Chapter 4 Roommate From Hell

ARES'S POV

Coach Harlan's door clicked shut behind me and I kept my hands loose the whole length of the tunnel. Ethan hung back, saying something about lineups. Didn't matter. His eyes were on me the whole way anyway.

He'd seen the scar.

Not noticed it — seen it. His face changed a second before the rest of him did. Back in the locker room his whole body had locked, and I'd watched it happen. The second his eyes went from my mouth to my eyes and stopped there, my stride broke for half a step before I caught it and set it back down.

Outside, the Midwest winter slapped me awake. A handful of fans were still waiting at the players' exit. I gave them the wave and kept moving.

My Jeep sat at the far end of the lot. Everything I owned was crammed in the back of it — two duffels, a box of gear, one framed photo I'd stopped trying to throw out. That was the whole list. That was a year of my life, in the back of a Jeep, parked outside the rink of the guy I'd come here for.

I should've driven straight to the Drake house.

Instead I rolled into the far corner, killed the lights, and just sat there under a security lamp. Found the folder. The file name I'd read so many times the letters had stopped meaning anything at all.

The video loaded. Shaky hand, cheap string lights. Back there, half-hidden behind a ratty couch — the bag. Ridgewood Wolves. Navy blue. White wolf logo. Number 19.

I hit play.

Not because I didn't know what was on it. I knew every frame. Because I needed to know I wasn't wrong about what I was about to do.

It started mid-kiss. My back to the camera. His face turned just enough to hide, but I knew that jaw. Knew that Ridgewood hoodie. The angle shifted — long enough to catch his teeth on my lip, long enough to catch me leaning in instead of away.

I paused it there.

He'd gone up those stairs two at a time and left me on that couch with a bleeding lip. I'd sat there ten minutes while the party went on like nothing happened. Then I'd seen the bag, and I'd known whose it was, and I hadn't been able to leave it alone since.

A year of it. And tonight Ethan Drake had carried that exact bag into the locker room like July never happened.

I locked the phone.

Fifteen minutes to the Drake house. Nice neighborhood. Porch lights all on, like the place still believed nothing bad ever drove up to it. I parked behind his SUV, grabbed my duffel, went up the front steps. Door was unlocked, just like Coach said.

The foyer smelled like pine cleaner and fresh cookies. I stood there a second longer than I meant to. I didn't grow up in a house that smelled like that. I didn't let it land.

"Ares?"

April Drake, in an oversized hoodie and fuzzy socks, hair up, already smiling at me. "Your room's upstairs, first door on the right. Ethan's already up." She paused. "He seemed kind of off tonight."

"Long game," I said. "We're all running on fumes."

Her cheeks went pink. "You were incredible out there. Both those goals — Ethan never lets rookies near the puck on a first shift."

"Captain reads the ice well." I picked up my duffel. "Sets up everything."

I took the stairs.

The walls were lined with framed photos. Ethan at every age. Every trophy. Every smile performed for somebody standing just outside the frame. I knew that smile. I'd watched it crack twice tonight and I'd only been in the building three hours.

The bedroom door was open a crack. I pushed it the rest of the way open.

He was sitting on the edge of the top bunk in gray sweats, hair still damp, feet bare. When I walked in his head snapped up. One second — before he could pull his face back shut — wide eyes, tight shoulders, the same break he'd had down in the locker room.

I dropped my duffel on the floor. "Roomie."

He swallowed. "Bottom bunk's free. Closet's got space on the left. Bathroom's across the hall."

I crossed the room and stopped just out of arm's reach of him. "You saw it in the locker room."

"Saw what?"

"The scar."

"Lots of guys have scars." He wouldn't look at me. Jaw set. His hands flat and too still on his knees.

"Not from the same place," I said. "Not on the same side."

"I don't know what you're talking about." His eyes came up to mine. Steady. Almost. "I've got an early skate. You should unpack."

Three years of captain in his voice and he reached for it now, smooth, like handing me a schedule would end the conversation.

"The bag was in the video," I said.

His hands went stiller.

"Wolves logo. Number 19. Same one you carried into the locker room tonight, slung over the same shoulder." I didn't move. "I've watched that ten-second clip more times than I want to tell you. I'd know that bag in the dark. I'd know it in a worse video than that one."

"You've got the wrong guy."

"I crossed two states for the wrong guy?"

That stopped him. His head came up.

"You heard me." I didn't soften it. "I transferred here. Mid-season. Walked away from a roster spot to ride the bench behind your line. You think Coach found me by accident? You think the family housing was full by accident?" I held his stare. "I came here for you, Ethan. A year of it. So no — I don't have the wrong guy. I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Two seconds. That was all the steady he had left in him.

His jaw held but the rest of him didn't. He stood up off the bunk, fast, like the mattress had gotten hot. We were close now — close enough I could see the thin line on his own lip, the one that matched mine if you knew to look.

"You can't do this." His voice cracked on it and he hated that, I watched him hate it. "I have a scholarship. A team. People who'd—" He stopped. "If this gets out—"

"I'm not here to blow up your life." I let him have a second to believe it. Then: "I'm here because the guy on that couch was real for three minutes. He grabbed me like he was drowning and I was the only thing floating. That guy was real." I held his stare. "I want him. And I'm not going anywhere until I find him again."

He looked at me like I was something he couldn't name and couldn't make leave.

I stepped past him and dropped onto the bottom bunk. The tattoos caught the lamplight. I put my hands behind my head and stared up at the springs of the bunk above me, the ones he'd be lying on all night, ten feet up and not sleeping.

"Get some sleep, Captain. Practice is at nine. First morning — I'd rather not make you late."

The top bunk creaked as he lay back. The house settled around the two of us, the cookie smell, the porch lights, his family asleep down the hall with no idea what had just moved into the bottom bunk.

Barely, just over the sound of the house: "Night, Ares."

I didn't answer. Just let it sit there in the dark between us, where he couldn't take it back.

He remembered the bag. He remembered the kiss.

Tomorrow at breakfast, across his mom's coffee and his sister's questions, he'd have to look at me and hold all of it inside.

I closed my eyes.

This had taken me a year. I could wait one more night.