Chapter 6 The Alibi & The Pink Tape

~Author's POV~

"Careful, Coach. Wouldn't want the neighbors thinking you're running some kind of after-hours operation."

Liam's voice carried that lazy, needling edge to it, the kind he used when he already smelled blood in the water. Dominic didn't move from the doorway. Instead , he placed his shoulder against the frame, filling it completely, six-foot-three of deliberate stillness between his captain and everything sitting in that front hall.

And there In the kitchen, pressed flat against the pantry shelves in the dark, Ava didn't dare breathe. Her heart was beating so hard. She could see a thin sliver of light through the crack in the pantry door, just enough to make out shapes, and she strained to hear every word.

"Didn't realize you were giving private lessons at midnight, Coach," Liam said, nodding toward the stick propped by the shoe rack, arms crossed now, clearly enjoying himself. "Or that she plays with a sixty-five flex. That's a stiff stick for a kid."

"Belongs to a youth camp client. I train her on Sundays, works around her school schedule." Dominic's voice didn't waver, flat and bored like he'd answered a hundred questions dumber than this one. "Hand me the film and get off my porch before I have you running bag skates at five in the morning."

Liam's eyes lingered on the stick a beat too long, something calculating working behind them, but he didn't push it further. He passed over the laptop bag with a shrug that didn't match the suspicion still on his face.

"Sure thing, Coach." He turned to leave, then paused halfway down the steps, looking back one more time. "Kind of a coincidence, though. Pink tape's a specific choice for a random kid."

"Goodnight, Reed."

Dominic shut the door before Liam could say anything else, and the second the latch clicked, the whole house went dead silent. He stood there a second longer, both hands braced against the door, listening to the sound of Liam's car finally pulling out of the driveway and disappearing down the street.

Only then did he turn the deadbolt.

…………

He crossed the kitchen fast, yanked the pantry door open, and found Ava still pressed against the shelves exactly where he'd left her, chest heaving, eyes wide and glassy with the kind of adrenaline that didn't have anywhere left to go.

Neither of them spoke for a second. Just staring at each other.

Then Dominic stepped forward, straight into her space, close enough that his forearms landed on either side of her against the pantry frame, trapping her there without actually touching her, his whole body radiating a mix of fury and something far more dangerous underneath it.

"You see how close that was?" His voice came out rough, lower than usual. "One second, Ava. One second and he steps through that door instead of standing on the porch, and your Olympic dream is dead in the water. Mine too, but that's beside the point."

"I know."

"Do you? Because you don't look like someone who almost lost everything five minutes ago."

Ava tilted her chin up, and whatever answer she'd been about to give got lost somewhere in the space between them, because his face was close now, closer than it had any right to be, his eyes dark and stormy in the dim kitchen light.

"Then why didn't you throw me under the bus, Dominic?" she asked quietly. "You could have. Would've been easier. Would've solved this whole problem in one sentence."

His jaw ticked. His hand came up, not touching her face, hovering just at her jaw like he was fighting himself over whether he had the right.

"Because I couldn't," he said, voice low now. "That's the problem."

His other hand landed on her waist, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt, gripping like he needed something to hold onto to keep from doing something worse. His breath warm against her lips as he leaned in just slightly, and for six full seconds neither of them moved, both of them teetering right on the edge of something neither one of them was allowed to have.

Then he tore himself back.

He stepped away so fast it was almost violent, dragging a rough hand down his face, putting three full feet of kitchen tile between them like distance alone could undo what had almost just happened.

"Go to bed," he said, voice hoarse. "Practice is in six hours."

Ava didn't move right away. She just watched him, chest still rising and falling too fast, before she finally pushed off the pantry shelf and walked past him toward the stairs without another word.

……….

By five forty-five the next morning, Fairview Arena was already lit up cold and bright, the ice freshly cut, thirty players running warmup laps under Dominic's watchful eye. Ava arrived separately, same as always, slipping in through the side entrance with dark circles under her eyes that no amount of concealer had managed to hide.

Liam hadn't said a word to her since they'd stepped on the ice. He skated his laps in silence, jaw tight as always, sending occasional glances her way that she couldn't read, something between suspicion and something else simmering underneath.

Dominic blew the whistle for line rushes, and whatever tension hung in the air between the three of them seemed to disappear the second the puck dropped.

Ava picked it up behind her own net, weaving through the neutral zone with the kind of vision that made defensemen look like they were standing still, and when she reached the offensive blue line, she threaded a backhand saucer pass clean through a defenseman's skates, landing it perfectly on Liam's tape in full stride.

He didn't even have to break stride to bury it in the top corner.

The rest of the guys on the bench let out a low whistle, a couple of them banging their sticks against the boards in approval. Liam turned around slowly, breathing hard, staring at her like he was trying to work out how she'd known exactly where he'd be before he knew it himself.

"How'd you even see that lane?" he asked, skating back toward center, some of the coldness from the last two days cracking slightly.

"I wasn't looking at the lane," Ava said, catching her breath. "I was looking at you. You always drift to the far post on delayed calls."

Liam didn't answer that, but something in his expression shifted, grudging and reluctant, like respect he hadn't wanted to hand out yet.

Dominic blew the whistle for a water break, and the team scattered toward the bench, gloves off, helmets pushed up, gulping water from their bottles. Ava dropped onto the bench beside her open equipment bag, reaching for her own water, trying not to think about how close Dominic had come to kissing her in that kitchen barely six hours earlier.

Then a shadow fell over her.

Liam leaned against the boards directly in front of her, angling his body just enough to block her from the rest of the team's line of sight, arms crossed, giving that same unreadable look from the porch sitting back on his face.

"Nice chemistry out there, Hale," he said, voice casual, too casual.

"Thanks."

His hand dipped into her open equipment bag before she could stop him, and he pulled out a fresh roll of grip tape, holding it up between two fingers where the light caught the color clearly.

Pink.

The exact same shade that had been sitting propped against Dominic's front door hours earlier.

Liam's mouth curved into a slow, knowing smirk, and when he spoke, his voice dropped low enough that only she could hear it.

"Nice tape, Hale." He turned the roll over once in his fingers, watching her face the entire time for a reaction. "Funny thing... I saw that exact same stick leaning by Coach Carter's front door last night."