Page 5 of Fresh Ice
The events of that day were hazy in Alonso’s mind. The only thing he really remembered was his father shouting.
“My boy is not a fucking Omega.”
It was only years later that he thought about how that sentence must have impacted his mom. At the time, though, all he could do was grit his teeth and get through his first heat without letting the shame overwhelm him.
It had been a relief when he’d come out on the other side and his dad had already made a plan. Alonso would begin taking suppressants and a new medication not yet approved by the FDA to change his scent—it made him smell very vaguely of Alpha, but it didn’t have the pheromones to match.
Alonso’s mom hadn’t been there during that conversation. Hadn’t accompanied them to the doctor who gave him the bottle of pills.
She’d gone to him late one night, though. Had sat on the edge of his bed and told him that he didn’t need to hide who he was. Technically, the NHL didn’t ban Omegas from playing—it was divided by primary gender, not secondary.
Technicalities didn’t make reality. Therealitywas that there was an unwritten agreement that Omegas were too weak to play in the NHL, and they weren’t given the same opportunities as their Alpha peers.
More importantly, they simply didn’t fit with the culture of the NHL.
“It’s fine, Mom. It’s better this way.”
It was a long time before Alonso understood why she’d looked so sad—hiding who he was meant losing that part of himself.
The pills themselves had been a nightmare. The side effects settled eventually, but during what was supposed to be his dynamic puberty, the medication seemed to fuck his body over in any way possible. His joints would ache so much that some games were pure agony. He’d get blinding headaches that he had to simply ignore if he wanted to stay on his junior team. At times, it was borderline impossible for him to sleep, and then he’d be so exhausted he had to take a two-hour nap every day just to be functional.
In the beginning, his mom had tried to get them to stop. She’d shout, and cry, and scheme, but nothing worked when Alonso would do everything possible to keep the medication in his system.
Eventually, the fight died down. By the time Alonso was drafted, everybody was thoroughly convinced he was an Alpha.
Even his own body had been tamed. He’d have one heat during the summer, carefully scheduled so it would be in the middle of off-season. The rest of the time, he kept the secret of his dynamic buried deep, where it couldn’t be reached.
He’d never told anybody, and he never would.
**********
Alonso and Levy had managed to find a nice place in a three-apartment brownstone in Astoria. The search had been less frustrating than Alonso had predicted. Levy turned out to be surprisingly responsible, showing up on time to all the viewings and actually having some relevant questions.
In the end, they managed to bag a place decked out with a balcony, a dishwasher, and a washer-and-dryer set.
They scheduled the move-in date for the middle of October. Alonso woke up bright and early, getting ready and then putting away the few things he hadn’t packed yet. He didn’t have that much stuff, but he rented a car so he could transport it all himself.
It was still only nine in the morning when he got to the apartment. He carried his belongings to one of the bedrooms and spent the next four hours building the bed, nightstand, and bookcase he’d had delivered earlier that week.
He went out at midday, exploring the area. It was still sunny and relatively warm, the streets lively with people and music spilling out of a few bodegas. He stopped at Nneji, getting someyassaand leaving satiated and feeling lighter on his feet.
He’d been so focused on making the team that he’d practically forgotten he was in New York, the five boroughs ripe for exploration.
Any calm he had managed to fester up was quickly vaporised as Alonso heard voices in the apartment even before opening the door.
He stepped inside to see that not only had Levy arrived, but he’d dragged Killer and Gray with him.
“Olive, there you are,” Levy called out happily, surrounded by bags and scruffy-looking boxes.
“Hey. Where’d the couch come from?” Alonso greeted.
“Killer here donated it to us,” Levy replied, clapping Killer on the back.
Killer shoved Levy playfully. “Knowing this guy, you’d be sitting on beanbags for the rest of the year. You know you have an NHL salary now, right?”
“Hey,” Levy argued, “what’s wrong with beanbags? And I’m paying my parents’ mortgage off, thank you very much.”
“Well, at least you’re not buying a dumb car,” Killer mused.
