Page 6 of Rivals on Lockdown

“Because every time we see each other, it feels like you’re throwing it back in my face,” Louis said, his voice steady despite the tightness in his chest.

Kaden stayed still, his expression unreadable in the uneven glow of the flickering Christmas lights. The soft hum of the overhead fluorescents filled the silence, pressing down on them both.

“I was drunk,” Louis said finally, the words coming out low, almost reluctant. “That’s why I kissed you. If it made you uncomfortable—if it upset you—then I’m sorry.”

“It didn’t,” Kaden said, the response quick, almost too quick. His face shifted as if he’d bitten into something sour, and he added with forced nonchalance, “Stop being weird, Zenith.”

Louis studied him, waiting for the usual smirk or sharp remark, but none came. Kaden looked flustered, almost unsettled, his focus fixed on the protein bar he was slowly turning over in his hands. The silence between them stretched, heavy and awkward, broken only by the faint hum of the lights and the occasional flicker of the Christmas decorations.

The confession lingered in the air, unresolved. Louis felt an odd twist in his chest—relief that Kaden wasn’t mocking him for once, but also a strange, bitter disappointment at the lack of a reaction. Kaden’s refusal to meet his gaze, the absence of anyreal response left the moment feeling incomplete, like a question hanging in the air with no intention of being answered.

His leg throbbed as Louis pushed himself up from the floor. He had to try the door again, had to do something besides sit here with Kaden’s silence. Each step turned into an awkward hop as pain shot through his ankle.

“What the hell are you doing?” Kaden asked. “You can’t put pressure on that leg unless you want to bleed all over this place.”

“I said I’m not spending Christmas here with you,” Louis muttered.

He tried to brute force the door, but it didn’t budge. Ten more minutes of studying hinges and looking for weak points proved useless—without tools, they were stuck.

Kaden came up to him, annoyance written on his face. “Can you please sit back down? We don’t have enough bandages to redo your leg every five minutes.”

Louis shot Kaden a scowl but didn’t bother with a reply. Instead, he grabbed his parka and made his way to the nearest bench. The cold was becoming noticeable now, seeping into his skin and making his muscles stiff. He settled onto the bench and draped the parka over his shoulders, the familiar weight offering a small measure of comfort.

Reaching into his pocket, Louis pulled out his phone. His thumb hovered over the screen for a moment as he considered checking again, but he stopped himself. The battery was at 47%, and if they ended up stuck here longer than expected, it would be better to save it, just in case. He turned the screen off and slid the phone back into his pocket, glancing toward Kaden. The sight of him sitting there so calm, so collected, only made the irritation bubbling under Louis’s skin worse.

“Check your service again?” Louis asked, his tone sharper than he’d intended.

“I already told you I don’t have any,” Kaden said, catching the edge in Louis’s voice.

“Just…check again.”

“Why would it be any different from yours?”

“Because your phone probably costs more than my car,” Louis muttered. “Maybe it’s got better reception or something.”

Kaden rolled his eyes, but there was something almost fond in his exasperation. “Yeah, I get it—you don’t want to be stuck here with me. But would it kill you to ask nicely?”

Louis hadn’t expected those words to sting quite so much. He paused, really looking at Kaden for the first time since they’d been locked in. It was true—for all his taunting on the ice, Kaden had been surprisingly decent since they’d been trapped. He’d helped with Louis’s injury without hesitation, hadn’t even complained about ruining his probably ridiculously expensive scarf. Louis opened his mouth, not quite sure what he was going to say—

The fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, then plunged the room into darkness.

“Fuck,” Louis breathed.

“Storm must have knocked out the power,” Kaden suggested, his voice oddly close in the dim room.

“No, the Christmas lights are still—” Louis started, gesturing toward the equipment cage. But even as he spoke, the cheerful string of lights winked out, leaving them in total blackness. “Fuck.”

Chapter 3. Frozen

The locker room had fallen into silence. In the darkness, the only light came from Kaden’s phone screen, its cold glow illuminating his face in a harsh square of blue-white light. His fingers moved across the screen, but with no service, Louis couldn’t figure out what he was doing.

Time crawled. An hour passed, the temperature steadily dropping as the winter air seeped through the concrete walls, with the heating off and nothing to hold it back.

Louis had retreated to one of the corners, his gear bag beneath him and his parka wrapped tightly around his shoulders. The cold was making him drowsy, or maybe it was just the exhaustion of the game finally catching up with him. His eyes grew heavy as he watched the faint outline of Kaden’s silhouette against the dim light.

He was nearly asleep when movement caught his attention. Kaden had stood up, his phone’s flashlight beam cutting through the darkness as he began another methodical exploration of the room. Louis tracked his progress through half-lidded eyes, watching him move between the stalls, the light sweeping across equipment and forgotten gear.

When Kaden returned, he was holding something—a bottle of whiskey that must have been stashed away in someone’s stall. Without ceremony, he raised it to his lips andtook a long drink. Then his footsteps drew closer to Louis’s corner.

---