My hands froze on the canvas strap. “What?”
“He lied to you, Karter.” Elliot’s voice dropped, the hard edge crumbling into something quieter. “This wasn’t about saving himself. He walked away so Hastings wouldn’t go after you next.”
A cold rush swept through my limbs. I gripped the locker behind me. I’d known the truth the second Elliot had scoffed the words,‘you actually bought that?’, but hearing it laid out in plain words still knocked the air from my lungs. Aleksey had stood in my doorway, face blank, voice steady, and fed me a lie I’d swallowed whole. Not to save himself. To bury the fallout before it touched me.
“I talked to him before he left,” Elliot said. “He was already set on stepping down. Told me you’d walk away clean.”
“But he can’t do that.” My words sounded as helpless as I felt. “He needs that scholarship.”
“And yet he did it, anyway.”
Stepping back, Elliot ran a tired hand over his face. His shoulders slumped under his practice jersey, all the energy from earlier draining out of him. He had barely looked me in the eye for days since I told him the truth about Aleksey and me, back in the administrative hallway, but now, his blue-gray stare held mine.
“That asshole cared enough about you to give up this team,” Elliot said. “So, do not waste that.”
I swallowed hard, staring back at my older brother. Ever since I dropped the truth on him outside the administrative offices, Elliot had been dodging me and treating this whole situation like a toxic PR disaster.
But standing here right now, seeing the small kernel of respect on his face, I realized he understood what Aleksey meant to me.
My hands shook as I grabbed the canvas strap of my hockey bag. I needed to get out of this sterile athletic building. Slinging the strap over my shoulder, I walked past Elliot without another word.
The only thing I wanted to do was go back to the house and sit in Aleksey’s empty room.
I pushed through the front door of the Ice House. With the rest of the team still running Corby’s drills back at the arena, the downstairs living room sat deserted. And not for the first time, I felt relief at the fact that there was nobody to dodge in the house.
So, I dragged my hockey bag past the couches, the canvas scraping against the floorboards, and climbed the stairs to the attic. Then I pushed open the door to Aleksey’s room.
Honestly, I didn’t know what I was expecting. Maybe some foolish, desperate hope that I would open the door and find him sitting there, realizing he couldn’t bring himself to leave. But the space was just as desolate as it had been when I watched him walk out last night.
Aleksey hadn’t come back. There was nothing left but the bare mattress, the pulled blinds blocking out the afternoon sun, and a deafening silence.
Shutting the door, I let my hockey bag drop to the floorboards. The faint smell of his cheap bar soap still hung in the air as I walked over and sat down on the edge of the mattress.
Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and pressed the heels of my hands hard into my eyes.
I sat there in the dark and let the quiet settle around me. And for once, I didn’t try to fill it. Didn’t replay the argument or hunt for the right combination of words that would have made Aleksey stay. Every word I’d thrown at him in this room had landed exactly where it was aimed. And he still walked out. Not because he didn’t believe me, but because believing me meant staying, and staying meant letting the wreckage hit us both. So he’d chosen the damage he could control. The one where I got to keep my name, my team, my future.
The one where he bore the cost alone.
Feeling exhausted, I sighed as I pushed off the mattress, crossed the dark room, and walked back into the hallway without looking back. The door clicked shut behind me, and Aleksey’s room sat empty again, waiting for whoever moved in next.
Chapter 22 - Aleksey
Aweek ago I was skating for scouts, but today I bled onto the dirty floor of a garage.
When I stepped through the door ten minutes later, the rattle of an air compressor swallowed the street noise. Exhaust fumes hung in the air as I weaved past stacks of tires, heading toward the punch clock where the garage manager waited by a lifted Chevy.
Rick dropped his oil-soaked rag the second he saw me. His gaze tracked the bloody cut on my lip and the swelling along my jaw.
“You’re late,” Rick stated. “And you look like a train hit you.”
“Traffic,” I lied.
Rick stepped into my path. “I do not care about traffic, Zotov. Your cousin stuck his neck out to get you this job. You better not go bringing trouble into my shop.”
“I will not.”
He huffed, but didn’t press any further. “Get under the Chevy,” he ordered, pointing at the lift. “The transmission needs work.”
