Asher’s POV
Coach Wellington grants us extra ice time after regular practice—just me and Blaze, working on offensive plays that need polishing before the championship.
The rest of the team filters out slowly. Voices fade. Locker room doors slam shut one by one. Soon the arena falls silent except for the hum of overhead lights and the scrape of our skates on fresh ice.
It's the first time we've been truly alone since my apartment. Since the shower. Since I fell apart in his hands and everything I thought I knew about myself shattered into a million pieces.
"Ready?" Blaze asks, skating to center ice with the puck.
I nod, positioning myself for the drill. "Let's go."
We start with passing formations—clean, professional, focused. I force myself to concentrate on footwork, on timing, on the mechanical aspects of the game I've been playing my whole life. Don't think about how he looks under the harsh arena lights. Don't think about the way his jersey clings to his shoulders. Don't think about what happened the last time we were alone together.
But as the minutes stretch on, something shifts.
The emptiness of the arena presses in around us, intimate in a way that makes me hyperaware of every detail. The sound of Blaze's breathing, slightly elevated from exertion. The flash of his eyes when he catches my gaze across the ice. The way his body moves with effortless grace, muscles coiling and releasing beneath his jersey.
I've watched him skate a hundred times. A thousand. But it's different now. Now I let myself see it. Let myself want it without the crushing weight of denial.
We transition to offensive rushes. I take the puck, driving toward the goal, and Blaze shadows me—playing defender for the sake of the drill. Our bodies move in tandem, anticipating, adjusting. It's the same rhythm we found in regular practice, the same chemistry that made Coach Wellington actually smile.
But here, without witnesses, it feels different. Charged. Dangerous.
I deke left, trying to shake him, but Blaze reads the move before I make it. He angles his body, cutting off my lane, forcing me toward the boards. I try to spin past him—
He checks me into the glass.
Not hard. Not meant to hurt. But firm enough to stop my momentum completely, my back pressed against the boards, his forearm braced against my collarbone. Our faces are inches apart, breath mingling in the cold air.
Neither of us moves.
My heart pounds so loud I'm sure he can hear it echoing off the empty stands. I should push away. Should crack a joke, break the tension, retreat to safe ground like I've done a hundred times before.
But my body won't cooperate.
My hands grip his jersey instead of shoving him back. My fingers curl into the fabric, holding on instead of letting go.
"Ash." Blaze's voice is rough, barely above a whisper. His eyes search my face, dark and intent. "We should probably—"
"Probably." I don't finish the sentence. Don't know how.
The air between us crackles. Blaze's gaze drops to my mouth, then drags back up slowly. The hunger in his expression makes my stomach flip, heat pooling low in my gut.
"I'm trying really hard to be patient here." His breath ghosts across my lips. "To give you space. To let you figure things out on your own timeline."
"I know."
"But you're making it really fucking difficult when you look at me like that."
I swallow. "Like what?"
"Like you want me to stop being patient."
The words hit me somewhere deep, cracking through the last of my resistance. I think about the past week—the sleepless nights, the constant awareness, the way my body lights up every time he gets close. I think about Jackson's words at dinner, the implication that I'm a distraction, that I'm ruining something.
I think about the person I was before. The one who denied and deflected and ran from anything that scared him. The one who kissed his girlfriend while staring at Blaze across a crowded bar, trying to prove something that was never true.
I'm tired of running.
"What if I do?" My voice comes out hoarse. "Want you to stop being patient?"
Blaze goes completely still. His grip on my jersey tightens, knuckles pressing into my chest. "Don't say that unless you mean it, Ashy."
The nickname shouldn't affect me the way it does. Shouldn't make my chest ache with something tender and terrifying.
"I mean it."
For a long moment, neither of us breathes. The arena feels suspended in time—just us and the ice and the electric tension that's been building since the day he walked back into my life.
Then Blaze leans in, slowly, giving me every chance to pull away.
"Tell me to stop," he whispers against my mouth, "and I will."
I close the distance myself.
The kiss is nothing like the first time—not desperate or fueled by confusion, not me losing control while he took me apart. This one is deliberate. Intentional.
I'm choosing this. Choosing him.
My hands slide up his chest, fisting in his jersey, pulling him closer. Blaze makes a sound low in his throat—something between a groan and a prayer—one hand cupping the back of my neck, the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise.
His tongue traces the seam of my lips. I open for him without hesitation, and the kiss deepens into something that makes my knees weak. He tastes like mint and cold air and everything I've been denying myself for years.
When we finally break apart, both gasping, his forehead rests against mine.
"Not here," he breathes. "Not on the ice. I want…" He stops, swallows hard. "I want to do this right."
I nod, pulse racing, skin burning everywhere he touched. "Locker room."
We skate toward the exit, hands brushing with every stride. The promise of what's coming makes my blood sing, makes every nerve ending spark with anticipation.
I should be terrified. Part of me is. The part that spent twenty-one years building walls and hiding from truths I couldn't face.
But the bigger part—the part that's spent weeks fighting this, denying this, running from this—is finally ready to stop.
Jackson's voice echoes in my head. Distraction. Throwing it away. Can't even decide what he wants.
But Jackson's wrong. I know exactly what I want now. I want the boy who looked at me across a crowded arena and saw something worth fighting for. The boy who held me while I fell apart and whispered "I've got you" like it was the truest thing he'd ever said.
I want Blaze. I want this.
I want to stop being afraid of the person I actually am.
We reach the tunnel leading off the ice. Blaze pauses at the entrance, turning to look at me. His eyes are soft in the dim light, searching my face for doubt or hesitation.
He won't find any. Not anymore.
"You sure about this?" he asks quietly. "Because once we cross this line—"
"I'm sure." I reach out, fingers tangling with his. "I'm so fucking sure it scares me."
His smile breaks across his face like sunrise. "Good scared or bad scared?"
"Good scared." I squeeze his hand. "The best kind."
He pulls me into the tunnel, into the shadows, into whatever comes next.
And for the first time in my life, I'm not running from it.
I'm running toward it.