Page 6 of Iced Out Mate

“Bro, seriously?”

“Serious as a dead doornail or whatever the saying is.”

“I don’t think that’s a saying…”

“Serious as a dead hangnail?”

“That’s even worse,” Chris said. He capped the Gatorade and put it down next to the leg press machine. I got up and swapped places with him. “Can you add another plate?”

I grabbed a forty-five-pound plate and slid it next to the five other weights that were already on the bar. “And I think he’s our new trainer,” I nonchalantly added as I was grabbing another forty-five for the other side. Chris looked up at me with his jaw dropped.

“All right, hold up.” He grabbed the handles on the machine and lifted himself up back onto his feet. “I’m going to need the full rundown, and not while I’m about to leg press four hundred and fifty pounds.”

“You sure? You can finish your set and then I’ll blab about my messy love life and⁠—”

“I’m sure. I’m hungry anyway, let’s go grab something to eat across the street.”

My heart started to beat a little faster, and not because I was still coming down from my leg workout. Why was I suddenly so nervous to talk about this? Chris was my best friend, and I talked to him about everything, but this felt so much weightier than random hookups or dumb TV shows I’d recently become obsessed with. And there was the whole issue about Miles not mentioning anything about my scent which was… weird. If he was my fated mate then he would have felt that ground-shaking pull I felt the second I got within five feet of him. But he didn’t say anything. In fact, it was the opposite, he seemed to be laser-focused on getting the hell away from me.

Not what I expected my fated mate to do.

I grabbed my light blue towel from my waistband and wiped sweat off my forehead. We had come to a gym closer to my house today. It was usually way busier than our gym at the Bobcats Arena but I didn’t mind. I liked the buzz of working out around a big group of people.

There was also the benefit of not accidentally bumping into Miles here. I was going to have to get used to seeing a lot of him from here on out, so best not have two awkward encounters back-to-back.

Chris and I made a quick stop in the bathroom to wash our hands and splash some water on our faces before leaving. I followed him out. Sweat soaked through his white tank top, same as mine. We had a great workout—leg day was one of my favorite days. Helped me loosen up and work on making my thighs as tree-trunk sized as possible. It was also one of the more important muscle groups for playing hockey. I liked knowing I could propel myself across the ice and barrel into an opponent without toppling over.

I also liked the soreness that followed. It would be a perfect excuse to drop into Miles’ office for an afternoon of stretching and flexing and fu⁠—

“All right, so what happened?” Chris asked, pulling me out of my daydream.

I gave him the full rundown, keeping the parts about shifting and wolves quiet while we waited in line to order our sandwiches. He kept his expression pretty neutral even though I could tell he wanted to shake me by the shoulders and double-check that I wasn’t playing a prank on him.

“And you’re sure about this?” Chris said. We walked out to a quiet corner of the courtyard that looked out over a peaceful garden. I stared down a large bumblebee that seemed to be seconds away from flying over and attacking me. “Focus, Dyl, that bee isn’t going to bug you.”

“I see what you did there.”

“Huh? Oh,” Chris said with a laugh. “You’re something else.”

“I’m a love-struck cub is what I am, Chris. And it seems like I’m going to keep being one for the foreseeable future.”

“Maybe he was shy? Maybe that’s why he wanted to bolt?”

I cocked my head and slanted my lips. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s how the whole fated mates thing works.”

“To be fair, you didn’t know much about any of it until Gabe and Eli found each other. And even then, it’s still kind of a mystery to all of us.”

“It’s not a mystery to me, not anymore. The feeling is indescribable, Chris. Seeing him, smelling him, touching him… It was like figuring out how to bottle joy and ecstasy and passion all together and taking a double shot of it. Not even poppers feel like that. Fuck. I felt drunk. I still feel drunk. I would have pushed him down to the ground and had my way with him right there in the rain—and you know me, I like being in a comfortable environment for extracurricular activities. Preferably with good air conditioning and maybe a Tempur-Pedic mattress, but I’ll take a couch if I need to. Or a kitchen floor. Whatever.”

Chris laughed again. He took a bite of his brisket sandwich, wiping his lips with a napkin. He’d just gotten a buzz cut, which was a new style for him. It looked good even though it made us seem more like siblings than usual. “You are pretty picky about your setting. But also, with him being our trainer, doesn’t that make things more complicated?”

“Maybe, but if fate says it’s meant to be then who am I to argue?”

“True.” Chris leaned back in his chair, looking at me in the way only a best friend does when they’re trying to see through the smile. Chris was one of the first people I met when I was traded to the Bobcats. It was four years ago, during a time in my life where I felt like I’d been drifting and purposeless, lashing out and bitter about the cards life had dealt me by burning bridges and setting fire to my past. I broke up with a steady girlfriend, I gave up on the hopes of ever reuniting with my cousin—who’d been my best friend since we were kids and had been the one to introduce me to hockey in the first place—and I moved to Burlington with the mindset of “fuck everything and everyone.”

It wasn’t a healthy mindset to have. Thankfully my vice had been no-strings-attached sex and not something like hard drugs or bottles of alcohol. It allowed me to still be functional, albeit horny as fuck, but kept the self-destructive behavior to a minimum. At least in terms of my body—the jury was still out about my emotions. I was still a beast on the ice and, although I certainly wasn’t the smartest, I balanced that out with a heart of gold.

Chris seemed to have picked up on that from the day we met. After our first practice, he invited me over to his place for a chill evening of video games and pizza.