Chapter 3 The Scar That Ruined Me

ETHAN’S POV

“Hope you don’t snore, Drake.”

I turned before I could even think about stopping myself.

Ares Cole stood three stalls away, shirtless, practice jersey slung over one shoulder. The overhead lights caught every line of the tattoos on his arms—those sharp geometric shapes that looked like they were meant to stay private—and the hard cut of muscle across his chest.

He looked bigger than he had on the ice. More solid. His green eyes were already on mine, that half-smile in place, the same one he’d worn when his stick brushed my calf earlier.

I used my captain voice. “We’ll make it work.” I kept it steady. “Housing’s tight right now. Coach said it won’t be long.”

“Temporary,” he said, like he was tasting the word. He dragged one hand through his damp hair, slow, and the light shifted across his face.

The scar stopped me cold.

It ran right down the center of his bottom lip. Thin. Faded silver. Half an inch, The kind of mark you only get when teeth meet skin in something too rough, too desperate, way past caring. Easy to miss in the wrong light. Impossible to miss in this one.

Everything else in the room just faded—the music, the voices, the sticky heat from forty bodies—all of it crushed down to this tight knot in my chest. My pulse hammered loud in my ears. That scar. I knew it.

I knew exactly when it happened: basement couch, vodka on his tongue, my fists twisted in the front of his shirt because for three blurry minutes I’d stopped being Ethan Drake, captain, golden boy, scholarship kid. I’d been someone who wanted something real.

I’d woken up the next morning with my own lip split and a headache I couldn’t blame on the drinks. Told myself it was nothing—just a one-time glitch that didn’t count. I’d deleted every trace of that party from my phone and buried the memory so deep I almost believed it.

Almost.

Until tonight, when the proof walked in shirtless after scoring twice on his first shift.

Ares Cole. Flashy rookie who’d lit it up right away. The guy who was about to sleep twelve feet from my bed.

He caught me staring. His smirk pulled a little deeper, just enough to stretch that scar and catch the light again. He didn’t say a word. Just held my gaze, eyes dark and steady, yet patient like he was giving me the space to say it first.

I looked away so fast my neck cracked. Heat crawled up my spine. My hands started shaking, so I shoved them into my locker and pretended to dig for my phone. But all I could see was his mouth. The shape of it. How it had felt pressed against mine last summer—sure, like he’d already figured out who I was before I had.

“Yo, Cap.” Asher appeared at my elbow, completely oblivious. “We’re all heading to Gino’s for the new guy. Your sister’s meeting us there.”

Something shifted in his voice when he mentioned the word sister. Softer and more Careful. I was too rattled to read it right, but I caught it.

“Yeah,” I managed. “Can’t tonight. Mom’s got dinner.” The words scraped out like gravel.

Asher’s face fell. “Next time, Captain.”

“You too,” I called after him.

I let myself look at Ares one more time.

He was still watching. He’d pulled on a black hoodie, but the hem had ridden up, showing more ink across his lower stomach. When our eyes met, he lifted one brow. Slow. No rush.

My locker door slammed harder than I meant.

“Drake.” Coach Harlan’s voice came from the doorway. “My office. Bring Cole.”

Perfect. Exactly what I needed—a closed room with the one person I couldn’t afford to be near.

I grabbed a clean shirt and started moving. Ares fell in step beside me down the hall. His shoulder brushed mine once. Brief. I told myself it was accidental. My body didn’t believe it. That same jolt from the ice hit me again, harder this time.

We stopped outside Coach’s door. Ares leaned one forearm against the wall, tattoos running down to his wrist, totally at ease. Then he looked at me sideways.

“You good, Captain?” his voice low. Just for me. “Looked like you saw something out there.”

Up close, the scar was impossible to ignore. My mouth went dry. I wanted to ask—was it you, do you remember, did you know the second you stepped on my ice?—but I couldn’t. Saying it out loud would make it real. Real meant it could get out. And getting out meant losing the captaincy, the scholarship, every hour I’d bled for this life.

“I’m fine.” Same line I’d been running since I was sixteen.

His half-smile came back. The scar tugged with it. “You sure about that?”

Coach’s door swung open.

“Drake. Cole. Inside.”

We went in. Coach looked pleased, which was rare enough to notice. “Hell of a debut, Cole. Drake, line management was textbook. Chemistry between you two is already there.”

My jaw tightened. Chemistry. If he had any idea how close that chemistry was to burning my whole life down.

Coach ran through the list—road trip dates, media requests, schedule changes. I nodded when I was supposed to. But my attention kept sliding back to the scar, to the heat coming off Ares’s arm where it almost touched mine.

He shifted his weight at one point. Our arms pressed together. Neither of us pulled away. The office felt too small, too warm. He smelled like ice and cedar and something underneath that I recognized in the back of my throat. Like that basement. Like those three minutes when I’d stopped performing.

When Coach finally let us go, I moved for the door first. Ares caught my wrist for just a second. His thumb pressed once against the inside, right where my pulse was loudest—then he let go.

“See you at home, roommate,” he said. Low enough that it was only for me.

Then he was gone, already moving down the hall like he belonged there.

I stayed put for a moment, not moving. Heart hammering, the ghost of his thumb still burning on my wrist. The scar. The kiss. The guy I’d spent all summer convincing myself I’d imagined was now assigned to the other side of my bedroom wall.

I pressed two fingers to my own lip. The skin was smooth. Healed completely. Nothing left.

His had left a mark.

I had to keep it together. One more day. One more week. One more season. I had to hold the whole thing up.

Because if Ares Cole remembered everything about that night—and that smile said he did—then the ice under me was cracking, and I had

no idea how to stop myself from falling.