My First Love Is My Boyfriend's Hockey Rival

Interruption

Ivy POV

The night felt colder as I stepped out of the sports bar. Asher’s words kept spinning wildly in my head.

'Kai talked about you.'

I pulled my jacket tight around my body, trying hard to shake off the echo of his voice.

My phone buzzed briefly in my pocket—maybe Caleb realizing I wasn't at the table, or Sam checking on me—but I ignored it.

As I glanced toward the quiet back parking lot, I saw him.

Kai was standing alone near a row of cars, holding his gear bag. He seemed lost in thought, pondering something under the dim glow of the streetlight.

My steps stopped. I should have kept walking, gone back inside, found Caleb, and then gone home to forget all of this. But for the first time since he came back and ruined the rhythm of my life, I made a final decision.

I needed answers.

Not tomorrow. Not waiting until I felt more mentally prepared. I was going to ask him right now.

I walked quickly across the distance between us before my courage could fade into the night wind.

"Kai."

He stopped moving right before opening his car door. When he turned and saw my face, his eyes widened slightly. His expression immediately tensed, knowing full well that the way I stood and called his name wasn't for small talk.

"What is it?" he asked flatly.

"We need to talk," I said sharply.

Kai looked around the parking lot, making sure no one else from the team was listening.

"Talk about what?"

I almost laughed out of pure annoyance. Anger slowly took over my senses.

"Don't play dumb."

He stayed silent. His jaw tightened.

"You know exactly what I want to talk about," I added, taking a step closer so he had no room to avoid me.

The air between us felt frozen. I looked straight into his eyes, asking the question that had been suffocating me for years.

"Why did you disappear?"

Kai stared at me, but his lips stayed tightly shut.

"You just left," I pressed, my voice rising, no longer caring about my volume. "You stopped replying to my texts. You changed your number. I came to your house to look for you, but it was empty! You vanished like dust."

Kai's gray eyes locked onto mine.

There was a deep, fragile flash of emotion there—something that looked like desperation—but he made no effort to open his mouth and defend himself.

I clenched my fists tightly.

"Do you have any idea how broken I was back then?"

"I know," his voice was raspy, almost a whisper.

"Then why did you do it?!"

Kai opened his mouth, hesitating for a moment before saying softly,

"I didn't have a choice, Ivy."

"Everyone always has a choice, Kai," I cut in mercilessly.

"Not always," Kai replied, his jaw locking as the words dragged out of him like a confession.

"When the floor drops out beneath you, you don't choose how you fall... you just try to survive it."

"At least you could have told me, Kai."

"You think I haven't replayed that every night for five years?" he countered, his voice cracking with a raw, defensive edge. "Some things are bigger than a text message, Ivy."

"You could have sent one text! Just one text!"

"I couldn't."

"You could have at least said goodbye before you really left."

Kai stared at me, his eyes slowly turning red.

"Do you think a goodbye would have made it hurt less? Because it would have killed me to say it."

That answer tore through the rest of his defenses. Kai looked away, rubbing his face roughly.

I saw a guilt so naked and agonizing written clearly across his face.

He turned back to me, his voice rising now too, filled with frustration.

"You think leaving you was easy for me? Huh?"

I went quiet, suddenly tongue-tied.

"You think I wanted to just disappear from your life like that?" he continued, looking at me with a hurt gaze that made me hold my breath.

My heart was pounding so fast it hurt my ribs.

"Then tell me what actually happened."

Kai stared at me closely. His lips parted, taking a deep breath.

"My dad—"

He stopped dead.

His eyes flicked sharply past my shoulder toward the glowing entrance of the sports bar, then out toward the deep shadows at the edge of the parking lot.

His phone vibrated violently against his hip, and he gripped the strap of his gear bag so hard his knuckles turned stark white.

A sudden, visceral flash of fear replaced the desperation in his gaze.

He then took a sharp, rattled breath and cut off his own sentence.

"Forget it," he said coldly, his face going blank again.

"No."

"Ivy, enough."

"You don't have the right to come back into my life and tell me to just forget everything!" I snapped, my anger flaring up all over again.

Kai stepped forward, drastically shrinking the distance between us. Not for an embrace, but because the argument had backed us into a volatile corner.

"I was just trying to protect you," he hissed firmly, looking down at me.

I looked up, defying his gaze.

"From what?"

Kai went silent, his lips pressed tightly together into a locked vault.

The anger between us slowly dissolved, replaced by a suffocating, painful quiet.

Standing this close, I could hear his irregular breathing and see the small scar at the end of his left eyebrow clearly.

He took a half-step toward me, his hand twitching at his side as if he wanted to reach out and steady my trembling shoulders, but he caught himself, pulling back at the last second and balling his hands into tight fists.

"I'm sorry," he whispered softly.

I swallowed hard.

"For what?"

"For everything."

I wanted to reply, but not a single word managed to crawl out of my throat.

"Ivy!"

That loud call shattered the brittle atmosphere like glass hit by a stone.

I flinched and immediately took two steps back in panic.

Kai did the same, his expression snapping into a guarded unreadable mask within seconds.

Caleb walked over quickly through the parking lot, an easy smile on his face.

"I was looking for you everywhere, turns out you're here. You said you were going to the bathroom earlier."

Caleb’s smile faltered for just a fraction of a second as his eyes darted between my pale, shaken face and Kai’s rigid posture. A subtle shadow of confusion crossed his features, but he brushed past it, choosing to keep the peace.

He clapped Kai's shoulder warmly.

"Everything good, bro?"

"Uh yeah yeah good," Kai answered shortly, his tone clipped.

"Hey, everyone’s about to do a team shot for the win inside, they're looking for us," Caleb said, wrapping a protective arm around my waist.

"You okay to head back in for a bit?"

A wave of intense guilt and panic flooded my chest. Standing next to Caleb while still burning from Kai's words felt like a betrayal, but I forced a tight nod.

"Yeah... yeah, let's go."

Kai didn't wait to watch us leave. Without another word, he slung his heavy gear bag over his shoulder, turned sharply, and walked toward the dark corridor on the far side of the building, disappearing into the shadows to clear his head.

As Caleb guided me back toward the front doors, my eyes swept the entrance.

Standing by the glass doorway, half-draped in the glow of the neon signs, was Asher. Arms crossed, his sharp gaze tracked us, locking onto my pale face with an intensity that made it dangerously clear he had witnessed the entire confrontation.

I swallowed hard, forcing a fake smile as Caleb pushed open the heavy bar doors, plunging us right back into the deafening noise, crowd, and suffocating heat of the party.