask. And his mother.

Levy had got so excited about the prospect that they’d started looking at ads right then and there. But Kallen got called todinner before they could do more than find a couple of real state websites. “Don’t spend the rest of the night in a research spiral,” he warned. “Three links maximum.”

His boyfriend had quickly negotiated him up to five, and Kallen had walked into the dining room with a smile he’d had no choice but to explain.

His father had congratulated him on quitting the team, and if there was sadness underneath the relief, it was only right. It meant he actuallygot it.

As far as an alpha could, and Kallen was beginning to think that was pretty far, if it was the right alpha.

He hadn’t mentioned the donation idea to his dad, and his mother hadn’t brought it up either. In their next session, Doctor Meira would assure him it was fine if he wanted to keep it to himself until he was ready to share. He hoped the people in his life would agree.

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