LOGIN~Everett~The two Alphas glanced at each other in the small office, and suddenly the room felt much colder. The air between them became tense, making even the coach lean back a bit."Sit down,"The coach said it strongly enough that it affected both of them. "Both of you, sit the hell down right now. I am not watching a repeat of what happened on that ice in my office."Neither of them moved for a moment. Then Knox sat, slowly, without taking his eyes off Eric. Eric sat in the last chair, his jaw still swollen, and looked at the coach with a calm face."Good," the man nodded. He looked at all three of us. "Now. I am going to say this once. What happened tonight was unacceptable. The behaviour of both captains was inappropriate, it was unprofessional, it put your teams in a difficult position, and it made this institution look disorganised in front of a large audience." He stopped to let that sink in. "I don't care who started it. I care that it happened, and I care that it does
~Everett~The walk to the coach's office was the longest walk of my life.That might have been a little over the top, but just a little.Knox walked beside me through the corridor that ran beneath the bleachers, still in his gear, the cut above his eyebrow freshly cleaned and already bruising around the edges, and I walked beside him with my hands shoved deep in my pockets and my stomach doing something deeply unwelcome. As we walked away, the noise from the rink got quieter, and we were left with the echoing silence of a school hallway, and I focused on the sound of my own footsteps and tried not to think too hard about what was waiting at the end of it.I must have been broadcasting my anxiety fairly clearly, because Knox slowed his pace and looked at me sideways."Stop it," he said and I frowned."I'm not doing anything.""You're doing the face.""I don't have a face." I frowned harder"Oh, You have a very specific face,"He said it calmly, like someone who had noticed my feelings
~Everett~I should have known this was going to happen. I should have noticed all the signs, first Knox's bloody knuckles before the game then the punch in the bleachers, and now this, two teams fighting on the ice because their captains had decided to use a hockey match to work out something that had absolutely nothing to do with hockey. I stood in the bleachers watching and felt completely helpless and completely responsible at the same time .It was a complicated feeling.The coaches and referees quickly pulled the two teams apart, doing it easily like they had done many times before.Knox and Eric ended up on opposite sides of the rink, with some adults in between them. They were breathing heavily and still glaring at each other, clearly not done with their fight.Eric said something across the distance. I couldn't hear it from the bleachers but I saw Knox's expression change. He looked like he was about to lunge across the ice at him, but ultimately, decided to let the matter
~Everett~The match that followed was unlike anything I had seen in my life, much less at this academy.Both teams were good... I already expected that much from hearing people talk about the game before today — but what was happening on the ice was something beyond a normal game. Knox was a demon on the ice, playing like he had something to prove to someone. His skating was really intense and a bit wild, which made his teammates a little nervous.Eric on ice, wearing the other team's colors, was keeping up with him step for step, looking serious like he took this personally.It truly had become very personal. And it was all my fault.Whenever they met on the ice, there was contact. But it wasn't friendly; it was the kind that was right on the edge between being competitive and being mean.Like they they were testing how much they could hurt eachother without full-on fighting. The crowd could feel their hidden anger and they fucking loved it!They were breathing hard and moving qui
~Everett~Knox stood over Eric, chest breathing hard, and said nothing.He didn't need to. We all already knew that hell was about to break lose so nobody dared move.That was the thing that caught my attention first, was the total silence of the rink right after Knox's fist hit Eric's jaw.The crowd in the stands got quiet, the players on the ice stopped moving, and even the music playing in the background seemed to fade away, as if it knew not to interrupt what was going on.Eric was on the ground, shocked, with one hand on his jaw. Knox stood over him, breathing heavily, still wearing his skates, and had a look on his face that made the air around him feel dangerous.Then Eric got up.He stood up slowly, like someone who wants you to see they're about to get angry but is taking their time. When he was fully upright, he looked at Knox with an expression that was trying to show hatred but wasn't quite doing well."What the hell is your problem?"His voice was strained, and his jaw w
~Everett~He was just standing there. He was just watching me. And when our eyes met he looked away, and the look of disgust he gave me before he turned away was the one I had gone on to see in my nightmares for the next few months.The look had been so unbelievably cruel that I had been left speechless.He wasnt just uncomfortable with my confession, or just wanting this to be over.Instead, he was clearly just waiting for me to understand my disgusting position and disappear from his life so that everyone could move on.I had still tried to talk to him even after that look. I didn't know what I expected, maybe some explanation, some apology, some version of events that would make this make sense. Instead he had looked at me with something cold and strange in his face and told me I was an embarrassment. That I had read something into an innocent friendship that was never what I thought it was. That I should have known better than to think someone like him –an Alpha with great p







