Page 2 of Broken Ice
Turned out, there were far worse consequences to that decision than he’d ever imagined.
“Okay, I gotta go, bro. I need to go into this meeting. Really looking forward to all the questions they’re gonna ask about my cycle.”
“You can do this, bro.”
In the background, Samuel’s voice hollered, “Say hi to Emilio for me!”
Samuel was Noah’s teammate, roommate, and hopeless crush—although Beau’s brother would never admit to that last one. The two of them were attached at the hip, which was a funny sight. Noah, big enough to be a goon, with a mean resting face even though he was a joker at heart. And Sammy, who was a skinny dude one head shorter than Noah. The kid didn’t look like a hockey player, but the little fucker’s pure talent had gotten him into the league fair and square.
Emilio was another story entirely—from the same Swedish town as Samuel, he was the main reason Beau was dreading being part of the Manatees.
Beau snorted as Noah grumbled something about Samuel’s request. “Tell your chihuahua I will absolutely not be doing that. I’ll text you later.”
“Good luck.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Beau ended the call and took a slow, bracing breath.
He was Beau fucking Lavoie. He’d scored more than a hundred points last season.
He could absolutely do this.
He hopped out of the car, checking himself briefly in his tinted windows. Yep, his freckles were still there. So was his dishwater-brown, messy, curly hair, unfortunately. He tilted his face to the side, spotting his strong nose and his wide lips that naturally sprang into a smile.
Yeah, there wasn’t much he could do about his appearance. He made sure his T-shirt didn’t have any stains, and he headed in.
The room the meeting was being held in was packed by the time he got there. He was re-introduced to the GM, Alice Murray; the coach, Jason White; a lady from HR who introduced herself as Kelly; and a couple of the trainers, Bob and Phil. Beau’s agent was also there, but Beau had asked that she let him do the talking—he wanted to make sure the team knew he’d advocate for himself.
Except for the HR woman, they were all Alphas.
By the time Beau had finished explaining everything, the head of the medic team, Greg, had also been added to the crowd.
Also, by the way, an Alpha.
“Let me get this straight,” the doc said. “They gave you Caphenatrile for more than ayear?”
“Yep.” Beau made sure to pop the ‘p’ for maximum effect.
“To suppress your heats.”
“And so I wouldn’t stink up the room.”
Everybody winced. “Okay. And that’s severely damaged your endocrine system.”
Beau nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“And now you have a heat every two weeks.”
“Yeah. I mean, they last like twelve hours, but they’re pretty bad.” Usually, Omegas had heats two or three times a year, but they lasted from one to three days.
“Cramps? Pain? Nausea? Dizziness? Disorientation?”
“Tick, tick, tick.”
The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Let me be clear,” Beau said, voice confident—he’d practiced what to say with his mom. “If you trade me because of this reason, or if you discriminate against me in any way because of this condition, or me being an Omega—”
Kelly from HR tried to interrupt him, but he held up a hand. She quieted.
