Knot me on ice, Captain(BL) Chapter 3: Accidental like

Kayden

By the ti practice finally ended, my legs felt like soone had replaced my bones with wet noodles.

Rhys had pushed us harder than I expected for a mid-season routine skate, and I hadn’t even had ti to catch my breath before he barked for another drill, another sprint, another round.

An "introduction practice," he called it. A punishnt practice, if you asked my lungs.

By the ti I left the Glacier Do and reached the hotel the team had booked for —temporary housing until they figured out whether they wanted to keep long-term—I felt like I was dragging a dead body that happened to be my own.

The door clicked behind , and I exhaled for the first ti in hours. The room slled like generic hotel detergent and cold recycled air.

Clean, quiet, empty. A relief. A curse. A place where nobody could sll , judge , or ask uncomfortable questions.

I stripped out of my clothes and headed straight into the bathroom. The tiles were cool under my feet, and when I turned on the shower, steam filled the space instantly, curling around like a fog I could finally hide in.

I stepped under the water and let the heat pound against the back of my neck, washing away sweat and the faint trace of Rhys’s pine scent that had clung to all damn afternoon.

It shouldn’t have affected like that. He shouldn’t affect like that.

I pressed my forehead against the shower wall and tried not to think about the way his hand brushed mine in the locker room, or the way his voice sounded when he said my na, or the way he glared at on the ice every ti I so much as breathed wrong.

"Stop thinking about him," I muttered under the rushing water.

My body did not listen. Soon, my hand went down to my cock, rubbing it gently. I fastened my pace, imagining Rhys’s tight ass in front of . "Oh, fuck yes!" I moaned out his na as I ca.

First day and I was already jerking off to him. Crazy, right? But I liked it.

After a long while, I shut off the tap, dried myself, and wrapped a towel loosely around my hips.

My reflection stared back at from the fogged mirror: tired eyes, damp strands of hair sticking to my forehead, a body that looked more fragile than it had during adrenaline-fueled skating.

I wiped the mirror halfway, reached into my duffel bag, and retrieved the small black case I hid under layers of tape and fabric. My suppressant kit. I unlocked it with the code I changed every week. Four digits no one would ever guess.

The injector glead under the bathroom light as I brought it out.

I sat on the closed toilet lid and pressed the cold tal against my thigh. For a mont, I hesitated because suppressants always left feeling dull afterward, like soone had lowered the volu on every emotion I had. But I didn’t have the luxury of skipping a dose. Not now. Not when I was surrounded by an entire team of Alphas and Betas.

Not when I was sharing air with Rhys Calder.

I pushed the injector down. It was a sharp sting, a slow burn that made grit my teeth.

I let out a relieved exhale, and the buzzing under my skin cald almost instantly. I tossed the syringe into the hotel trash, walked out of the bathroom once I was done, and collapsed on the firm hotel bed.

My muscles still ached from practice, and the hot shower had only done so much. I should have slept as soon as I hit the bed.

I should have closed my eyes and pretended I wasn’t already ssing up this fresh start. Instead, out of habit—stupid, masochistic habit—I picked up my phone and started scrolling through the internet.

The first headline nearly punched between the eyes: AVALANCHE’S NEW #26: KAYDEN VALE STEALS THE SPOTLIGHT... AND MAYBE THE CAPTAIN’S ATTENTION?

I snorted. Loudly. "What attention!"

The notifications were endless. Articles. Comnts. Gossip accounts already posting slowed-down footage of the mont Rhys helped back onto my feet during practice.

Soone had zood into our hands touching. Soone else had circled the way Rhys had looked at afterward. The tag #CalderVale was already trending, which was ridiculous and insane and so predictable it made want to scream.

Scrolling made it worse. There were so many comnts about us making it seem like we were a couple.

"Did you see that look? – Social dia Goes Wild."

"Coach Reddick Comnts: ’They Seem to Get Along Well.’"

"Compilation Video: Kayden and Rhys’s First Day Chemistry."

My jaw dropped. There were screenshots. Slow-motion replays. Edits with stupid sparkles and hearts. Even a split-screen of Rhys looking at and looking at the floor like a socially crippled goldfish.

I scrolled until another headline slapped across the face: "New Avalanche Rookie Already Flirting With the Captain?"

I actually choked. "Flirting? With Calder? You’ve got to be kidding ."

But the internet loves delusion, so there it was—thousands of comnts, so laughing, so arguing, so terrifyingly serious, all trying to ship with a man who had spoken maybe thirty words to . Thirty words that had sohow branded themselves into my skull.

I locked my jaw, pushed the phone away for a second, and rubbed slowly at the ache building beneath my ribs. If only they knew how dangerous it was for to even stand beside him.

If only they knew how the suppressant barely held back my instincts when his pine scent hit like a punch to the lungs.

I replayed practice in my head, rembering the speed drills I nailed, the passes I executed flawlessly, and the shot I buried top-shelf that even the goalie had applauded.

And then Rhys’s voice cutting through it all: "Again, Vale."

"You’re drifting too far left."

"Faster. You can do faster."

He found sothing wrong in everything I did. Not enough to humiliate . Just enough to keep off balance. Just enough to make chase his approval like an idiot.

And the worst part? A tiny, treacherous part of didn’t hate it as long as I could see his tight ass.

I groaned and dragged my hand down my face. "Get a grip, Kayden. Seriously."

I should have stopped there. I should have stopped scrolling online, but I didn’t. Instead... I typed his na into the search bar. Rhys Calder.

His official verified Instagram page popped up instantly; he has 11.2 million followers. The profile picture was him mid-ga, jaw clenched, sweat dripping down his temple, eyes sharp with that predator focus that made people adore him and fear him at the sa ti.

I shouldn’t have clicked. But I did.

The grid loaded, and my breath left . There were pictures of him at training camps, pictures of him lifting the Stanley Cup above his head, and pictures of him smiling faintly with teammates.

And then—I froze. There were shirtless pictures. A handful of them. Professional shoots. Training photos. A candid one where he was wiping sweat from his neck, muscles shifting thick and solid beneath tanned skin.

His tattoos peeked from beneath the hem of his compression shorts. His ribs expanded with a breath I couldn’t hear but felt anyway.

My pulse stuttered. "What the hell," I whispered. "No wonder he has millions of followers. He is so hot!"

I scrolled further, unable to look away. Every photo had hundreds of thousands of likes. So had millions. The comnts were a battlefield of thirst, praise, and devotion.

anwhile, my own page struggled to break fifty thousand likes on a good day. The comparison shouldn’t have bothered . But it did. It clawed sowhere deep, where old insecurities sat like bruises that never fully healed.

I should have stopped at that mont, too, and slept. But I didn’t. Instead, I followed him. And then, because my self-control was apparently nonexistent, I scrolled back up and tapped "like" on one of his shirtless photos.

It was not even a normal one. No. It was the thirstiest, most unhinged thing I could have possibly done. I liked the one of him leaning against the rink boards after practice, with his shirt off, sweat sliding down his chest like a goddamn comrcial.

As soon as the heart icon turned red, I sat up straight.

"Oh no. No, no, no. What the hell did I just do?" I slapped a hand to my face.

He was going to see it. Of course he was going to see it. And worse, he was going to think I liked him. Which I did, but I shouldn’t.

I heaved a deep sigh and stared at the screen in horror. He was going to see "Kayden Vale liked your photo." The thought alone nearly made throw myself out the window.

I dropped the phone on my chest and covered my eyes with my forearm, groaning like my soul was trying to escape my body.

"I’m so screwed."

Tomorrow’s practice would be worse. Rhys would push harder or even make comnts about liking his picture. "Kayden!" I groaned and closed my eyes, trying to summon the will to sleep, but all I could see was Rhys’s face.