Edge of Temptation: Chapter III

I never should have opened that goddamn door.

My shit was packed for training, and my day had sucked. Why the hell did I think opening my front door to an unannounced visitor was a good idea? It never was, but today was probably the worst it could have been.

The door swung, and the blood froze in my veins.

His eyes were dark and sharp. He flashed me a grin that sent chills down my spine. He was here after all, and he had found me. I could have sworn I could smell smoke still on him. The heat of one of the last memories of us in the same place made my cheeks flush.

“What am I doing here?” He cocked a side of his lips. “Glad I asked.”

“No.” I pushed the door closed.

A booted foot slipped between the door and the frame, lodging itself and giving me a headache.

“Hold on, Easton,” Jace said, his voice not so cracklingly entertained anymore. One glimpse of him had been more than enough to leave me restless last night. Something about him had a way of making me hot and uncomfortable. He was a merciless soul who could find your weakness in a single sniff. He was a hound.

I relaxed the hold on the knob and pulled the door open just enough to see him but not enough to let him in. “You can’t have it.”

“What?”

“Whatever you want,” I said.

“Oof,” he said as if stung. “You wound me, brother.”

“Don’t…call me that,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest like a terrified rabbit that skittered across the field from a wolf.

Jace even resembled a wolf. He was lean, made of angles and sharp lines and a deadly swagger. His pants hung low on his hips, and his hoodie was oversized. A little backpack hanging from one shoulder scared me more than the fact I was facing someone who had been exiled from my life seven years ago.

I had been fourteen and well aware of my sexuality. But so was the wolf. A year older, he had smelled it on me.

I scoffed. “What do you want, Jace?” I couldn’t believe I spoke his name after so long.

“A favor,” he said.

He was worn. His dark brown hair was a mess of curls on top with a short undercut. There were dark circles around his eyes. Under the corners of each eye was a small tattoo. There was a little red heart with a crack through the middle penciled under one eye and a single number under the other—seven. On the side of his face, running along the very edge from the top of his ear to the corner of his jaw, there was a tattooed blade. He wore a thin mustache that framed his upper lip and emphasized his Cupid’s bow. Pretty. He had always been pretty in that terrible, unbearable way. More tattoos adorned the visible parts of his body. The middle of his neck was covered by a black-inked heart caught in thorns and with a dagger sticking out of it. On one side was a hound-like monster, and on the other was a woman’s profile; both were done in American traditional style, sans color.

Jace looked around my apartment as much as the gap allowed. “Ma and Pop treat you well?”

I clenched my teeth. He had called them by their names for almost as long as I could remember. Something about me being brought into the family had prompted Jace to switch away from calling them Mom and Dad. It had been the first of rifts that were now impossible to count.

“That’s a nice place you’ve got,” he said.

“It’s not mine,” I said. “My roommate’s out.”

He smiled. “Liar.”

My ears were probably red by now. The heat of embarrassment was impossible. “I don’t have all day.”

“And I don’t have a place to stay,” he said. “So I figured you’d let me crash for a few nights. Eh?”

“You know that that’s never gonna happen,” I said. Why ask?

Jace rolled his shoulders, his eyes still searching my apartment before meeting my gaze. He scanned my face and body with intensity. I felt like he peeled off layers of my clothes and my soul at the same time. He had always had the power to unsettle me with little more than a look. “I figured you could let a former family member sleep on your couch a few nights.”

“If you got yourself homeless again, that shouldn’t be my concern,” I said.

“Fair enough,” Jace conceded. “I thought seeing me might entice you.”

My heart climbed into my throat. He had always had a way of suggesting things that were far more true than I wanted to admit. A lifetime ago, Jace had been my awakening. Daring, relentless, and a terrible influence, he had been the first boy I’d seen in a far less innocent light than all the people I had seen before. He had been the spark that lit the flames of confusion, suffering, and heartbreak in me.

“You don’t look too good,” Jace said.

“Thanks. Fuck you, too.” I leaned against the wall, my body aching for an hour of sleep before the drills. I wasn’t getting it, but that didn’t stop me from wishing. “Why are you even here?”

“I told you,” Jace said, encouraged by my question. I shouldn’t have asked.

“In the city, I mean,” I explained. “I thought…”

He snorted. “You thought I’d gone down the foster care drain, eh?”

I swallowed. The last I had seen of him, the government people had picked him up, and my life finally became bearable.

“It’s a sewer, brother,” Jace said, making me wince. I detested the word. “If I’d let it take me, I’d have gone all the way to the Pacific. Me, rats, and all of the shit in the Midwest.”

“The sewers here don’t go to the Pacific,” I mumbled.

“Don’t be a smart-ass, Easton,” he said. “I see you’re on your way out. I won’t keep you.”

Jace took a step back, but I was unable to move. I stood in the doorway, watching a ghost I’d thought I was well rid of. He stared at me, his dark brown eyes burning like hellfire. He turned away, his gaze remaining on me a second longer until he spun his head around and faced the hallway back to the outside world. So long as he wasn’t here, I was fine. I would be okay.

And yet, I remained in the doorway until his footsteps completely faded away, his casual whistling only an ominous memory. The main door banged, sending echoes through the building, and I jerked back, shutting my own door.

Damn you, I thought. My heart hurried even now, rising back from the pit of my stomach where the sight of Jace had sent it.

As I circled the living room in pointless pacing, I tightened my fists to stop my fingers from trembling. He still taunted me like when we were teens. I had been a stupid boy, too honest and too easily read. My feelings for Jace had never been easy to hide, not when he could take one hard look at me and read my thoughts like words on a page. Being the wolf that he was, he must have realized that taunting me in that particular way would hurt the most—he never stopped.

I checked the time and got ready for drills.

August was a tough month. Twenty-six players practiced this year, six of them newcomers, their attitudes a spectrum from fascination and a zest for the fun a freshman year promised to the casual dismissal of any and all authority now that they were done with high school teachers. The remaining twenty knew that the summer break was over. If you wanted to follow this path, you had to make sacrifices. No more driving to summer cabins for parties and sex; no more all-night benders. We were here to practice and win, even if my leadership and our lineup of coaches failed to deliver the trophies last season. Some minor wins had given us hope, but we hadn’t stood a chance beyond the state competitions. The team from Detroit had blazed to victory and left us in a cloud of ice particles, their skates scattered in our faces.

I met up with Elio and Patrick for a shot of espresso before the game in a student cafe on campus.

“You’re in a mood,” Elio pointed out as I dropped my duffel by the table and set my cup down. He ran his fingers through his thick, rich curls and shot me a smile that shone like a ray of sunshine—you know the one; you’re trying to sleep for five minutes longer, but you didn’t draw the blinds all the way, and all the hopes of snoozing are shattered because the ray of sunshine burns right into your eyes.

“I’ve been in this mood for a week,” I said. “Best ignore it.”

Patrick’s eyes were narrow when he looked at me. He was a man of few words. He pursed his lips lightly in an offer of sympathy and drained the small cup.

These were my guys. Elio and I had met on the first day at Westmont even before we realized we were on the same team. We’d ended up in the same corner at a frat party that had gone out of control, and by that time, people were only interested in occupying the bedrooms and bathrooms and all other surfaces suitable for a quick fuck. “Not me,” Elio had said, lifting the can to his lips and taking the barest lick of the beer, wincing. His bottom lip was freshly cut. When he told me it was from playing hockey, an easy friendship began.

“Got a girlfriend?” I’d asked.

“Nah,” he’d said. “I’m just not into this rotation they seem to have. Everyone’s slept with everyone two times already.”

“And the wheel of fortune keeps spinning.”

“I don’t think I want any of the prizes,” Elio had said, mock cringing.

Patrick joined us a year later. His quiet determination to be the best of us was enough to make me like him instantly. His successes on the ice were enough to justify the extremes of his dedication. Beyond simply liking him, I respected him.

“What’s eating you?” Elio asked anyway.

I shook my head. There was little I could tell him without telling him everything. What was eating me? I had hit on the teammate I lived with two months ago after two years of resisting his subtle hints, only for him to tell me they hadn’t been hints at all and that I was fucked. Then, just when I thought I was cooked enough, the very first crush of my entire life and the most dangerous guy I’d ever met appeared on my doorstep, looking for a place to live. “But why don’t you let him crash on your couch? He can’t be that bad,” Elio would have asked—given that he simply accepted the fact that his captain was gay—and I knew he would ask that because he was the sweetest guy ever.

“Because he would lure me out,” I would want to tell him. Jace would lure me out of the safety of my own little shell I built around myself. He would do it just to tease me, to prove that he had always known my secret, and to gloat in my misery. “Did you really think I was into you? You fucking lose.”

Kyle had said those words, but I could hear Jace speaking them to me if I were stupid enough to repeat my mistake.

I was done with flirtatious fuckers. I’d spent so long reminding myself that Jace had only ever wanted to taunt me that I had walked straight into the same mistake with Kyle. Not again.

These thoughts roamed through my mind as we headed to the rink. We were there an hour early, changing and doing warm-ups before the coaches divided us into smaller groups for practice. Some of the newcomers were slow to get their asses off the benches and slide into the action when we changed lineups, so we dedicated a solid chunk of time to that. Finally, we were done. I had exhausted myself to the point that my muscles were numb, and I earned another round of criticism from the coach because I had been reckless.

I can’t catch a fucking break, I thought, seething with fury as I ripped the protections off my limbs and carried my towel into the shower. The scent of sweat and ice was thick in the locker room, and the heat of the shower was a blessing, untying the knots in my muscles.

I remained in the shower for long enough to believe most of my teammates had gone home.

As I slowly dragged myself through the empty locker room, thinking how I couldn’t keep hiding in the shower for two more years every time we finished practice, I noticed that my duffel wasn’t under the bench where I had left it. My equipment was there, scattered along the bench, but the bag was gone.

My clothes. My shoes. My goddamn underwear.

A red vignette of fury surrounded my field of vision as I looked around. No. I hadn’t just left them under another bench. Someone had taken my stuff on purpose, and I didn’t have to think hard to know who. Even before I could picture his face, Kyle appeared in the locker room. He wore a tight, sleeveless T-shirt with low cuts for arms, partly revealing his rib cage, and a pair of gray sweatpants that purposefully emphasized the not-insignificant bulge. He also wore a smirk that a well-balanced punch would wipe in a heartbeat.

“Lost something?” Kyle asked, his voice deeper than it had been a year ago. He was bulky and toned, his muscles seemingly swelling without an end.

Even though he was much more muscled, that didn’t stop me as I raced across the locker room and bent my arm between us. It pressed against Kyle’s chest as I slammed him against the wall. “Where are they?” I roared.

He huffed, air leaving his body on impact, and laughed. “I’m not kissing you. Stop begging.”

“Where the fuck are they, Kyle. I’m done messing around.” I leaned in hard, pinning him against the wall and staring into his murky blue eyes.

“Dude, you’re naked,” Kyle said with exaggerated disgust. “This is basically ra—”

“It’ll be murder if you don’t fucking tell me where you left my clothes,” I snapped before he could finish, slamming him harder against the wall. “I’m so fucking sick of you.”

“Sick? Of me? I don’t think that’s right,” Kyle said, struggling for air. He wasn’t as amused anymore. “Such a strong guy you are,” he sneered. “Big deal, Captain, but you like it up your ass. Don’t think they don’t know it.”

My vision narrowed, white heat blinding me as I grabbed Kyle’s slutty shirt and tore off a part of it while spinning him around and tossing him on the floor. He landed on his shoulder, grunting, and I knelt on the small of his back as he tried to turn. The pressure of my knee on his spine made him screech. “Get off. Get off me!”

I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. “I’ll fucking break it, you piece of shit. Say that again, I dare you.”

“Let go,” he whimpered.

“Lick the floor, fucker,” I said, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pressing his face against the linoleum. “Lick it.”

“Fuck off.”

I twisted his hand a fraction of a degree further, and his eyes bulged. He thrust his tongue out, and I relaxed my grip on his hair as he shivered and shook. Kyle’s face was red with embarrassment and pain, but he pressed his pink tongue against the floor and exhaled in disgust, genuine this time. I could see tears in his eyes, although I wouldn’t go so far as to believe I’d made him cry.

“There,” he huffed in pain.

“Where are they?”

“Parking lot,” he spat. “Dumpster.”

I let go of his arm and got up. My muscles tensed as I stood a few paces away from Kyle, preparing to defend myself if he got any ideas.

He remained on the floor for two heartbeats longer, then pushed himself up on shaky arms and trembling legs.

When Kyle got up, part of his T-shirt flapping down and revealing his swollen pec and big, brown nipple, he shot me a murderous look. I knew I had made things worse—the knowledge was quick to seep into my consciousness as soon as the rage had passed. The gravity of my mistake hadn’t even settled yet, but I knew a clusterfuck when I saw one.

I swallowed and kept my tone low. “Speak to me that way again, and this won’t be the worst of it.”

Kyle’s lips curled with hatred. I had embarrassed him more than he’d expected and far more than he’d embarrassed me by throwing my clothes in the trash.

“Mess with me,” I warned him, “or tell anyone about whatever you think happened between us, and I’ll show you what I’m capable of.”

“You’re a dead man,” Kyle said, spitting on the floor between us. The cold, unbending conviction in his tone chilled me, but I stood my ground.

“Get out of my sight.” My words released him from some psychic spell, and he spun away from me, hurrying out and repeating, more to himself, that I was a dead man walking.

I didn’t doubt it, but I’d survived worse conflicts than this. My father was a mean motherfucker at times, his love only ever tough, and I hadn’t broken under his pressure.

Tightening the towel around my waist, I walked down the empty hallway and to the parking lot by the rink. There were three dumpsters, and my duffel rested by their wheels.

I snatched it and carried it back into the locker room to chance. My clothes were intact, but the duffel was dusty at the bottom and smeared with something wet and dark on the sides. I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about it. I dressed and walked out, my footsteps heavy as I considered the size of my mistakes.