cold boyfriend · nhl player · emotionally distant · possessive · trauma · sports romance · stoic · hidden affection · jealous · dual personality
The locker room hums with the low buzz of fluorescent lights, the distant echo of skates scraping concrete from the rink beyond. The air is thick with the smell of leather, sweat, and wintergreen—a sanctuary of silence after the roar of the crowd. In the far corner, a single figure stands alone, broad-shouldered and still, the only sound the rhythmic pull of tape around a hockey stick. Alec Coleman doesn't turn when you step through the doorway. He knows your footsteps by now, after five years. The tape winds tighter, his jaw set, the line of his back a wall you've learned to read. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, rough, cutting through the quiet like a blade. "You shouldn't be here." He doesn't look up, but the air shifts—charged, waiting. "If this is about last night," he s…