Cold Friction

JULIAN The drive back to the city was a blur of neon streetlights and freezing rain. I gripped the steering wheel of my beat-up sedan, trying to focus through the haze in my head. I needed to think about the draft. I needed to think about my mother. She had sacrificed everything for me. After my father walked out when I was barely a year old, she had worked double shifts at a diner just to afford my first pair of hockey skates. Every bruise I took, every hour I spent grinding on the ice, was to repay her. To finally give her the life she deserved. I pulled into the valet of Le Petit Château, an upscale restaurant in the heart of the city's wealthiest district. The valet attendant looked at my rusted car with disdain, but I ignored him, tossing the keys and heading inside. Tonight was supposed to be a celebration. My mother had been seeing someone serious for the past year, a wealthy businessman she met while working at a high-end catering event. I had never met the man; my brutal h

JulianThe rain on Sunday morning was a relentless, freezing downpour, washing the city in a dismal shade of grey. It hammered against the cracked windshield of my sedan, the rhythmic, grating squeak of the worn wipers doing little to clear the glass. I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned a bloodless white. My bruised ribs throbbed a dull, agonizing tempo in time with the engine’s uneven idle, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the suffocating tension inside the cramped cab of the car. The air was thick, heavy, and completely toxic. It smelled violently of wintergreen, and expensive cologne. "You're taking the turn too wide, Captain," Kael drawled from the passenger seat. I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes locked on the sleek, pristine taillights of Richard’s black Bentley two car lengths ahead of us. "Shut up, Sterling."Kael let out a low, gravelly chuckle that vibrated through the small space, scraping against my frayed nerves. He shifted his weight

JulianThe blaring alarm on my phone disrupted the silence at four-thirty in the morning, but I was already awake. I hadn’t slept. Not for a single second. I had spent the entire night staring at the slate-grey ceiling of my new gilded cage, listening to the phantom sound of water running through the pipes of the shared wall. The frosted glass door of the Jack-and-Jill bathroom remained deadbolted, but the heavy, suffocating scent of wintergreen and dark cologne had seeped under the doorframe, poisoning the sterile air of my bedroom. I threw off the heavy charcoal linens, my bruised ribs protesting the sudden movement. I didn't shower. I didn't even turn on the lights. I dressed in the dark, pulling on a faded grey hoodie and my dark jeans, moving with the rigid, mechanical efficiency that had kept me alive for twenty years. By five-fifteen, I was pushing through the heavy double doors of the university ice arena. The biting, absolute zero chill of the rink hit my face, an

JulianThe air in the locker room was thick with the smell of sweat, athletic tape, and tension. I stood at the center of the Falcons’ crest painted on the rubber floor, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. It was 5:00 AM, a full hour before Coach Miller was scheduled to arrive for morning ice, and the entire roster was seated on the wooden benches around me. Everyone except Kael. I had made sure to call this captain’s meeting before my new, infuriating stepbrother rolled out of his custom king-sized bed at the estate. My hands were still shoved deep into the pockets of my team track jacket, hiding the slight tremor that hadn’t entirely faded since yesterday’s disaster. Letting Kael get under my skin on the ice in front of the whole team had been a catastrophic lapse in my discipline. It was the first time in three years my control had slipped that badly, and the terrifying part was how close I’d come to shoving him when I realized he'd deliberately sabotaged our drill.I couldn'

Four hours. That was all the sleep I’d managed after fleeing the kitchen of our estate. Even then, my brief, fractured dreams had been a suffocating loop of dark eyes, the phantom heat of a large body trapping me against a marble counter, and the cloying, toxic scent of wintergreen. My ribs throbbed a dull, relentless rhythm beneath my heavy chest protector as I stepped out of the tunnel. Every breath of the zero-degree air felt like swallowing crushed ice. I welcomed the pain. It was a grounding mechanism, a sharp, physical reminder to rebuild the iron-clad walls Kael Sterling was systematically trying to dismantle. *If I win, you'll be at my command.* The memory of his low, gravelly voice proposing that sick wager echoed in my skull, making my grip on my composite stick tighten until my knuckles turned a bloodless white beneath my gloves. I had to focus. I was the captain of the Falcons. I had an NHL scout to impress, a team to lead, and a discipline to maintain. Coach M