The Boy I Don't Remember

ETHAN’S POV

I kiss him like I haven't eaten in years.

Then I forget his face.

Rain. Music. Booze. Hands. Laughing.

Cold fingers. Mint. Somebody whispering, "Maybe next summer."

Then black.

The ref's whistle snaps me back.

Ethan Drake. Number 19. Captain of the Ridgewood Wolves. Three thousand people in the building and every single one of them knew exactly where I was.

The second I stepped out of the tunnel the student section started. Drake. Drake. Drake. It got louder fast, stacking up until I could feel it hitting my pads.

I didn’t look at the Jumbotron. Didn’t need to. My face was already up there. Half the jerseys in the stands had my name on the back. When that many eyes are on you, you just know.

I took one cold breath of rink air and dug my edges in. Everything else in a place like this could bullshit you. The cold never did.

“Eyes up,” I said, the voice Coach liked. “We finish like we started. Nothing sloppy.”

Asher Kane tapped his stick against mine. Right wing, best friend since freshman year. “You good, Cap?”

“Always.” Then, because he’d catch it if I left it too clean: “Ask me again after we close this out.”

Whistle blew. I won the face-off clean and sent the puck back before their center even moved. We pushed. Crowd came up out of the seats. Everything went live—stick out, puck already in my head a half-second early.

Six minutes left in the second. Up 2–1 on Eastern Michigan. Score didn’t mean shit. One bad shift and the scouts upstairs start writing about my leadership instead of my play. One blown line change and that letter on my desk at home—the one I’d read eleven times—turns into a polite no. I’d built the whole season around that letter. Couldn’t lose it over one shift.

I fed Asher tape-to-tape. He carried it over the blue line, faked twice, shot. Goalie kicked it wide. I was already crashing the net, shoulder into their defenseman. Rebound sat loose in the crease. My stick found it before I did. I jammed it under the bar.

Goal light. Horn. 3–1.

Building lost its mind.

I didn’t give them the poster smile—the one hanging outside the athletic center, all jaw and dimple. Skated to the bench, tapped gloves down the line, kept my face right where the cameras wanted it. Already thinking about the next shift.

Keep the machine running. That was the job.

What if they knew?

I shoved it back in the box and sat: the scholarship, the letter I’d read eleven times, and under all of it the thing some guy in a stranger’s basement figured out about me last summer in under a minute because I let him.

“Drake.” Coach Harlan’s bark cut through. “Line change. Stay sharp.”

I came over the boards, legs heavy. Asher put a water bottle in my hand without saying anything. He always knew. I drank half, wiped my mouth on the back of my glove, and looked out at the ice.

PA crackled.

“Entering for the Wolves—number 7, Ares Cole!”

Crowd gave him more of a “huh” than a cheer. Name had been floating around the locker room all week. Transfer from some program out west, showed up mid-season, some situation nobody would talk about. Coach called him talented and difficult and left it there. Not my problem. Already decided.

Then he stepped over the boards.

He didn’t jog. He glided like the ice had been waiting for him. Six-two, maybe taller, built for contact but light on his edges. Dark tattoos running down both forearms under the sleeves. Helmet buckled tight. Didn’t look at the bench. Didn’t look at the crowd. Three thousand people and he moved like none of them had any claim on him. Took center like the spot had always been his.

Puck dropped. He won the draw before their center finished thinking about it, spun, carried it straight through our defense before they set. Two strides into the slot, no look, no hesitation, ripped a wrist shot top shelf, glove side. Clean. Goalie’s blocker barely moved.

Goal light. Horn. 4–1.

Arena lost it.

Ares skated back the same pace he left at. No fist pump. No helmet tap. Nothing. Just scored on a ranked team in his first forty seconds in a Wolves sweater and his face didn’t change—not for the ice, not for the noise, not for the goal.

He passed our line. Eyes came up once and held mine for less than a second.

I looked away first. My rink. My name on the back of every jersey in the stands. And I looked away first.

“Cole!” Coach clapped sharp over the noise. “That’s the standard right there!”

Bench cheered. Asher elbowed me. “Kid doesn’t mess around.”

“No.” Came out half a step off. I heard it and pulled it back. “He doesn’t. Good for us.”

I sat. Knees wouldn’t stay still under the pads. The scar on my lip—healed smooth for months—pulled tight in the cold. I pressed my tongue against the inside of it. Old habit. One I’d stopped letting myself finish.

Ares dropped onto the far end of the bench. Sweat already dark at the edge of his helmet. Peeled off a glove and flexed his hand twice—knuckles, then fingers. Tattoos moved with it. Sharp black lines. Constellation, maybe. Hard to tell from here.

Then I saw it.

A scar. Thin white line through the curve of his lower lip.

The rain. The basement. Mint. That same scar catching against my mouth just before—

No.

Not possible.

He glanced up. I hadn’t looked away fast enough. Corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile—gone before the crowd finished roaring about a goal that was already thirty seconds old.

I turned back to the ice. Tightened my gloves. Watched the puck.

Whistle for the next face-off. I pushed off the bench and kept my voice exactly where it needed to be.

“Let’s go, Wolves.”

Vaulted the boards. Skates bit ice. Forty seconds until the drop and I spent every one of them on the same three lines I always used. You’re fine. You’re in control. The armor holds.

Ares Cole had been in a Wolves jersey for under a minute and the game already felt different.

I wasn’t going to look into it. I was going to skate harder, hit cleaner, and keep every seam locked down on the picture I’d spent two years building. The golden boy didn’t crack. Not under these lights. Not in front of three thousand people who thought they knew exactly who they were looking at.

Final horn. 5–2. Locker room was all shouting and shoulder slaps and music cranked too loud. I barely heard any of it. Sat at my stall unlacing my skates with hands that kept fumbling the laces, watching the steam come off my pads.

“Drake.” Coach Harlan through the noise. “My office. Bring the new guy.”

I looked up.

Ares Cole stood by the door, helmet under one arm, dark hair damp and messy. The grin finally showed up—small, private, aimed across the room at me and nobody else. Whole room full of people and it went to exactly one of them.

“Welcome to the team,” Coach said, clapping him on the shoulder.

His eyes found mine.

“We’ve met before.”

Three words. Half the room close enough to hear them and not one person looking.

I stopped breathing.