My captain.
Elias catches me staring, winks, then deliberately drops into a one-knee pose at the blue line, arms wide, calling across the rink, “Coach Kade, marry me again!”
Cole screams. Shane howls. Someone’s already halfway through drawing a dick on the ice with a water bottle like it’s a team tradition.
I smirk and blow the whistle. “Line sprints. Now.”
“WAIT, NO—” Elias yelps, scrambling to his feet as the team groans in unison and launches into a brutal pace.
“You brought this on yourself, Kade!” I shout after him.
“WHICH ONE?!” he yells back, cracking with laughter as he bolts past me, fast as hell and grinning.Brat.
As practice winds down, the chaos fades into something close to organized violence. Pucks flying, gear clattering, Cole screaming something about foreplay while dodging Shane’s stick. Typical.
I blow the final whistle. Three long, sharp bursts. The signal that says: get the hell off my ice before I make you skate suicides until you throw up lunch and yesterday’s sins.
Elias doesn’t leave the ice. Of course he doesn’t. He skates right up to the boards, curls damp, cheeks flushed, that stitched C gleaming on his chest. His eyes find mine and he grabs the boards, leans in close, and purrs, “Hi, sir.”
I smirk, lips already twitching. “Hi, baby.”
Then the bastard hops the boards, lands with a soft thud beside me, and slides in close under my arm. Still in his skates, still sweaty, still panting, and he smells like adrenaline and victory and the hotel conditioner he refuses to replace.
We stand together, watching the boys finish out their last laps.
Viktor is currently slamming Cole into the plexiglass. Repeatedly. Each hit lands with precision—calculated, controlled, just enough restraint to keep the glass from shattering… for now.
Cole’s grinning through it all, mouthing off with his face mashed sideways, gleeful even through clenched teeth. “I like it when you manhandle me, daddy!”
THUD. “Hit me harder, big boy!”
SLAM. “I’ll scream your name in five languages!”
CRACK. “Add Russian to the list, please!”
Viktor’s expression doesn’t change. Blank. Emotionless. Except for the faint twitch in his jaw—just enough to say this could end in murder or mating, and the odds are fifty-fifty.
I wrap an arm around Elias’s shoulders and drag him in closer. He hums, resting his temple against my cheek. “He’s gonna snap,” he mutters.
“Oh yeah.”
“Think he’s gonna kill him?”
“Not the way Cole wants him to.”
Elias snorts. “Okay, what’s the bet?”
I pretend to think. “I say he caves before Halloween. Full-blown fucks him through the ice.”
“Halloween?” Elias gasps. “Babe. No way he makes it past preseason. I say… first road game. At the latest.”
I grin. “Deal.”
Cole screams something unintelligible as Viktor lifts him by the collar and slams him against the glass so hard Shane drops his stick in shock.
“Still think I’m wrong?” I ask, smirking into Elias’s curls.
Elias just laughs, sharp and bright and golden. “No,” he grins. “I think we’re gonna need a new rink.”
