Page 2 of Rivals on Lockdown

He reached for his phone in the bag, remembering Aunt Mara’s text from before the game. She always checked in on holidays—but when he pulled out the phone, there was no service in the locker room. Her message sat there unanswered:Good luck tonight, sweetheart. Call me after?

She worried about him being alone during the holidays, even though he’d assured her repeatedly that he was fine. That’s what aunts did, he supposed. He’d call her later, on the way home.

The snow was falling harder now, coating the windows in a thick white blanket. Louis watched it for a moment, remembering winters back home in Minnesota, practicing shots in the backyard until his fingers went numb and Aunt Mara dragged him inside for hot chocolate. Things had been simpler then. Before fame, before the pressure, before hockey became more about fans and media narrative than the pure joy of the game.

Louis lingered in his stall, methodically reorganizing his already neat gear while his teammates filtered out one by one. It was his post-loss ritual—waiting until the room emptied before letting himself really process the defeat. Some guys needed totalk it out, needed the communal commiseration, but Louis had always preferred solitude. Today, mercifully, everyone seemed eager to get home to their families, their Christmas Eve dinners, their lives beyond these walls.

The usual locker room sounds faded gradually: equipment bags zipping shut, boots squeaking against the tile, voices growing distant. Louis counted each departure like heartbeats until, finally, blessed silence descended. He exhaled slowly, shoulders slumping as he let his carefully maintained composure crack just a little.

“Louis?” Coach Martinez’s voice startled him. The older man was standing in the doorway, coat on and a bag slung over his shoulder, peering into the dim locker room with concern etched on his weathered face. “You doing alright, son?”

Louis straightened automatically. “Yeah, Coach. I’m good.”

Martinez shifted his bag, hesitating. “You got somewhere to be tonight? Someone to spend Christmas with?”

“Of course,” Louis lied smoothly, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. “My aunt’s expecting me.” He didn’t mention that Aunt Mara lived halfway across the country in Minnesota or that their only Christmas connection would be their annual phone call, where they both pretended they weren’t alone.

“Good, good.” Martinez nodded, seeming relieved. “Well, Merry Christmas then. Don’t stay too late—even the janitors deserve to get home early tonight.”

“Merry Christmas, Coach,” Louis replied, waiting until Martinez’s footsteps faded down the hallway before letting out a long breath.

Finally, truly alone.

He took his towel and headed for the showers, cranking the hot water to maximum. The spray hit his shoulders with bruising force, but he welcomed the almost painful heat. Steam billowed around him as he stood motionless under the stream, losing track of time as the game played on an endless loop in his head. But it wasn’t just the game anymore—Faulter’s face kept swimming into focus, not the polished smirk from today’s victory, but a different expression entirely. One he’d spent years trying to forget.

The steam thickened around him, and suddenly, he was back there seven years ago. The music from the house had been muffled by the night air, the pool lights casting everything in an ethereal blue glow. Faulter had followed him outside—or had Louis followed him? The details were blurry now, lost to time and alcohol, but he remembered with perfect clarity how Kaden’s face had looked in the moonlight. How pale he’d been, chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths as he stared at Louis. There had been a moment then, stretched tight like a wire between them, the chlorine sharp in the air and crickets chirping in the darkness.

Then something had shifted in those blue eyes, something raw and terrified, before he’d looked away and brushed past Louis, practically running back into the house. Louis had stood there for a long time afterward, watching the ripples in the pool catch the moonlight.

Even now, Louis’s heart hammered at the memory. God, he’d been so naive back then.

The bundle of emotions in his chest ached, too tangled to properly unravel. The loss tonight wasn’t crucial in the grand scheme of things, but Faulter’s familiar taunts had hit harder today. Seven years of the same dance, and he still hadn’t learned how to let them slide off his back. He couldn’t cry, though—henever cried. Wouldn’t give Faulter the satisfaction of knowing he still had that power over him.

After what could have been hours, Louis finally turned off the water. He wrapped a towel around his hips and left the shower stalls, droplets of water still trailing down his chest. The building had gone quiet except for the distant sounds of the cleaning crew doing their rounds and the familiar hum of the Zamboni resurfacing the ice.

But when he stepped back into the locker room, he stopped dead in his tracks. He wasn’t alone.

“Was that your everything shower?” Kaden smirked, giving Louis a deliberate once-over from where he sat slumped on one of the benches. “Because it took you like thirty minutes.”

Louis felt suddenly cold, acutely aware of his near-nakedness. He stood frozen, water dripping onto the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying the view,” Kaden said, that infuriating smirk still playing on his lips.

He looked immaculate, freshly showered, and perfectly groomed in a tailored shirt beneath what was probably a ridiculously expensive wool coat. No doubt headed to some fancy charity Christmas dinner where he’d charm everyone with that practiced smile. The contrast between them—Louis dripping wet in just a towel, Kaden looking like he’d stepped out of a magazine—made Louis’s jaw clench.

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“You always stay for a misery shower after you lose,” Kaden taunted, his smirk widening. “Everyone knows that.”

“If you came to gloat, I’m not in the mood,” Louis said, heading for his stall. He tracked Kaden’s movements from thecorner of his eye—the way prey watches a circling predator, muscles tensed for the inevitable strike.

“I didn’t,” Kaden said as he stood, leaving his bag behind on the bench. His footsteps echoed in the near-empty locker room. “Just wanted to check in on my favorite enemy. You looked so wrecked out there after the buzzer. Almost made me regret that last goal.”

Louis’s shoulders tensed as Kaden drew closer. He busied himself with his gear, but that familiar cologne—probably worth more than his car—filled his lungs with each breath. The trust fund prince, playing at being one of them. Even now, with Louis’s own contract solid enough to secure that downtown apartment and his aunt’s new place, something about Kaden’s casual wealth made his teeth ache.

“Yeah, right. Stay the hell away from me,” Louis muttered, finally turning to meet Kaden’s gaze. The familiar blue of those eyes caught him off guard, and he watched something raw and unguarded flicker across Kaden’s face—gone so fast he might have imagined it, replaced by that same calculated smile that made Louis’s jaw clench.

“Stop pretending you hate me, Lou.” Kaden’s voice dropped lower, almost gentle, and that softness was worse than any taunt. “We both know better, don’t we?”

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