All Chapters of Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother : Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

NoahPractice should've helped.Usually it did. Give me a stick, a puck, and an hour on the ice and my head settled enough that I could pretend everything else didn't exist. It wasn't working anymore. I spent half the session missing passes I should've made in my sleep, and Coach had already barked my name three times before we even got to scrimmage."You with us today, Carter?""Yeah."He looked at me for another second like he knew I was lying, then blew his whistle again.By the time practice ended, I was more exhausted mentally than physically.Nikolai caught up with me while I was stuffing my gloves into my bag."You've looked miserable all morning.""I always look miserable.""You've looked extra miserable."I zipped my bag shut. "Thanks.""It wasn't a compliment.""I figured."He bumped my shoulder as we walked out together. "You wanna grab food?"I almost said no out of habit, but going home meant an empty room and another afternoon spent trying not to think about Theodore."Y

TheoOne thing I'd learned about Benito was that he couldn't keep still.The guy had energy for absolutely everything. If we weren't at practice, he wanted coffee. If we already had coffee, he wanted food. If we'd just eaten, he'd somehow convince me to walk across campus because he wanted to show me "the greatest bookstore known to mankind," only for it to turn out to be a tiny secondhand shop run by an eighty-year-old woman who yelled at customers for folding page corners."You can't disrespect literature," Benito had whispered after she'd chased two freshmen out with a broom."I think she's one bad day away from murder.""I love her.""You're insane.""I've accepted that."I'd laughed so hard people had stared.That had become normal lately.Life hadn't magically fixed itself after I came back from the Super Team. Noah was still... Noah. Whatever we were was still a complete disaster.But Benito made everything lighter.Not easier.Just lighter.That morning we'd finished our first

TheoBy Wednesday morning, I had reached a very simple conclusion.Benito was a menace.I'd arrived on campus expecting a normal day. Coffee. Literature lecture. Lunch with Melody if she wasn't hiding in the music building again. Hockey practice later. The usual.Instead, Benito had somehow convinced half the English department that I was the right person to help organize a charity book drive."I don't even like people," I muttered as we carried another box of novels into the department lounge.Benito snorted."You like people.""I tolerate about four.""You've got me.""Unfortunately.""You've got Melody.""I do.""Nikolai.""Barely."He gasped dramatically."That's rude.""It's honest."He laughed, dropping his box onto one of the tables.The lounge was usually empty during morning lectures, which was exactly why Professor Ellis had let us use it to sort donations before the event next week. Books covered almost every flat surface. Mystery novels sat beside biographies. Romance book

Theo The room felt even smaller now, like the walls were slowly closing in with every second that passed. I hadn’t moved an inch since Noah finished talking. My back stayed pressed against the cold shelves, arms folded tight across my chest as if they could somehow keep all the messy feelings from spilling out. My heart kept beating too loud in the heavy quiet, and I could hear my own breathing. I kept replaying that night in my head, over and over, like a video I couldn’t pause. Not just the kiss—that part still burned like fire in my chest. But the rest of it. The parts I had pushed away because the hurt felt easier to hold onto than the truth. The heavy sound of the hockey bag hitting the floor. Noah standing up so fast from the couch. The way his face changed the moment he saw me standing there in the doorway. It wasn’t guilt like I had told myself. It was panic. Real, wide-eyed panic. And then his voice calling my name, loud and desperate, as I turned around and ran. I had hear

Too QuietPOV: TheoI barely remembered the walk home after leaving the storage room with Benito. My feet moved on autopilot through the familiar streets while my mind stayed stuck on my conversation with Noah. The afternoon sun felt too bright against my eyes, and the normal noise of the neighborhood sounded distant, like it was happening somewhere far away. I pushed open the front door of our house and let it close behind me with a soft click that seemed louder than it should have been.The house was empty. Mom was still at work and wouldn’t be back for hours. I dropped my bag by the door and walked straight to my room without turning on any lights. The quiet pressed in around me the second I sat down on the edge of my bed. For the first time in months, I wasn’t angry. That realization hit me harder than anything else. The constant burn I had carried in my chest since that night with Noah was just… gone. In its place was this heavy, confusing fog I didn’t know how to shake off.I la