Blaze’s POV
Five years ago, draft night.
The arena pulsed with electricity. Cameras flashed in every direction as scouts whispered predictions. Futures hung in the balance, waiting to be decided.
I sat in my tailored suit, palms slick with sweat. My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my throat. This was it. Everything I'd worked for.
"Blaze Wilson—Ottawa Otters."
Pride surged through me like wildfire. I stood on shaking legs, shook hands I wouldn't remember, pulled on the jersey they handed me.
Orange and black. My new colors. My new identity and my new life, beginning right here, right now.
I searched the crowd for the only face that mattered. Found Asher three rows back, jaw clenched tight, eyes blazing with something between joy and terror.
He was proud of me. I could see it. But beneath that pride lurked the same fear clawing at my own chest.
Then his name echoed through the speakers.
"Asher Carpenter—Boston Blazers."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Different team. Different city. Different conference. Rivals.
The stone settled into my chest and refused to move.
We'd dreamed of this moment since we were kids shooting pucks in frozen backyards. Playing together and building something legendary on the same ice.
Instead, we'd face each other across enemy lines. Our love story rewritten as a rivalry narrative for the media to exploit.
The hotel room afterward felt suffocating. Asher paced by the window, his silhouette sharp against the city lights. I sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing my new jersey.
Neither of us had spoken in twenty minutes.
"This doesn't change anything," he said finally. His voice cracked, betraying the confidence he was projecting.
He turned to face me, and I saw the fear he couldn't hide.
"We'll make it work. Long distance. Secret. Whatever it takes, Blaze. I'm not losing you over geography."
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to with every fiber of my being.
"Promise me," I whispered.
He crossed the room in three strides. His hands gripped my jersey, Ottawa's colors, not his. His forehead pressed against mine.
"I promise," he breathed. "I promise, I promise, I promise."
Then his mouth found mine.
The kiss started desperate but quickly turned hungry. His fingers fumbled with my buttons while I yanked his shirt free from his pants.
"Need you," he gasped against my lips. "Need to feel you."
"I'm here." I pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere tonight."
We stripped each other with trembling hands. His body was familiar territory, but tonight every touch felt sacred. Final. Like we were memorizing each other for the drought ahead.
He pushed me back onto the mattress and crawled over me. His weight settled between my thighs, and I groaned at the contact.
"Blaze." My name left his mouth like a prayer.
"I know," I whispered, pulling him closer. "I know, baby."
His hips rolled against mine, and we both shuddered. I watched his face—the way his eyes squeezed shut, the way his lips parted on a moan.
"Look at me," I demanded softly.
Those ice-blue eyes opened, and I saw everything. Fear. Love and desperation. The same storm raging in my own chest reflected back at me.
"Whatever happens," I said, "this is real. We're real."
Then he reached for the lube on the nightstand, and words became unnecessary.
He prepared me slowly, reverently, like we had all the time in the world. Each stretch of his fingers pulled sounds from my throat I couldn't control.
"Ready?" he asked, positioning himself.
"Always for you."
He pushed inside, and I arched off the bed with a groan. He stilled immediately, forehead dropping to my shoulder.
"Fuck," he breathed. "You feel…"
"Move," I begged. "Please, Ash."
He did. Slow at first, then deeper, harder, finding the angle that made stars explode behind my eyes.
"Right there," I gasped, nails raking down his back. "God, right there, don't stop."
He didn't stop. Drove into me like he was trying to fuse us together permanently. Like separation was something our bodies could refuse.
His hand wrapped around me, stroking in rhythm with his thrusts. The dual sensation pushed me toward the edge embarrassingly fast.
"I'm close," I warned, tension coiling at the base of my spine.
"Together," he panted. "Come with me, Blaze."
Three more thrusts and I shattered, his name tearing from my throat. He followed seconds later, burying himself deep and shuddering through his release.
We held each other until dawn bled through the curtains. Neither of us slept. Neither of us acknowledged what sunrise meant.
Tomorrow wasn't supposed to exist yet.
But it came anyway.
***
A brutal game in Boston, our first meeting as professional rivals. Asher checked me into the boards so hard my vision went white. The crowd roared its approval.
I tasted blood as soon as I heard the referee's whistle. Saw Asher skating away without looking back, playing his role perfectly.
That same night, his mouth found my neck in a hotel room across town. "I'm sorry," he whispered between desperate kisses. "I had to. They were watching. I'm so fucking sorry."
His apologies tasted like desperation and guilt.
I forgave him. I always forgave him.
Another game, months later. Ottawa versus Boston with playoff implications on the line. I scored the winning goal with three seconds remaining.
The arena erupted and my teammates mobbed me. Across the ice, Asher's face contorted with fury and pride tangled together in ways only I could recognize.
Later, in another anonymous hotel room, he pinned me to the mattress with bruising force. Competitive fire transforming into something far hotter.
"You think you're so fucking good," he growled against my throat.
"I am good," I shot back. "Just proved it to twenty thousand witnesses."
He proved something too. Several times. Until neither of us could move.
Public rivalry. Private passion. The duality that defined everything we were to each other.
Then there was the cottage. Our sanctuary. Three hours from anywhere that mattered.
I'd cook breakfast while Asher read the sports section at our kitchen table. Bacon sizzling in the cast iron pan and coffee brewing in the ancient percolator.
He'd look up from the paper and actually smile. No walls. No masks. Just Asher, soft and unguarded and beautiful.
"You're burning the eggs again," he'd say.
"Then get off your ass and help instead of criticizing."
He watched me with those ice-blue eyes like I was something precious.
Those summers were the only time I felt complete.
Six weeks of pretending we could have forever. Then September would drag us back to separate cities, separate lives, separate closets.
Present
I blinked, and I was back in my Ottawa apartment. Alone. The TV muted, Boston's game highlights playing on an endless loop.
Asher's face filled the screen in high definition.
He looked older now. Harder. The softness I used to find in our private moments had calcified into something sharp and impenetrable.
Still devastatingly beautiful, though. Some things never change no matter how much you wish they would.
The C on his jersey caught the arena lights. Captain. The dream he'd chased since childhood, finally realized. I wondered if it filled the emptiness.
Probably. He'd always loved hockey more than anything else. More than me. He'd proven that repeatedly.
One year since I ended it. One year since I stood in our secret apartment and finally said the words I'd been choking on for months.
"I'm tired of being your dirty secret, Ash."
His silence confirmed everything. That quiet broke me more than any denial ever could have.
On screen, Asher raised his stick to acknowledge the chanting crowd. He didn't smile. The mask never cracked.
I used to know every expression that face could make. The real ones hidden beneath the performance. Now I watched him through glass like a stranger.
I grabbed the remote, pushed the button and the screen went black.
The silence that followed was deafening.