Chapter - 2 He Could Smell My Secret
1247 Words
"What are you?"
The question hangs between us in the hallway, and for a second I forget how to lie.
"Tired," I say finally. "Coach just gave me a headache disguised as a folder. That's what I am."
Ace doesn't blink. His eyes stay locked on my collar, on the sweat-damp line of my throat, like he's trying to read a language he almost knows. Alphas have instincts they can't always name — I've read every study, memorized every loophole. Attraction, they can explain. Recognition, they can't. Not yet. Not until it's too late.
"You smell different today," he says slowly. "Not bad different. Just—" He stops himself, jaw tightening like the sentence embarrassed him. "Forget it."
"Rink smells like feet and desperation, Cole. Maybe that's what you're picking up."
A short laugh escapes him, surprised out of his chest. It changes his whole face. I hate how much I like it.
"Careful," he says. "Almost sounded like a joke, Vance."
"Don't get used to it."
•
He watches me a beat too long, and then the athletic trainer sticks her head out of the training room and calls my name, and whatever almost happened between us folds itself back into silence.
"Vance. That shoulder Coach flagged. Let's take a look."
My stomach drops for the second time in an hour.
I follow her in, and she has me sit on the table and pull my shirt up over the shoulder Ace slammed into the boards — which means peeling back the edge of the compression layer underneath, which means the patch on my collarbone is one bad angle away from being in plain view.
"Just bruising," she says, pressing careful fingers along my ribs while I hold my breath and pray she doesn't look two inches to the left. "You're lucky. That hit looked worse than it was."
"Feels worse than it looks," I manage.
She tapes me up, tells me to ice it, and sends me on my way without ever seeing what I spent two years making sure nobody sees. I don't breathe normally again until I'm three hallways away.
•
That evening, Marcus knocks on my door with two other guys trailing behind him, already loud, already smelling like the pregame energy drinks they mainline before every party. "Reyes is throwing something at the Sigma house. You're coming."
"Can't. Paper due."
"You always have a paper due." He says it easy, not suspicious, just teasing — the way you tease a friend for being boring, not the way you interrogate someone you think is lying. That's almost worse. "One night off won't kill you, Vance."
It might. A room full of Alphas, drinks lowering everyone's guard, my own guard the only one that can't afford to slip even once — I've done the math on that scenario a hundred times and it never ends anywhere good.
"Next time," I say, and shut the door before he can talk me into it, and stand there in the sudden quiet listening to them laugh their way down the hall without me. Two years of nights like this. Two years of being almost-friends with people who'd stop being anything at all the second they knew the truth.
I go back to counting patches instead.
That night, back in my dorm, I count my suppressant patches under my desk lamp with the door locked. Fourteen left. The finals are five weeks out. The certification test is the night before. I do the math three times, hoping it comes out different the third time.
It doesn't.
Fourteen patches, thirty-five days, one blood panel that will read exactly what I am no matter how careful I've been.
My phone buzzes. A text from my mother: Saw the team roster online. So proud of you, sweetheart. Your brother would be too.
I stare at that message longer than I should.
Eli doesn't talk about hockey anymore. Hasn't in three years, not since a "training accident" that wasn't an accident, not since the doctors said his shoulder would never take a real check again, not since he sat me down and told me, Don't. Please don't do what I did. They will let you believe you belong right up until the moment they need you not to.
I didn't listen. I'm not built to listen when someone tells me to disappear.
I delete the text without answering. I can't tell my mother the real reason I made varsity is that I've spent two years lying to a locker room full of Alphas who would use my own body as a headline if they found out. Omega Infiltrates Elite Program. I can already see it.
•
The next morning, Dominic corners me by the equipment cages before anyone else arrives.
"You're hiding something," he says, no preamble, arms crossed over his chest like a wall. "I don't know what yet. But I will."
"Careful, Reyes. Sounds like an obsession."
"Sounds like I'm the only one on this team who isn't blinded by how pretty you skate." He steps closer, close enough that I catch the aggressive edge of his own scent, testing, pushing. "Ace likes you. Everyone's noticed. Captain doesn't play favorites, except suddenly he does, and I want to know why."
My stomach drops. If Dominic's noticed Ace watching me, others have too.
"Maybe he just respects good hockey."
"Maybe." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Or maybe there's something about you that makes an Alpha's instincts go haywire, and I intend to find out what. And when I do, Vance, I'm not keeping it to myself."
He walks off before I can answer, and the threat sits in my chest like a stone for the rest of the day.
Practice that afternoon is brutal. Coach runs us into the ground, drilling breakout patterns for finals, and every single time Ace and I connect on the ice — a pass, a give-and-go, a play so clean the whole rink goes quiet — I feel it. Something electric. Something that has nothing to do with hockey and everything to do with the way he looks at me like I'm the only player on the ice.
After practice, he catches my arm in the tunnel. Just for a second. Just long enough.
"Vance." His voice drops lower than I've ever heard it. "Whatever Coach said in that office — whatever's got you looking like you're bracing for a hit that hasn't landed yet — you can tell me. I've got your back."
You won't, once you know what I am.
"I'm fine," I say.
He doesn't let go of my arm. "I don't believe you. And I don't think I'm going to stop watching you until I figure out why."
Behind him, taped to the tunnel wall where every player will see it walking in tomorrow, is a fresh notice from the league office. Bold black letters. My eyes catch three words before Ace steps in front of it, blocking my view like he already knows.
MANDATORY DESIGNATION SCREENING — RESULTS PUBLIC.
Not private. Not confidential.
Public.
My whole plan — two years of it — was built on nobody ever officially checking. Now somebody's about to check everyone, post it for the world, and hand Dominic Reyes exactly the proof he's hunting for, whether he finds it himself or not.
I have thirty-five days to figure out how to disappear again, in plain sight, in front of the entire league.
- Writer
