Chapter 2: Seven Years Ago

(Julian's POV - The Camp)

The first time Julian Frost saw Sebastian Cruz, it was 5:47 in the morning and the weight room smelled like sweat and old towels.

Julian had not slept. Again. The bunkhouse was too loud, too hot, too full of boys who talked in their sleep and kicked their blankets and made him feel like he did not belong. He had slipped out before dawn, telling himself he would get a head start on conditioning. Telling himself that was what his father would want.

Every moment you are not working, someone else is.

Richard Frost's voice lived in Julian's head. It had been there for as long as he could remember, whispering that he was not good enough, not fast enough, not strong enough. That was why he was at this camp. To prove his father wrong.

The weight room was supposed to be empty. That was the point. Quiet. Alone. A place where no one watched him struggle.

Instead, there was a boy.

He was already mid-set when Julian pushed through the door, bench pressing more than Julian could squat. His face was red with effort, sweat dripping down his temples and soaking the collar of a t-shirt that had seen better days. His arms were shaking, but he did not stop. He pushed through the last rep, racked the bar with a clang that echoed through the room, and sat up.

His eyes found Julian immediately. Grey, sharp, direct.

"You gonna stand there staring, or you gonna lift?"

Julian's face went warm. "I was not staring."

"Sure you were not." The boy grabbed a towel, wiped his face, and stood up. He was tall. Taller than Julian, broader through the shoulders, with the kind of build that came from years of work, not good genes. "You are one of the rich kids, right? Frost?"

The way he said rich kids made it sound like an insult.

"Julian." He stepped forward, extending his hand. "Julian Frost."

The boy looked at his hand like it might bite him. Then, slowly, he took it. His grip was firm, calloused, warm.

"Sebastian Cruz." He let go and reached for his water bottle. "You are up early. Most of your type do not roll out of bed until the last possible second."

Your type. Julian had heard that before. The assumption that money meant lazy, that privilege meant no drive. He was used to it. It still stung.

"I could not sleep," he said, moving toward the dumbbells.

"Me neither." Sebastian sat down on a nearby bench, watching Julian with those grey eyes. "This camp is a joke. Too many coaches, not enough ice time. They care more about the parents than the players."

Julian nearly dropped the dumbbell. "You cannot say that."

"Just did."

"Someone will hear you."

Sebastian grinned. It was sharp and crooked and made Julian's stomach flip. "Let them."

Something inside Julian shifted. Something that felt like the beginning of something he could not name.

---

They lifted together that morning. And the next. And the next.

By the end of the first week, Julian had stopped pretending he came to the weight room for the equipment. He came for Sebastian. For the easy way they fell into rhythm. For the rare moments when Sebastian's guard dropped and Julian caught glimpses of something softer underneath.

He learned things. Small things. Important things.

Sebastian's mother worked double shifts at a diner to pay for his hockey fees. His father had left when he was six, and Sebastian never talked about him. He had been scouted late, discovered at a regional tournament by a coach who saw past his second-hand equipment and saw the fire underneath.

"I do not belong here," Sebastian told him one morning, staring at the ceiling between sets. "Half these kids have been in elite programs since they could walk. Their parents write checks I will never see. Their futures are handed to them."

"So are yours." Julian said it without thinking. "You are better than most of them. You work harder. You want it more."

Sebastian turned his head, those grey eyes fixed on Julian with an intensity that made his chest tight. "How do you know what I want?"

Julian swallowed. "I pay attention."

Something electric passed between them. Something terrifying.

Sebastian looked away first. "We should hit the ice. Coach will lose his mind if we are late."

Julian followed him out, heart pounding, already counting the hours until tomorrow morning.

---

On the tenth day, Julian told Sebastian about his father.

They were sitting by the lake after dinner, hidden from the main camp by a curve of shoreline and a wall of pine trees. The water was still, reflecting the sunset in shades of orange and pink. Julian had never seen anything so beautiful.

He had also never been more scared.

"What is it like?" Sebastian asked. His voice was quiet, gentle in a way Julian had not heard before. "Having a dad who actually gives a damn?"

Julian laughed. It came out wrong. Bitter.

"Is that what you think? That my father gives a damn?"

Sebastian frowned. "He is here, is not he? At every game? I have seen him. He is always watching."

"Watching." Julian picked up a stone, threw it into the lake, watched the ripples spread. "He is not watching me. He is watching his investment. His legacy. The thing he built that is supposed to make him look good."

"Julian—"

"Do you know what he said after my first game here? I scored two goals. Assisted on another. We won four to one. And you know what he said?"

Sebastian was silent.

"He said my backhand was weak. Said I would never make the NHL if I could not shoot from both sides." Julian's voice shook. "He has never said he is proud of me. Not once. Not in eighteen years."

The silence stretched. Julian stared at the lake, willing the tears not to fall.

Then Sebastian's hand found his.

Warm. Solid. Anchoring.

"I am proud of you."

Julian's head whipped around. Sebastian was looking at him with an expression he could not name. Something fierce and tender and terrifying all at once.

"That backhand was beautiful, by the way. I was on the ice. I saw it." Sebastian's thumb traced circles on Julian's knuckles. "Your father is blind if he cannot see what you are."

"What am I?"

Sebastian leaned closer. Julian could smell him. Sweat and pine and something underneath that was just Sebastian.

"Extraordinary."

The kiss was soft. Tentative. A question more than a statement.

Julian answered by kissing back.

---

The next two weeks were a dream.

They met every morning before dawn. Lifted together. Skated together. Ate meals together, sitting close enough that their shoulders brushed, trading glances that said everything words could not.

At night, when the camp was asleep, Julian would slip out of his bunk and meet Sebastian by the lake. They would lie on the grass, staring at the stars, talking about everything and nothing.

Sebastian wanted to play in the NHL. Wanted to buy his mother a house. Wanted to prove that a kid from nowhere could become someone.

Julian wanted his father to see him. Wanted to escape the gilded cage he had been born into. Wanted, more than anything, to stay in this moment forever. With Sebastian's hand in his. Sebastian's heartbeat steady beside him. Sebastian's voice low and warm in the dark.

"I do not know how to do this," Julian whispered one night. "When camp ends. I do not know how to go back to my old life."

Sebastian rolled onto his side, facing him. In the moonlight, he looked like something from a dream. "You call me. Every day. I do not have a cell, cannot afford one, but my mom's diner has a phone. I will give you the number. You call, and I will answer."

"Promise?"

Sebastian leaned in, kissed him soft and slow. "Promise."

On the last night, they stayed by the lake until dawn. Watched the sun rise over the water, painting everything gold. Held each other like letting go would kill them.

"I love you," Julian said. The words slipped out before he could stop them.

Sebastian's arms tightened around him. "I love you too."

"You will call?"

"First chance I get."

They kissed goodbye at the bus depot, quick and hidden behind a wall of luggage. Sebastian pressed a piece of paper into Julian's hand. A phone number, scrawled in pencil.

"Do not lose it."

"I will not."

Sebastian's bus left first. Julian watched it disappear down the highway, hand pressed to his chest where the paper burned against his skin.

---

He waited three days. Gave Sebastian time to settle, to breathe, to miss him.

On the fourth day, he called.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

A woman answered. Sebastian's mother, her voice tired but kind. "Cruz residence."

"Hi, is Sebastian there?"

A pause. "Who is calling?"

"Julian. Julian Frost. I am—we met at camp. He said I could call."

Another pause. Longer this time. "Honey, Sebastian is not here right now. He had an accident. Fell in the parking lot the day he got home. Hit his head pretty bad. He has been in and out of it for days."

Julian's heart stopped. "Is he okay?"

"They think so. Concussion. Memory is fuzzy about some things. The doctor says it will come back, just needs time." She sighed. "I will tell him you called, sweetheart. I am sure he will reach out when he is feeling better."

"Thank you."

Julian hung up. Stared at the wall.

He called again the next week. And the next. And the next.

Sometimes she answered. Sometimes no one did. The message was always the same. He is recovering. He is not himself yet. He will call when he is ready.

Weeks turned into months. Months turned into a year.

Sebastian never called.

Julian told himself it was the concussion. Told himself Sebastian would remember eventually, would reach out, would explain. He checked hockey forums, followed Sebastian's junior career, watched him climb the ranks from afar.

When Sebastian was drafted to Vancouver, Julian celebrated alone in his room, crying for reasons he could not name.

When his father sat him down, three years later, and said, "I am getting married. Her name is Elena. She has a son. You will have a brother now," Julian felt the universe laughing at him.

Sebastian.

His new stepbrother was Sebastian. The boy who kissed him under the stars. The boy who promised to call. The boy who looked at him at the wedding like he had never seen him before in his life.

You do not remember me.

The words caught in Julian's throat. He could not say them. Could not watch Sebastian's face twist with the effort of trying to place him, only to come up empty.

You forgot me. You forgot everything. You forgot us.

So Julian did what he had learned to do at his father's knee. He smiled. He performed. He became the perfect stepbrother. Polite, distant, untouchable.

He watched Sebastian hate him from across dinner tables and told himself it was better than the alternative.

Better to be hated than forgotten.

Better to be invisible than to watch the love of his life look through him like a stranger.

Better to die inside, slowly, every single day, than to admit that the boy who promised forever had broken that promise without even knowing it.

---

Seven years later, standing in a freezing parking garage, watching Sebastian's face crumple with the first flicker of recognition, Julian felt something he had not felt in a very long time.

Hope.

It was terrifying.

It was everything.