Page 44 of Full Body Hit: Part 2
That was where his thoughts always ended. Not in the betrayal but in the undeniable fact that Auston wanted him enough todo anything for him.
He couldn’t meet Auston’s eyes. Could barely look at his phone. He kept turning to it, the impulse to text Aunix right at his fingertips, and then reality would intervene, a shot to the heart.
Chase knew he should confess everything to Sammy—his friend could tell something was up, but even the idea of admitting that Aunix and Auston were the same person out loud made Chase cringe so hard he felt like passing out.
He just had to clench his teeth, keep his head low, and hope some holy light would shine on him and illuminate the path he should take. Something that madesense, because it was logic he should be using. Some balanced equation to calculate if his heart would be able to survive Auston.
And yet all he could think of was Aunix.
He’d watch Auston during practice and remember every kind word Aunix had murmured in his ear. Chase would sit on the bench in his stall and close his eyes, picking out Auston’s voice, finding Aunix there—the melodic cadence of his vowels, the sharp bark of his laughter.
At night, he’d crawl into the nest built with the materials Auston had sent him, clutching Joey the duck to this chest, and try tothink, but all his body could feel was the absence of Aunix.
He waited and waited and waited, days and then two weeks passing, hoping that some big event would happen, that Auston would prove himself somehow, but life just limped on, wounded but alive. Auston gave him space, just as he promised, only approaching him after one game when Chase had gotten bangedup pretty bad. The Alpha had passed him in the locker room with a soft, “Are you okay?”
It was the first time Chase saw Aunix there, the concern softening Auston’s voice. It was like a ghost went through Chase, a thing he’d thought was dead coming back to life—
There was Aunix. There, in front of him, eyebrows bunched in a concerned frown, the brown of his eyes shining through.
“Yeah,” Chase had choked out, and Auston had paused, obviously wanting to say something else, but he’d nodded once instead and moved on, shoulders tight and straight.
Chase wanted to be stronger than he was, but his skin itched with longing, craving Aunix so much it was a physical hunger. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, disoriented, cheeks wet, trying to feel for something on the other side of the bed that had never been there in the first place.
It was strange to watch Auston so closely, in a way he hadn’t been allowed to before.
Now, with the shields between them knocked to the ground, he was free to observe.
Auston seemed…unhappy. He engaged in the locker room, was present and hardworking during practices and games, but his face was a little more gaunt, skin under his eyes puffy. Sometimes, Auston would catch him staring, and the strangest expression would flash over his face, as if he’d seen something grand that had hurt him, a bright memory filled with grief.
There was something wrong with how much Chase wanted to cast the doubt aside and take Auston back. To burrow into him—Aunix, Auston, Daddy.
He’d imagined a whole future with him. A million more moments, a million more experiences yet to be had.
It was too goddamn painful, mourning something he was killing.
He tried, though.
He learned not to check his phone every few minutes, stomping on the impulse every time it flared. He figured out how to ignore the ache that bloomed at night. How to think desperately of something else. To exhaust himself so much during the day that he tumbled into unconsciousness as soon as he got into bed.
He learned not to look at Auston and imagine Aunix there. Searched for distractions at every opportunity—staying late at the arena, working hard at the gym, going out with Sammy whenever he could. Everything else he stuffed deep, deep, deep where it wouldn’t poison him.
And yet, every time Auston was near, Chase’s whole body went alight. It had grown another sense, sensitive only to Auston’s presence, both longing for his touch and so oversensitive to his proximity that it hurt.
It was fucking exhausting. The more he tried not to think about it, the more his head was crowded with it—with the feeling he was losing himself, tripping into the dark and wading through it stubbornly instead of turning on a light.
The road trips were the worst. At home, he had his routine, the guard rails that would help him put one foot in front of the other without thinking too much. On the road, though, it wasn’t just in the arena that he had to share space with Auston. It was the plane, the buses, the restaurants, the hotels.
The late-night bars after games, adrenalin still humming inside him, blood burning with it.
“Yeah,” Chase agreed. He wasn’t sure what the Alpha on the stool beside him had been saying, but it must have been the right reaction, because he kept going.
The guy was…handsome, in a bookish sort of way. Tall and lean, dressed in a cable-knit sweater, stubble on his face. His pale skin was a little translucent, blue under the eyes, his hair a wild mess, adding to the harried-professor look.
In another universe, maybe Chase would be flattered that he was getting the attention of this stranger, but everything felt so…fake.
God, the feeling he’d had when he was talking to Aunix. As if he were bigger than himself. Lighter. Better. As if he could shut his eyes and rest and he’d be…safe.
It had beenhome.
