Chapter 3 - Callum

Steam from the shower fills my small bathroom as I turn off the water and step out of the stall. After drying myself off, I wrap the towel around my waist and walk out into my bedroom.

I might end up late to my first class because I decided to come home to shower after the team’s morning session at the gym. I just had to get the fuck out of there. My skin was crawling every time my gaze locked with Stone’s from across the room.

Every time he looks at me, it’s as if he’s carving me open all over again.

Seeing Stone for the first time in years is throwing my whole damn world into a tailspin.

I may not have all those same marks on my body as I once did. The only bruises I ever sport these days are from the particularly rough games when I let my guard down a little too much. I still have some scars, but they’ve faded enough to where I feel comfortable showering in locker rooms now. I’ve had a few guys ask about them, but it’s easy to answer with “old childhood injury” without too many follow-up questions.

But it doesn’t erase the memory of Stone seeing them all when they were fresh.

If I appreciate one thing about him, it’s that he hasn’t brought it up. All he’s mentioned is the shoulder injury, which healed a long time ago.

So does he even remember?

Does he really think I hate him just because of the stupid shoulder thing? If he does, that’s fine. I’ll let him think that all he wants. That only means he won’t be thinking of that day in the locker room, of the sight of my marred flesh. Of my vulnerability and weakness.

I’m not fucking weak anymore.

After I get dressed, I stuff the books I’ll need for today in my bag, getting irrationally angry when they don’t want to fit neatly inside on the first try.

Fuck. Why am I letting him get under my skin like this?

I take a beat, a deep breath, and try again.

I finally get them inside, then manage to squeeze in one of my smaller sketch pads alongside them. Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I exit my room at the same time the door to the other bedroom opens.

Jesse, my roommate, steps out in his wrinkled pajama pants and golden brown hair sticking up in every direction. He yawns, scratching at his bare chest on his way into the kitchen.

“Morning,” he mumbles through a second yawn as he moves straight for the coffee maker.

“So what subject were you up studying late last night?” I ask as I come to stand on the other side of the counter.

A sleepy grin lifts one corner of his mouth. “Mmm. Brunette. Hella curvy.”

I snort. “Pig.”

“I believe the correct term is sex positive.” His grin widens as he shows his teeth.

Jesse is very sex positive. And pansexual. He has a theory that I might be aroace considering I’ve never had any kind of relationship since I’ve known him. Well, literally never . And maybe I am. Any sexual attraction to others I’ve felt has been few and far between. And romance? Well, I’ve never felt romantic attraction to anyone in my life.

Then again, I rarely get close enough to people to feel much of anything.

Jesse likes to remind me that it’s completely normal to constantly question one’s orientation. He’s pretty open about his journey with his own.

But the truth is I don’t care enough to figure mine out. I have my doubts that the reasons for why I am the way I am have anything to do with orientation.

Jesse’s been my friend since I transferred to high school here in Connecticut. I stayed over at his place a lot to ease the burden on my aunt and uncle. When we both received athletic scholarships to Lynwood—he’s on the school’s basketball team—his parents got us this apartment, and we use what little off-campus housing funds we receive to help pay for it. It’s a small two-bedroom close to campus, which is perfect since I don’t have a car.

“You know I’m just joking. You do you, man. I gotta get to class.”

“See you in government later,” he says as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

“Yeah. Later.”

I leave the apartment and start the half-mile walk to Lynwood’s science building for my biology class. I’m dreading both it and government. If I’m lucky, the morning will go by quickly so I can get to my first art class of the year.

However, I fear whatever pleasure I’ll get out of it will be ruined by hockey practice later.

Just as I’m approaching the building, I hear someone call my name.

“Callum!”

I turn to see Nate jogging toward me, so I stop for him to catch up. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re going to be at practice later.”

“Of course.” I start walking again with Nate falling in step beside me. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Dude, you can cut the tension between you and Wakefield with a knife.”

“You’re grasping at straws,” I say, countering his cliché with one of my own.

He looks at me with narrowed eyes, and when I can’t control the grin twitching at my lips, he shoves me in the arm. We’re both laughing as we stop outside the door to the science building.

“Look, Cal, I did you a favor and convinced Coach to have you run drills with the second and third lines yesterday. I didn’t ask questions when you said you didn’t want to practice with our new center on his first day. But you know Coach is going to want you with Wakefield the rest of the week. I just want to make sure you’re not going to bring whatever shit you have with him onto the ice.”

Nate has a point, of course. We can’t afford to have hostility between anyone on the team.

Unfortunately, I have a lot toward a certain first-line center.

But I made the mistake of letting our captain see that. I’m usually better at hiding things. Stone caught me off guard, that’s all. I’ll make sure my mask is more firmly in place when it comes time for practice.

“I’ll leave it off the ice. I swear.”

“You sure? Do I need to let you both out in the rink at different times so you can get used to each other’s scents?”

I raise a brow. “Like cats?”

He shrugs. “We had to do that when we brought home a new one. Our other cat hated him for like the first week. Had to let them take turns being let out of the bathroom.”

Shaking my head, I start taking steps backward toward the door. “I’ll be good. You don’t have to lock me in the bathroom.”

He laughs and nods. “Good. See you at practice.”

As Nate walks off, I enter the science building and find the classroom easily enough on the first floor—a large lecture hall since this is only the lecture part of the course. I step inside and see Anatomy and Physiology II on the projector. Heading down the aisle, I choose a seat in one of the middle rows on the left side of the room.

I fully expected to be late, but the room is currently only half full.

Settling in, I pull out my textbook along with my sketch pad. I flip open the latter, retrieve a pencil from one of the smaller pockets of my bag, and start to mindlessly run it over the blank page. I end up with a doodle of a hockey stick, feverishly adding line after line for the tape until it’s shaded in instead.

Art and hockey have always been my safe spaces, my escapes from the dark shadows of my past.

Charcoal scratching over paper.

Blades carving the ice.

It’s creation and power. Freedom and control.

Finally, I’m feeling a little more levelheaded than I have since the gym this morning.

Then someone drops into the seat next to me, causing me to look up.

“Of fucking course,” I mutter as I slam my sketch pad closed.

Not even sketching is going to be able to distract me from Stone’s unnerving presence.

“Nice to see you too, teammate.”

Leaning back in my seat, I scowl at his side profile as he sets a laptop on his small desk. “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you have already taken this class?”

“I’m getting my master’s in kinesiology,” he says as he opens his laptop and turns it on. “I’m taking this as a refresher course. Don’t worry.” He turns to look at me with a smirk playing at his lips. “I’m not stalking you, Hayes.”

“Oh yeah? There are at least two dozen empty seats in this room. Why the fuck do you have to sit here?”

“Because you couldn’t stop looking at me in the gym this morning. Figured I’d make it easier on you so you don’t have to strain your pretty eyes glaring at me from across the room.”

I scoff, deciding not to point out that he was staring at me just as much because then it’d only confirm I was looking at him too.

Exchanging my sketch pad for my notebook, I set it on the desk beside my textbook. Meanwhile, Stone pulls up his digital one, split-screening it to take notes in a blank document beside it.

“It’s not my fault you have such a punchable face. It’s like a train wreck. Just can’t look away.”

He laughs easily, like my insult just rolled right off him.

It probably did because he’s arrogant enough to know it’s not true. He’s clean-shaven, showing off a sharp jawline. His inky black hair contrasts with his ivory skin. Even I can admit his pale gray-green eyes are mesmerizing. Rain-washed. Like white sage or a forest in the fog.

None of that changes how I feel about him.

Logically, I know him seeing me that day in the locker room wasn’t his fault. But the way he looked at me was. And at least half of the way I felt afterward was his fault too.

I already felt weak, and he only made me feel weaker.

Now I can add arrogant to the list of reasons to hate him.

The professor comes in, effectively cutting off our conversation—if you could call it that. The room falls quiet as she spends the first fifteen minutes on the syllabus. When she jumps into the first chapter on surface anatomy, Stone’s laptop screen shows a nude drawing of a male figure.

He glances at me and fucking winks.

My jaw ticks as I bow my head and start scribbling down notes.

I was really looking forward to this year between hockey and my interactive design class. Stone just had to come swooping in to make it hell on earth instead. Not only am I going to have to sit through this class with him three times a week, but we’ll probably have the biweekly lab together as well.

If he tries to partner up with me during that, I swear to God I’ll slit my own throat.

The past has a way of clinging to you like a shadow.

Those shadows made me feel weak.

Stone saw that weakness. Fed on it.

With his unwelcome return into my life, I fear he may join the darkest part of those shadows.

And it would seem I’ll never fucking escape him.