Asher’s POV
5 years later
The roar of twenty thousand fans still echoed in my skull, even though the arena had gone silent an hour ago.
Victory tasted like copper and sweat on my tongue—another win, another step toward the playoffs, another night where the Boston Blazers proved we were the team to beat.
Captain. The C stitched onto my jersey still felt surreal sometimes, even after two seasons of wearing it. Everything I'd dreamed of at twenty-one, everything I'd sacrificed for, finally realized.
The kid who'd been so desperate to prove himself had clawed his way to the top.
I sat on the bench in front of my locker, still in my under-armor, letting the quiet settle into my bones.
Most of the guys had already showered and headed out—Martinez to his wife, Davidson to whatever bar was serving cheap beer tonight, the rest to their own lives outside these walls.
The locker room belonged to me now, empty except for the ghosts of the game still clinging to the air.
Footsteps, soft and deliberate.
I didn't look up. Didn't need to. I knew that particular rhythm, that careful approach that always preceded the same offer.
Ryan Torres stopped in front of me, his dark hair still damp from his own shower, that knowing look in his warm brown eyes.
He was young—twenty-four, a rookie with talent to spare and patience that bordered on saintly. He never pushed. Never demanded. Just showed up when I needed someone to show up.
"Hell of a game, Cap." His voice was low, meant only for me. "Two assists and that breakaway goal in the third? You were on fire out there."
I finally met his gaze. Something shifted in his expression—softer now, more intimate.
"A gift for our captain," he murmured, and then he was dropping to his knees on the cold concrete floor, his hands sliding up my thighs with practiced ease.
I should have stopped him. Should have said something about how this wasn't smart, how anyone could walk in, how we were pushing our luck every time we did this.
But the words died in my throat as his fingers found the waistband of my compression shorts, and I let my head fall back against the locker with a dull thud.
Ryan was good at this. Eager. Willing and uncomplicated.
He knew exactly what I liked, exactly how to make my body respond, and he asked for nothing in return except the privilege of being close to me. It should have been enough.
It wasn't.
His mouth was warm, his technique flawless, and my mind was a thousand miles away. Somewhere in Ottawa, maybe.
Somewhere on a dock at sunset, with different hands on my skin and different lips whispering my name like it was something sacred.
Blaze.
The memory hit me like a check into the boards—his laugh, low and teasing. The way he used to look at me like I hung the goddamn moon.
How his touch never felt clinical or transactional. How being with him made me feel alive instead of just... functional.
I squeezed my eyes shut and chased the physical sensation, tried to anchor myself in the present, in Ryan's enthusiasm and the building pressure in my core.
But my traitorous brain kept serving up images I'd spent a year trying to bury. Blaze's brown eyes, dark with want. His veiny hands pinning my wrists above my head. The sounds he made when I—
I came with a grunt that might have been a name, and I was grateful Ryan couldn't tell the difference.
Afterward, he wiped his mouth and looked up at me with something too close to hope. I couldn't meet his eyes.
"Thanks," I said, and hated how hollow it sounded. How hollow I'd become.
Ryan just nodded, that patient smile still in place. "Anytime, Ash."
He left me alone with the silence and my shame.
The showers were empty, the water scalding against my skin as I tried to scrub away the guilt that clung to me like a second layer of sweat.
Steam filled my lungs, and I braced my hands against the tile, letting the heat pound against my shoulders.
Five years. Five years since that championship game, since Blaze and I stood on that ice together and believed we could have everything.
I was twenty-six now, captain of an NHL team, living the dream I'd chased since I first learned to skate.
And I was so fucking empty.
At least I'd stopped lying to myself about one thing. Somewhere in those five years, I'd finally admitted the truth I'd spent my youth denying—I was gay.
Not publicly, never to the media or my teammates or the cameras that followed my every move. But internally, in the quiet hours when I couldn't hide from my own thoughts, I'd made peace with it.
I had Blaze to thank for that. He'd given me the courage to stop running from myself, even if I couldn't stop running from everyone else.
The draft had separated us—me to Boston, him to Ottawa. Rival teams. Rival cities.
We'd stood in that hotel room after the announcements, holding each other like the world was ending, and promised it wouldn't change anything.
We were so fucking naive.
Four years of secret relationship. Stolen nights in hotels after games, always in different cities, always under fake names.
Hidden summers at a cottage three hours from anywhere, where we could pretend we were just two people in love instead of two closeted athletes playing the most dangerous game of our lives.
But the cracks were always there. Every time I flinched away from his touch in public. Every time I chose hockey over him. Every time he looked at me with that wounded expression and I pretended not to see it.
A year ago, he ended it. Said he was tired of being my secret. Said he deserved someone who wasn't ashamed of him.
He was right. That was the worst part. He was absolutely right, and I still couldn't give him what he needed.
I turned off the water and stood there, dripping, staring at nothing.
My apartment was dark when I got home, the city lights bleeding through the windows in pale stripes across the hardwood floor.
I didn't bother turning on the lamps. Didn't need to see the emptiness reflected back at me.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled without thinking, muscle memory carrying me to the folder I'd hidden in my photos. The one labeled "Tax Documents" that contained nothing but pictures of him.
Blaze laughing on the cottage dock. Blaze asleep in our bed, morning light catching the angles of his face. Blaze looking at me like I was everything he'd ever wanted.
My thumb hovered over his smile.
I could call him. Tell him I was sorry. Tell him I'd changed, that I was ready now, that I'd burn my whole career to the ground if it meant waking up next to him again.
But I wouldn't. Because I was still the same coward I'd always been, and hockey was still the only thing I knew how to fight for.
My jaw tightened.
I selected all. Every photo, every stolen moment, every piece of evidence that Blaze Wilson had ever meant anything to me.
Delete.
Are you sure you want to delete these items?
My thumb pressed down before I could stop myself.
The screen went blank.
So did I.