Chapter 5 Don't Flinch Captain

ARES'S POV

After practice I kept it moving. The equipment room 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. I could feel his eyes riding my back the whole way out.

He'd seen the scar.

In the locker room his whole body had locked up mid-motion, eyes jumping from my mouth to my eyes and sticking there, and my stride broke for half a step before I caught it and set it back down like nothing. Half a step. That's all he got out of me. Not one thing more.

Outside, the Midwest winter slapped me awake. A handful of fans still hung around the players' exit. Wave, keep moving.

My Jeep sat at the far end of the lot. Everything I owned was crammed in the back—two duffels, a box of gear, one framed photo I'd quit trying to throw out. That was the whole list. 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 sat there under a security lamp with my phone. Found the folder. The file name I'd read so many times the letters had stopped meaning anything.

Ridgewood_July14.mp4

Shaky hand. Cheap string lights. Somebody's basement, top-forty thumping somewhere behind it—a song I couldn't name then and still can't. The camera swung wide: edge of a couch, red solo cup on the floor, a pair of legs going past.

And there, half-hidden behind the 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 know every frame. Every pixel. I hit play because Ethan Drake had just looked me in the eye and said no, and some small stupid part of me needed proof I hadn't built a year out of nothing.

It starts mid-kiss.

My back to the camera. His face turned just enough to hide, but I knew that mouth. Knew the Ridgewood hoodie. Knew his fingers curled into the front of my shirt like I'd disappear if he let go.

Then somebody bumped the guy filming, the phone swung left, and for one frame, maybe two, you could see it clean.

His mouth on mine.

He kissed me. Get that part right, because it matters. I was out on that porch minding my own business, watching the rain through the screen, and he came stumbling out of the house drunk and restless and looked at me like I was an answer he hadn't known he was looking for. Then he kissed me. Hard. Like he'd been starving for years and only just noticed.

I let it run. His teeth caught my lip—that's where the scar was born, though neither of us knew it yet. I leaned in instead of pulling away. His hands went up my chest, my neck, into my hair.

Cut to black. Ten seconds. That's all that exists. Ten seconds, a hockey bag, a blurry number 19.

I built a year on ten seconds.

I paused it on the clearest frame. His face still half-hidden, string lights catching the hard line of him, shoulders tight under the hoodie—and then his whole body giving, like he'd been holding his breath for years and finally let it out. You can see the exact second he stops thinking and starts feeling.

I've watched this video a hundred times. Two hundred. More. On the bus after my old team turned on me. In empty rinks at midnight when I couldn't sleep. In the parking lot of my last school, the day I signed the transfer papers, reminding myself why I was burning another bridge.

Every time, I went looking for something different. A clue I'd missed. A reason he left without a word, never came back, pretended it never happened.

Tonight I was looking for proof I wasn't wrong to come here.

Found it.

His hands on my shirt, pulling me closer. That split second before the cut—his eyes opening on mine, terrified and hopeful at the same time.

That was the guy I'd been chasing.

That was the guy who'd just called me a mistake.

I locked the phone and dropped it in the cupholder. The lot was empty now. The security lamp buzzed overhead. Somewhere inside the rink the Zamboni was making its last pass, smoothing over the ice we'd torn up tonight.

Twelve months chasing a ghost, and now the ghost was going to sleep in the room next to mine, pretending I was a stranger, pretending he wasn't the guy who'd held onto me like I was the only solid thing in the world.

I picked the phone back up.

Opened the video. Watched it one more time.

Just before the cut, he whispered something against my lips. You can't hear it on the recording. I don't need the recording. Don't let go.

I hadn't. Not for a year. Not yet.

The phone sat heavy in my hand. I'd kept this video like a lifeline. Evidence. Proof it was real, that he was real. I'd watched it on my worst nights and held onto it when everything else fell apart.

And now he'd looked me in the eye and called it a mistake. Now there was a girl named Sara he kept letting the whole campus see him with, building his cover in real time. Now he was throwing up walls faster than I could find doors.

Maybe I needed to stop knocking.

My thumb hovered over the screen. Delete. Two taps and it's gone—the last piece of evidence that Ethan Drake ever wanted me. Clean slate. Proof I could let go of a ten-second kiss and a year of searching and a guy who'd rather date a stranger than admit he felt something real.

I hit delete.

Are you sure you want to delete this file?

My finger hung over yes.

Then I closed the popup. Locked the phone. Dropped it back in the cupholder.

No.

I started the engine and pulled out of the lot.

The Drake house was dark except for the porch light and one window on the second floor. Ethan's. I sat in the Jeep a minute, watching his shadow cross the blinds. Pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, a caged animal looking for the gap in the fence.

Good. Let him pace. Let him lie awake. Let him carry a fraction of what I'd carried for a year.

I grabbed my duffel and went in.

April was still up, curled on the couch with her phone, some reality show playing on the TV. She looked up.

"Ares? You okay? You look..."

"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 two at a time, past a wall of framed Ethans—every age, holding every trophy, wearing the same smile, performed for somebody standing just outside the frame. I know that smile. I'd watched it crack twice tonight and I'd only been in the building three hours.

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

He sat on the edge of his bed in gray sweats, hair still damp, feet bare. His head snapped up, and for one second—before he could pull his face back shut—wide eyes, tight shoulders. The locker-room crack, there and gone.

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

He swallowed. "Closet's got space on the left. You can use it."

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

"Saw what?"

"The scar."

"Lots of guys have scars."

"Not from the same place. 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 finish unpacking the rest of your things."

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

"So I crossed two states for the wrong guy."

His head came up.

"You heard me. I transferred mid-season. Walked away from a roster spot to ride the bench behind your line. You think Coach found me by accident? You think 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.

His hands stayed flat on his knees, not moving. He came up off the bed fast, like the mattress had gone hot. Close now—close enough I could see the thin line on his own lip, the one that matches mine if you know where to look.

"I already told you whatever happened that night was a mistake so 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 gave him a second to believe it. Then: "I'm here because the guy on that video was real for three minutes. He grabbed me like he was drowning and I was the only thing floating. I want him back. And I'm not going anywhere until I find him."

He didn't look away.

I stepped past him and dropped onto my bed, hands behind my head, tattoos catching the lamplight, his eyes on me the whole time.

"Get some sleep, Captain. Practice is at nine."

The room settled around us—furnace hum, old floorboards, his family asleep down the hall with no idea what had just moved into their spare bed.

Then, barely, over the sound of the house: "Night, Ares."

I didn't answer. I let it sit 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. A year to get here. I could wait one more night.

Later—much later, when the house had gone completely still and his breathing had evened out into something like sleep—I pulled out my phone.

The video was still there. Obviously. I'd lied to myself in that parking lot with my thumb over yes, playing at being a guy who could let go. I'd backed the file up months ago—cloud storage, a hidden folder, an email draft I'll never send. Three places. I learned the hard way not to trust a single point of failure.

I let it play one more time. His mouth on mine. His hands in my hair. Him kissing me like I was the answer to a question he'd been asking his whole life.

Ten seconds. That's all I have. It was enough. For now, it was enough.

I locked the phone and closed my eyes, and in the dark I could still see him—not the captain with the shut-down face and the careful lies, but the guy on that porch who stopped pretending for three minutes and let himself want something real.

Then his phone lit the ceiling. Buzzed once, twice, went quiet. He reached for it, and his breath changed when he read whatever was there. He didn't think I was awake.

"Yeah," he said into the dark, low, to someone who wasn't me. "Noon works. I'll be there."

He set it down screen-first, fast, like he didn't want to look at it either.

A year finding him. And I got here just in time to watch him hand himself to somebody else in broad daylight.