Curtis's POV

Hockey practice ended, and Dean followed me to the fraternity house as usual.

I sat on the couch in the corner of the basement, watching Brendan pin Dean down and force a third drink on him.

Vodka mixed with fruit punch—the color looked harmless enough, but it packed a punch. Dean's pale fingers slipped twice against the glass before he managed to grip it steady.

He threw his head back and downed it, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. Some of the pink liquid dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it with his sleeve.

Brendan was still egging him on. "One more. Initiation rules—drink up and you're one of us."

Dean sat on the floor diagonally across from me, his legs drawn up with his knees pressed tightly together. His face was already flushed, his eyes slightly unfocused as he reached out to accept the fourth glass.

"That's enough."

Brendan's tone was clearly displeased. "Curtis, since when did you get so nurturing?"

I added flatly, "He has footage to edit tomorrow morning."

"Can you even stand up?" I walked over and crouched down next to Dean, my knee brushing against his. He flinched.

Dean looked up at me, his voice slurred. "I'm not drunk."

"Stand up and let me see."

He braced himself against the wall, trying to get up. His knees wobbled and he pitched forward. I reached out and grabbed his arm.

Dean was too thin—through the layer of fabric I could feel the shape of his bones.

I half-dragged, half-supported him toward the basement exit. His back pressed briefly against my chest, his body burning hot against me—had to be the alcohol.

Behind us, Brendan whistled. I didn't turn around, but I could picture him looking over with his nose in the air.

The cold wind hit us in the parking lot and Dean shivered, shrinking toward me. I opened the passenger door and stuffed him inside, bending down to pull the seatbelt across him.

My hand brushed his hip bone. It jutted out more than I'd expected.

I walked around to the driver's seat and sat down, starting the engine as I glanced at him.

He was already slumped there, lips slightly parted, chest rising and falling shallowly. He was still wearing my hoodie—the one I'd tossed at him when I saw him standing in the dorm hallway in that ratty zip-up with the broken zipper. It hung loose on his smaller frame.

I wasn't familiar with the route, so I turned on the GPS. The mechanical female voice finished announcing the street name.

Dean mumbled something I couldn't quite catch. "What?"

He repeated it. "Turn left... there's a road behind the dorm... it's closer."

I glanced over. His eyes were still closed. Was he pretending to sleep? Or half-dreaming?

I turned left at the next intersection as he'd said, my mind drifting back to something from a few weeks ago.

After practice ended, I was changing in the locker room while Brendan sat on the bench scrolling through his phone. He suddenly laughed and turned the screen toward me. "Look at this shit."

I glanced at it. The screen showed a serialized story on a private forum—Checking Orders: The Cold Captain Barebacking His Teammate.

Brendan scrolled down a couple pages. There was a hockey captain character in it—blond hair, blue eyes.

"Who wrote it?" I asked.

Brendan pocketed his phone, that uncomfortable smirk playing at his lips. "Traced the IP. Posted from campus WiFi, probably the hockey rink based on the timestamps. That new poor kid in the Equipment Room, what's his name—"

"Dean."

"Right, Dean." Brendan stuck both hands in his pockets. "Some guy who spends all day in the hockey rink, writing novels fantasizing about you. Think he's gay?"

Brendan continued, "Let's make a bet. Within a month, get him to admit he's gay. Next semester's away games—if you lose, you sleep on the floor."

I pulled on my jeans, the corner of my mouth quirking up. "If you lose, you buy the whole team breakfast for a month."

Brendan stuck out his hand. I bumped fists with him.

Brendan had sent me screenshots of a few chapters. The "Hunter" character was portrayed with ridiculous detail, but some of it was eerily accurate.

My left hand gripped the stick half a turn tighter than my right. When shooting, my core engaged before my arms. These were habits I'd developed over years of practice—things few people noticed, not even the coach.

He'd picked it up from just a few game recordings.

It was just a bet. I really didn't take it seriously.

I didn't dislike Dean, but I didn't care about him either. Getting him to admit he was gay wasn't going to be difficult.

Someone who couldn't even lift his head when bumped in the hallway, writing that kind of thing online—I could only imagine how he'd fall apart in real life.

I'd pictured his reaction—me cornering him against a wall, asking who he was writing about in that story. He'd probably go pale, trembling all over, then stammer and refuse to admit it.

But what actually happened turned out differently than I'd expected.

Last time in the Equipment Room, I pushed the door open and Dean jumped, his expression pure reflex.

I took a step closer and he backed away. Finding it amusing, I decided to mess with him a bit.

I gripped his chin, my thumb pressing against his lower lip—a little chapped, but soft.

I waited for him to tremble or dodge.

But Dean opened his mouth and bit down hard on my thumb.

Honestly, that caught me off guard. After he bit me, he froze first, panic flooding his eyes—looked more scared than I was.

The teeth marks stayed on my thumb for three days. When I touched them in the shower, they still hurt, and when they hurt I'd remember his expression.

Later, when I wrapped the bandage around his hand, he wouldn't look at me the whole time, his ears bright red. As I rolled the gauze, my fingertips grazed the cut on his palm. The fine hairs on his forearm stood straight up, but he didn't pull his hand away.

That kind of person—clearly trembling, but stubbornly refusing to run. I could have exposed him right then and there, but I didn't.

Reeling in the line too quickly wouldn't be any fun. The bet had plenty of time left. I could take it slow.

Over the past two weeks of contact, I'd gradually noticed details I'd missed before.

Dean kept training data for me, always writing one more column than Abel's data team: shooting angle deviation, time to regain center of gravity after weight shift.

I walked over to the table and flipped through it. His handwriting was neat and careful: Wednesday shooting practice, left-side angle hit rate 3.7% higher than last week. Recommend more practice on the right side.

I pointed at the words. "You calculated this?"

"Just kept some statistics." Dean looked down, rubbing his fingers together. "When you do a quick stop on your right side, your back edge catches the ice for a moment, but your left side doesn't. So your center of gravity transfer before a right-side shot is half a beat slower than the left, giving the goalie enough time to predict your direction—"

He stopped halfway through, probably realizing he was explaining technique to a varsity team captain. "Anyway... I saw it in the footage."

I asked him casually, "Have you ever been on the ice?"

Dean paused. "I skated at a community rink for two years when I was a kid. Couldn't afford it after that."

Two years and he could see all that?

I asked, "Who taught you?"

He didn't answer, just kept writing with his head down. Looked like he didn't want to talk about it.

Two weeks ago when I agreed to Brendan's bet, I never thought I'd care about some Equipment Room assistant.

Now here I was, sitting in my idling car, waiting for him to wake up. I even reached over and adjusted the AC vent direction, pointing it at his face.

What the hell was I doing?

My phone buzzed. Brendan had sent a message. "Curtis, what's your fucking problem?"

"Taking him away in front of everyone like that—where does that leave my face?"

I typed back, "If he's too hungover to get up tomorrow, how are we supposed to keep playing?"

Brendan replied instantly. "Who are you bullshitting? Just corner him and ask 'when you wrote that shit, did you jerk off to my pictures?' See if he pisses himself on the spot."

I replied, "What's your rush? Soon enough."

Brendan sent back a middle finger emoji. I tossed my phone to the side.

Dean's eyes slowly opened, his voice a bit hoarse. "Are we... at the dorm?"

"We're here."

Dean pushed the door open and got out. As he moved, his lower back was exposed—a strip of pale skin, the dimples above his tailbone just deep enough to fit a fingertip. I stared for a few seconds before looking away.

Dean turned back to look at me. "Curtis, why did you... help me avoid those drinks today?"

My hand rested on the edge of the steering wheel. Brendan's face flashed through my mind—the month-long bet, sleeping on the floor or buying breakfast. I should have just said something casual to brush him off.

But looking at his eyes, red from the alcohol, watching his wet tongue dart out to lick his dry lips before pressing them together again, I couldn't get the prepared lines out.

After a few seconds, I said, "If you can't get up tomorrow, who's going to edit the footage?"

He nodded. "Got it. Thanks for driving me back."

He closed the car door and walked away, his steps unsteady but he didn't fall.

That night I sat at my computer in the apartment and, on some impulse, opened the forum as a guest and found the serialized post Brendan had shown me.

Chapter seventeen was already up, with more views than the last time I'd checked.

I closed the page and leaned back in my chair, my thumb unconsciously rubbing the spot on my finger where the bite mark had long since faded.

The bet was still on. But I realized I was in no rush to reel in the line.

I couldn't quite explain why, but I definitely wanted to take the long way around.