Page 60 of The Price of Ice

Levy didn’t answer right away. “I’m alright with them, I think. But I like people in general, helping them and just being with them. You probably think I’m crazy,” he added with a teasing lilt.

Kallen shot him a mock glare, then shrugged. “I do, but more people for you, less people for me. Works out.”

The snort of laughter made one of Levy’s legs stretch towards him to keep him from overbalancing and Kallen reached out and grabbed his ankle as it landed next to his own foot, unthinking. Levy’s sweats were a little too short and the bare skin where was hot under his hand. He should have let go at once, played it off, smacked Levy’s leg away. But he didn’t.

Levy sat up, using the hold to bring his whole body closer. And then his hands were on Kallen’s knee, squeezing. “What about you?”

“Huh?”

“You ever thought about what you’d do if you weren’t playing?”

“No.” Kallen admitted. “I— I didn’t let myself doubt. I couldn’t, or...” He sighed. He’d thought he couldn’t afford to, orhe’d lose his focus. Lose hockey. It was difficult to argue that point now, though.

Levy hummed. “What else makes you happy?”

You, Kallen thought, and swallowed. It wasn’t an answer, even if it’d still been remotely possible, he’d have gone stir crazy at home all day. And besides, he could sort of cook now, but given a choice, he’d have let someone else do it for him most of the time. Hardly a recommendation to be a house omega, was it?

“Not sure,” he said instead.

“You could be a hermit,” Levy piped up, and Kallen looked up to see the light in his eyes had changed. “Go hide on top of a mountain, away from all the idiots.”

Kallen offered him a smile. “No food delivery,” he pointed out.

“Hey.” Levy shrugged. “No job is perfect,” he said philosophically.

Except hockey, Kallen thought, and then immediately had to take it back, because even in his head it felt like a falsehood too big to hold. Hockey wasn’t perfect, Kallen loved it with his whole body and soul, but it asked things of him he didn’t want to give, that hecouldn’tgive.

“Word,” he told Levy, trying to keep it light, but his mind was already a hundred miles away, speeding towards something he couldn’t quite see yet. Something that was calling too loudly to ignore.

HE’D THOUGHT HE WASfine, but then, on his first time back at practice a few days later, he’d felt it again. With the helmet on, no one had seen him grimace, so he’d slowed down a bit until it faded, and then rejoined the drills.

Ignoring pain was part and parcel of playing at the level he did, and this pain wasn’t real, he knew because his leg performedthe same as before and as well as the other one. It just hurt, often a sharp stab that seemed intent to throw him off his stride. He practised for it, pushing himself to exhaustion sprinting until it would flare up and he could keep going right through it. It was the only way he could think to prepare for when it happened during a game.

As a hockey player, it was a magical skill. Nothing could slow him down or stop him. His stamina improved and so did his scoring, even if he often was seeing double by the end of his shifts. He saw well enough to find the goal during, that’s what mattered. A couple weeks after being allowed back on the ice, he got in trouble for falling asleep in class, so he started taking a thermos of black coffee to school. He had to take it to training afterwards, too, so he wouldn’t crash. It was that or an energy drink, and everyone drank those anyway.

It couldn’t last, as an adult, he could see he’d been a trainwreck waiting to happen. But back then, playing had been all that mattered, his whole attention and self poured into it. He’d even stopped jerking off, since it meant less time for the now coach-approved exercises and anyway, he’d lost interest in it around that time.

On the last game of the season, right after scoring the game winning goal, his knees had given up on him, both at once, and sent him crashing into the ice. His teammates had been close enough to slow his fall, but no one had been able to get him back to his feet.

THIS TIME THERE HADbeen no pain. In a way, that added to the betrayal.

Since that second time when he’d spent the whole summer out of the ice, he’d never ignored an ache again—dutifully reporting everything and resting even when the physical causewas unclear. He’dlistenedto his body. He’d still trained hard, of course, but he’d worked smart instead of simply hard. Maybe he could work through pain that would have sent anyone else to their knees, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t pay for it later.

It truly wasn’t worth it, especially because as he grew older, he realised that his stickhandlingreallywas that good but that his reflexes could use as much work as his muscles.

The next year, he’d been invited to Gresham and his mum had sat him down to ask him if he understood what choosing hockey professionally would mean.

“I get it, the sex part,” he’d told their carpet, ears burning and stomach churning. He’d been so worried about the awkwardness, and also already horny all the time. The idea of sex made him nervous, but it didn’t scare him. “You don’t need to worry.”

He’d have no notion of how different sex could be from heat.

“Worrying is my job,” his mum had argued. “And this isn’t... Baby, there is a reason they stopped doing this to omegas. It’s not—”

Or how differently a man would behave with a partner than he would with someone he saw as a perk of his job.

“What?” He’d shot to his feet, teeth and fists clenched. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard such a thing, of course, but he’d never heard it at home. “Like... What did you expect to happen? I have been working for thismy whole life. Andnowyou are saying you are against it? When I have a real chance to be happy?”

She’d looked up at him, mouth twisted and eyes full of fear that only made him angrier. “I don’t know if it will make you happy, that’s all I’m saying, Kallen. I thought maybe you wouldn’t—” She cut herself off, but he could guess.

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