All Chapters of Ice Between Rivals : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

178 Chapters

Chapter 41 - The dinner

I made my way home slowly as evening settled over the neighbourhood, dragging my feet as though the pavement itself could delay the inevitable. Before I pushed open the front door, I exhaled a quiet, steadying sigh and then stepped inside.My heart sank immediately.Maya was already in the sitting room with her mother.I kept my eyes carefully averted from hers. However sincerely she had offered to guard my secret, I wasn’t fully convinced not yet. I gave a small, polite bow in Maggie’s direction instead. “Good evening, Mrs. Maggie.”“Oh, good evening, Noah.” She looked at me with warm, searching eyes. “How are you? You look rather pale, dear.”I sighed inwardly. So it was written all over my face.Before I could fumble for a response, Maya rose to her feet. “Mum, I really need to talk to Noah.”For a brief, suspended moment, Maggie looked surprised. “Are you two close?”“Yes, Mum. He’s my brother now.” Maya’s voice was easy, natural, completely unhurried. “It’s only right that we b

Chapter 42

Kai’s POVWhen Maya called, I didn’t hesitate.I was out of the building within minutes, crossing the grounds at a near-jog until the Falcons Academy gate came into view and there she was, standing on the other side of it. I nodded to the gatekeeper and he pulled it open without question.She had changed. That was the first thing I registered. She was taller, older, more composed in the way she held herself and yet, underneath all of it, she was still unmistakably her. Still Maya.She didn’t give me a moment to say a word. She launched herself at me, arms thrown around my neck. “Kai , I missed you so much.”I caught her, held her tightly, and didn’t let go for a long moment.I had missed her too. More than I’d let myself admit.We sat together after the tears had passed, side by side on a bench just inside the gate, the silence between us easy in the way only siblings can manage.“How are you?” she asked, studying my face.“I’m okay,” I said. And then, because I needed to know: “Ho

Chapter 43

I stormed out of the room before I could say something I’d genuinely regret.It wasn’t even about the photograph not really. I had no particular attachment to it myself. But it was Noah’s. It was my brother’s, and Kai had handled it with all the careless arrogance of someone who had never once considered that other people’s things mattered. That other people mattered.I dropped onto the sofa in the living room and sat there, jaw tight, staring at nothing.Maya appeared at the bottom of the stairs a few minutes later, took one look at my face, and sighed knowingly. “I figured it out,” she said, settling beside me. “You and Kai you really can’t stand each other.”“Do you think this is about liking him?” I turned to look at her. “He is a horrible person. I hate him, Maya. He makes my blood boil just by existing in the same room.”She exhaled slowly. “I get it, Ava. I do. But it’ll be okay”“At least you’re not like him,” I cut in. The anger softened just slightly around the edges. “You

Chapter 44

The traffic back to the academy was punishing. By the time I finally made it through the gates and down the corridor toward the dorms, I was late, irritable, and still nursing the dull throb across the bridge of my nose.Ken was standing outside his own door when I turned the corner.“Noah!” He straightened up. “Where were you yesterday? I wanted us to practice together but you’d completely vanished.” His eyes dropped to my face. “And why do you have a plaster? Are you okay?”“I was home,” I said. “I’m fine. Really.”He nodded slowly. “I figured you and Kai must have both gone your room was empty.” He tilted his head, glancing past me. “Did you two leave together? Come back together?”I turned to look.Kai was right behind me.I hadn’t heard him at all. I registered his presence for exactly one second before he shouldered past me deliberately, squarely and I stumbled sideways into the wall, catching myself on the door frame.“What is his problem?” Ken asked, staring after him.I sh

Chapter 45

When I opened my eyes and found him on my chest, my heart was already moving too fast.I shoved him away before I’d made any conscious decision to do so, reflex, panic, something I couldn’t name cleanly. Whether it was because the situation unsettled me or because it was Noah specifically, I couldn’t say. The academy. Ice. Practice. Structure. That was what I needed.And then there was Ken.I noticed him the moment he appeared that easy, unhurried way he moved toward Noah, the kind of comfort that comes from genuine familiarity. Something about it settled under my skin like a splinter. Why does Noah need so many people around him? He had Liam Liam, who was supposed to be his closest friend, his person and yet here was Ken, stepping into the space without invitation, filling it like he’d always been there.It irritated me in a way I didn’t fully have a justification for.And then Coach had told me to take Noah off the ice, and Ken had appeared anyway smoothly, efficiently and simp

Chapter 46 - Too close

I stared at his arm and felt the conflict play out in about two seconds flat.He had gone out, jumped a wall, by the look of it and came back with pharmacy meds and an injury he was now quietly suffering through. Did he do it for me? For himself? To cover his own tracks? Probably all three, knowing Kai. But I couldn’t stand here and watch someone be in pain. Even him. Even if every reasonable part of me wanted to.I stepped forward. He didn’t pull away, which I took as permission.I touched his arm carefully, turning it in my hands to read the damage. My father had always reserved his attention for Noah his son, his hockey player, his pride which meant I had learned most things the way you learn things when no one is watching: by necessity, by trial and error, entirely alone. The year I broke my own arm and didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t go to the hospital. Just figured it out, bandaged it myself, and got on with it.This was worse than that had been.I went to my bag without a word and

Chapter 47

“Do you make a habit of falling onto other boys’ bare chests?”The heat hit my face before I could stop it. I could feel it the flush crawling up my neck and into my cheeks and I turned away sharply before he could read anything in my expression.I stood up. Straightened my clothes. Stared at the wall for a moment and gathered what was left of my dignity.“It’s your fault,” I said, when I trusted my voice to come out level. “Why am I even helping you? You’re on your own.” I crossed to my bed, lay down with my back to him, and pulled the covers up with a finality I hoped communicated everything I didn’t want to say out loud.I did not look back.But I could hear him the quiet struggle of someone trying to manage with one usable arm, the small sounds of effort he was too proud to acknowledge out loud. Every instinct I had told me to get up. I stayed exactly where I was, jaw set, eyes fixed on the wall, and eventually the sounds stopped.My heart took considerably longer to settle.Wh

Chapter 48- keep your place

The man turned to look at me.The confusion on his face lasted only a moment before it hardened into something else irritation, and beneath that, the particular contempt of someone who is not accustomed to being interrupted.Kai hadn’t moved. He was on his feet but barely, one hand braced against the wall, blood at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were wide in a way I had never seen on him before. Not angry. Not composed. Just shocked.“Who do you think you are?” the man said to me. His voice was low and even, which was somehow worse than if he’d shouted.“This is my son,” he continued. “I have every right to discipline him as I see fit.”“That isn’t discipline,” I said. My own voice came out steadier than I felt. “That’s assault. And I won’t stand here and watch it happen.”He stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, he laughed a short, humourless sound and turned to look at Kai with something like amusement.“Who is this?” he asked. Almost conversational. “This bold young

Chapter 49

I watched Liam line up his shot across the pool table and turned the question over quietly in my mind.Whether to tell him.Kai was my stepbrother now or Noah’s stepbrother, technically, which in the tangled reality of my situation amounted to the same thing. If Liam found out on his own, from someone else, in some casual hallway conversation he would be hurt. Not just surprised. Hurt. The kind of hurt that sits underneath anger and takes longer to leave. He and Noah were best friends, and best friends didn’t keep things like this from each other. I was already keeping enough from everyone.But I also hadn’t decided. Not fully.“Noah.” Liam’s voice pulled me back. He was watching my right hand on the cue with a slight frown. “Your arm still hasn't healed? You’ve been favouring it this whole game.”I opened my mouth. I closed it.Change the subject. Redirect. Say something.“Liam,” I said instead. “There’s something I need to tell you.”He straightened immediately. Set his cue down.

Chapter 50 - co captains

“Are you a child?” I looked at him standing there in the doorway, blood creeping down his arm, wet plaster peeling away from the skin. “I left you alone for ten minutes. Ten minutes. And now look at you.” I shook my head. “If this gets any worse you won’t be playing in the match at all.”He said nothing. He just looked at me — and there was something in his eyes that wasn’t stubbornness for once. Something quieter. He was in real pain.I exhaled and went to my bag.I found a clean handkerchief, folded it properly, and knelt down in front of him. I tied it firmly around the wound, applying pressure until the bleeding slowed and then stopped altogether. He didn’t speak. No insult, no cold remark, no grudging acknowledgement. Nothing.By the time I looked up, his eyes were closed.Not dramatically not a collapse. Just a slow, silent surrender to whatever his body had been fighting against all day. He was asleep before I’d fully processed it, sitting there with his back against the wall

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