Page 118 of The Price of Ice

Once they sat down, they talked about their families a little, easy anecdotes and updates. Levy’s sister Leila finally had a date for her wedding, further out than she’d have liked but in a dreamy beach location. Kallen told him about Paul’s new job as a bar manager in downtown and Mikey’s plans to travel north to see the glaciers.

“Damn.” Levy shook his head. “I’d love to do that. Like, I’ve seen the photos, but obviously...”

“Yeah,” Kallen said. Obviously, they’d lived their lives at the rhythms of hockey for years to get as far as they had. It hadn’t even occurred to him to take a holiday other than to visit his family, both from Gresham and from Jiro it’d been far enough to require plane travel. It’d felt like enough time away from the ice, like taking more would have been neglecting his work.

When they’d been kids, his parents had always opted to drive to the coast. Kallen hadn’t been to the beach in at least two years, though, since his schedule had made him miss the family excursions. “We went to Tarei, when I was little. But I’ve never been further north than Jiro.”

“We could go,” Levy said, and then glanced away. “Like, not to steal Mikey’s plan or anything!” he added with transparently false cheer. “And I mean, can I even go on holiday if I don’t have a job?”

Kallen let him babble, but he was picturing it already. The scenery was vague, but he’d been in a car with Levy, argued about his music choices and his extremely cautious driving. Andit was true,hedidn’t have a job either. But that wasn’t the point, was it? “Could be fun.”

Levy didn’t say anything, watching him like he was a snake about to strike.

“You rememberFair Sport?” Kallen asked him, and it didn’t feel scary at all, to open up at last. He knew he was safe with Levy, but more than that, he thought he was safe withhimself.

Levy nodded. “Yeah, I looked them up, but...” His mouth twisted to the side, eyes falling. “I chickened out, didn’t call them.”

“That’s fine,” Kallen told him. Levy had found his own thing, hadn’t he? Kallen had never been mistreated by his coaches, but he’d never been protected either. Like his own father, they’d probably assumed he had to learn to toughen it out when people called him names. “You are going to work with kids, make sure they know they deserve a fair sport, right?”

“I haven’t got the job yet,” Levy said.

Kallen didn’t look away. “You will.”

It got Levy to smile, a little shy, but pleased. “Okay.”

“I don’t have a job, exactly, and I haven’t done my budget. I didn’t...” He glanced away, sighing. “I guess I’m not very good at being an adult yet.”

“Well, you are probably better off than me, what with the free accommodation.”

“Oh, I didn’t— I should have been paying half, shouldn’t I?” he asked, losing his cool.

Levy laughed in his face. “No fucking way,” he told him cheerfully. “I meant the Johnson’s. You moved in with me to look after me, did you forget that?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Are your parents charging you rent?”

“What? No, but they are my parents, and they own the house.”

Levy sighed, lifting a finger. “What did you mean, you don’t have a job exactly?”

It was enough to give Kallen pause. He wasn’t exactly ready to give up on his argument, but all that was the past and this...

Well, it could be his future. If it worked out. No, itwouldbe, even if he ran out of money and ended up having to get a shitty job on the side to help his parents with bills. He could still do it, he could still show up and try his best to help others, give them at least a bit of an edge to manage their heats and their lives.

He licked his lips and cleared his throat. “So you know how I used lure and I pulled someone I didn’t mean to?” Levy agreed with a short hum. “Well, that was at one of the firstFair Sportmeetings I went to, and then Taylor— Taylor’s the facilitator there. He asked me if I’d teach him how I do it. I thought it wouldn’t work, because... Well, I’d only done it a few times. But when he asked...” He met Levy’s eyes. “You don’t know what it meant. Knowing I could do it was...” He remembered walking into the heat room after that first time he’d used it on Levy like it’d been yesterday. “It changed everything for me.”

“Yeah?” Levy’s voice was so soft Kallen half thought he was reading his lips.

“I don’t even think I thanked you for it, did I?”

Levy shook his head, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “I’m glad,” he said, easy. Like he’d tipped Kallen off about a new energy drink instead of transformed his life.

But Kallen couldn’t even insist because that was just who Levy was, wasn’t it? Generous to a fault, always looking out for him. And what Kallen could offer in return was the trust those actions had earned. “I think it could...” He had to swallow and he couldn’t look up from the spoon he’d started fiddling with again. He breathed out slowly. It was just a theory, it was true, but he’d already got texts from the omegas in his class about it.His class.“I think it could balance things out, between alphas and omegas. If we can...” He risked a glance.

“Yeah.” Levy’s eyes were wide and excited. “That’s... fuck, of course. That feels right, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s pretty much what my parents told me, but it would explain so much. How you get so much violence from alphas, and how omegas so often end up being victims of that violence.”

Kallen’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the violence got to do with anything?”

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