Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~18 min read
Chapter 2: The Rules
POV: Carter Vaughn
Carter wakes to the sound of his shower running and the empty space beside him in bed—sheets still warm from where Priya was sleeping an hour ago, her scent lingering on his pillow, everything about the scene screaming temporary—and feels the familiar weight of something he refuses to name settle in his chest like a penalty he can’t shake.
She’s leaving. Of course she’s leaving. That’s the rule, the arrangement they both agreed to, the boundary that keeps this whole thing simple and uncomplicated—she doesn’t stay over, doesn’t leave things in his apartment, doesn’t blur the lines between what this is and what it isn’t, and Carter should be grateful for that clarity instead of lying here wishing he’d wake up to her still beside him, sleep-soft and rumpled and his for longer than the few stolen hours they allow themselves.
The water shuts off and Carter closes his eyes, feigning sleep because watching her leave is somehow worse than knowing she’s gone, makes it feel too much like rejection even though they both agreed to these terms, even though he’s the one who suggested them in the first place when they established this arrangement three months ago and set boundaries that seemed smart at the time but increasingly feel like walls he built to keep himself safe that are now just keeping him lonely.
He hears her moving around his bedroom—quiet, efficient, clearly practiced at this particular exit routine—the rustle of clothes and the soft zip of her bag, and Carter has to fight the urge to open his eyes and ask her to stay, to break the rules they’ve both been following religiously, to risk complicating something that works just fine the way it is.
Except it doesn’t feel fine anymore.
It feels like watching something slip away that he never properly held in the first place.
The bedroom door opens and closes with barely a sound, then the apartment door follows moments later—she has a key, another violation of their supposed casual arrangement that Carter justified by pointing out how much simpler it was than having to let her in every time, but really he just liked the idea of Priya having access to his space, liked imagining her letting herself in whenever she wanted even though she only ever uses it for their scheduled hookups.
Carter opens his eyes to his empty apartment and tells himself this is exactly what he wants—no complications, no expectations, no risk of turning into his parents with their spectacular public divorce that taught him everything he needs to know about the dangers of commitment and the inevitable failure of relationships that start with promises neither person can keep.
This thing with Priya is perfect because it has an expiration date. No one gets hurt. No one expects forever.
He repeats it to himself while getting dressed for morning skate, while making coffee in a kitchen that feels too quiet, while checking his phone and finding no message from her because they don’t do that either, don’t text good morning or check in or act like anything more than what they are—teammates with benefits, professional colleagues who happen to be sleeping together, an arrangement that works because neither of them wants more.
Except Carter’s starting to suspect that’s a lie.
The Boston Blades training facility is already buzzing with activity when Carter arrives an hour later—equipment managers prepping gear, medical staff setting up for post-practice treatments, his teammates filtering in with the easy camaraderie that comes from a season going well, the Blades currently sitting second in their division with a legitimate shot at the playoffs if they can maintain momentum through the next four months.
Carter’s been captain for two years now, earned the C after their previous captain retired and the team voted him into leadership, and he takes the responsibility seriously—first one on the ice, last one off, the guy his teammates look to for direction both in games and in the locker room, the steady presence that holds everything together even when the pressure builds and the season grinds into its most demanding stretch.
Being captain means maintaining focus. Means not getting distracted by personal complications. Means keeping his head in the game and his attention on the team’s success rather than on the physical therapist he can’t stop thinking about even though their arrangement specifically prohibits that kind of attachment.
“Morning, Cap,” Jamie Chen calls as Carter enters the locker room, and there’s something knowing in his tone that makes Carter immediately suspicious—Jamie’s his closest friend on the team, has been since they were both rookies seven years ago, knows Carter well enough to read his moods even when he’s trying to hide them.
“Morning,” Carter returns, heading for his stall and the familiar ritual of gearing up for practice, the routine that usually centers him but today just feels mechanical, something he’s going through the motions of while his mind stays stuck on the image of Priya slipping out of his apartment in the early morning light.
Jamie follows him, dropping onto the bench beside Carter’s stall with the casual invasion of personal space that comes from years of friendship. “Good game last night. Those assists were clean.”
“Thanks.” Carter focuses on lacing his skates, not looking at Jamie because his friend has an annoying ability to see through whatever walls Carter tries to build, and right now those walls feel particularly thin. “Team played well. Defense was solid.”
“Mm-hmm. And after the game?” Jamie’s voice is too casual, edging into territory Carter doesn’t want to discuss. “You disappear pretty quick these days. Never come out with us anymore.”
Carter shrugs, still not looking up. “Tired. Season’s long.”
“Right. Tired.” There’s a pause, and then: “You’re hooking up with Priya again?”
The question shouldn’t hit like a body check, but it does—Carter’s hands freeze on his skate laces and his jaw tightens before he can control the reaction, which is answer enough for someone who knows him as well as Jamie does.
“It’s casual,” Carter says, because that’s the truth, the arrangement, the boundary he needs to maintain even if it’s starting to feel like another lie he’s telling himself. “Nothing serious.”
“You say that every time you watch her leave.”
Carter’s head snaps up, finding Jamie watching him with an expression that’s too knowing, too sympathetic, the look of someone who’s been married for three years and somehow figured out how to make commitment work despite all evidence that relationships are disasters waiting to happen.
“I don’t—” Carter starts, then stops, because denying it feels pointless when Jamie clearly already knows. “It works for us. No complications.”
“No complications,” Jamie repeats, like he’s testing the words and finding them lacking. “That why you’ve been checking your phone every five minutes? Why you look at the PT office every time we walk past? Why you get that look on your face whenever Tyler or one of the other guys talks to her?”
“I don’t get a look—”
“You absolutely get a look, man. Like you want to murder anyone who pays attention to her for longer than thirty seconds.” Jamie leans back, studying Carter with the analytical focus he usually reserves for reading defensive pairings. “Doesn’t seem that casual to me.”
Carter returns his attention to his skates, pulling the laces tight enough to hurt. “She’s good at her job. I appreciate that she keeps the team healthy. That’s all.”
“Sure. And the fact that you’re sleeping with her has nothing to do with the possessive captain routine you’ve got going.”
“We have an arrangement,” Carter says, each word careful and controlled. “Physical, temporary, ends when the season ends. Both of us agreed. It’s working fine.”
Jamie’s quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks again his voice has lost the teasing edge, gone softer and more serious. “Is it? Working fine?”
No, Carter thinks, but doesn’t say, because admitting it would mean acknowledging that something he insisted would be simple has gotten complicated, that the walls he built to protect himself are maybe just keeping him isolated, that Priya leaving his apartment this morning felt wrong in a way he can’t explain and doesn’t want to examine.
“Yes,” he lies instead. “It’s working fine.”
Practice is distraction, focus, the thing Carter’s always been able to rely on when everything else feels uncertain—the ice doesn’t lie, doesn’t complicate, doesn’t ask for more than what you give it, and for ninety minutes he loses himself in drills and plays and the physical demand of skating until his muscles burn and his mind finally quiets.
Except then practice ends and the team filters off the ice toward the locker room, passing the PT office where Priya’s already working—Carter can see her through the glass walls, hands on Tyler Morrison’s knee doing some kind of assessment, her expression professionally focused while the rookie forward says something that makes her laugh, and jealousy hits Carter like a slap shot to the chest, sudden and sharp and completely unreasonable.
She’s doing her job. Tyler’s twenty-three and harmless, engaged to his college girlfriend and absolutely not a threat, and Priya’s allowed to laugh with other players because their arrangement doesn’t include exclusivity outside of the physical, doesn’t give Carter any claim on her time or attention or affection beyond what happens in his apartment after games.
But logic doesn’t stop the surge of possessiveness that makes Carter want to walk in there and interrupt, stake some kind of claim he has no right to, make it clear that Priya’s his even though she’s explicitly not, even though the whole point of their arrangement is avoiding exactly that kind of territorial bullshit.
“You’re doing it again,” Jamie says quietly, appearing beside Carter in the hallway. “The look.”
“Shut up.”
“Just saying, for someone who’s got no complications, you seem pretty damn complicated about her.”
Carter forces himself to keep walking, to not look back at the PT office, to act like seeing Priya smile at another man doesn’t bother him even though it clearly does in ways that violate everything their arrangement is supposed to be. “It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then?”
“It’s physical. Just physical.” Carter pushes into the locker room, needing space from Jamie’s too-perceptive observations and his own inconvenient reactions. “Sex is possessive sometimes. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Right. Nothing.” Jamie follows him, relentless in the way that makes him excellent on the ice and occasionally annoying as a friend. “So if Priya started hooking up with someone else, you’d be fine with that? No complications?”
The thought hits like a punch—Priya with someone else, Priya in someone else’s bed, Priya laughing the way she laughs with him but with another man—and Carter’s hands clench into fists before he can control the reaction, something hot and ugly rising in his throat that he refuses to name as jealousy because that would mean admitting this is more than what he’s been insisting it is.
“We’re exclusive,” Carter says, the words coming out harder than intended. “Part of the arrangement. Makes it simpler, safer. Just logistics.”
“Logistics,” Jamie repeats, and there’s something sad in his expression now, pitying almost. “Man, you’re lying to yourself so hard you actually believe it.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. And honestly? It’s painful to watch.” Jamie starts stripping off his practice gear, shaking his head. “You’re in deep with her, Cap. Have been for a while. Everyone can see it except apparently you.”
Carter wants to deny it, wants to insist that Jamie’s reading significance into something casual, but the words stick in his throat because what if he’s right? What if Carter’s been lying to himself for months, telling himself this arrangement is working fine while catching feelings he swore he wouldn’t develop, building attachments that violate every rule they established?
“Doesn’t matter,” he says finally, quietly. “Even if—which I’m not saying is true—but even if there was more, Priya doesn’t want that. She agreed to the arrangement. To keeping it casual.”
“Did she? Or did you tell her that’s what you wanted and she agreed because that was the only way to have you at all?”
The question sits heavy between them, unanswerable, and Carter strips off his own gear in silence while his mind races through every interaction with Priya over the last three months, looking for signs he might have missed, moments where she wanted more than what he was offering but didn’t say it because he’d made it clear more wasn’t available.
Last night she’d looked at him after sex with something in her eyes he couldn’t read, something that felt significant, and when he’d asked her to stay over—breaking their routine, bending their rules—she’d said no and left like always, maintaining the boundaries even though for a second Carter thought he saw hesitation, saw her wanting to say yes before she defaulted to the safer option.
Or maybe he’s imagining it. Reading into nothing because he wants there to be more, wants Priya to want what he’s terrified to admit he might want too.
“This is why I don’t do relationships,” Carter says, more to himself than Jamie. “Too complicated. Too many ways for it to go wrong.”
“Yeah, because this arrangement is going so smoothly,” Jamie says dryly. “No complications at all.”
Carter doesn’t have an answer to that.
Later, after he’s showered and changed and wasted twenty minutes pretending to review game footage while actually just sitting in the video room avoiding the rest of the facility, Carter finally admits defeat and heads toward the PT office because he has a legitimate follow-up appointment for his knee and it’s not weird to keep scheduled medical treatments even if the therapist is someone he’s sleeping with.
Priya’s alone when he arrives—Tyler’s long gone, the other PTs on lunch break, just her in the treatment room organizing supplies with her back to the door, and Carter takes a second to just look at her before announcing his presence, memorizing the line of her shoulders and the way her hair falls loose around her face and the competent efficiency of her movements that he finds unreasonably attractive.
She turns before he can say anything, some sixth sense alerting her to his presence, and her expression does something complicated when she sees him—surprise and wariness and something softer underneath that makes his chest tight.
“Carter.” His name in her voice sounds different here than it does in his apartment, professional and careful. “You’re early. Appointment’s not for another fifteen minutes.”
“Finished reviewing footage early,” Carter lies, moving into the room and trying to ignore how aware he is of her proximity, how much he wants to touch her even though they don’t do that here, don’t blur the professional and personal in public spaces. “Figured I’d just come now if you’re free.”
Priya hesitates for a second, and Carter wonders if she’s going to call him on the obvious excuse, but instead she just nods and gestures to the treatment table. “Sure. Hop up. Let’s see how the knee’s feeling.”
The next twenty minutes are torture in a way that has nothing to do with the deep tissue work Priya’s doing on his joint—her hands are skilled and firm and professional, no different than any other PT session, but Carter can’t stop thinking about how those same hands felt on his skin last night, can’t stop remembering the sounds she made when he touched her, can’t stop wanting to pull her against him and kiss her even though they’re at work and that would violate approximately seventeen workplace policies.
“You’re tense,” Priya observes, her fingers finding a knot in his quad muscle. “More than usual. Game stress?”
“Something like that,” Carter manages, because admitting the real reason—that being this close to her without being able to touch her the way he wants is driving him insane—would definitely violate their arrangement’s boundaries.
“Well, try to relax. You’re making my job harder.” There’s the ghost of amusement in her voice, and when Carter looks down he finds her watching him with an expression that’s almost teasing, familiar in a way that belongs to their private moments rather than their professional ones.
“Sorry.” He forces himself to breathe, to relax his muscles, to act normal even though nothing about this feels normal anymore. “Better?”
“Better.” Her hands move lower, working the muscle with practiced efficiency, and Carter tries very hard not to think about those hands on other parts of his body, tries not to remember how she looks in his bed, tries not to imagine asking her to come over tonight even though last night was supposed to be enough, their hookups supposedly not happening more than twice a week to maintain the casual fiction.
“How’s it feeling?” Priya asks after a few more minutes of work. “Pain level?”
“Good. Better. You’re good at this.”
“It’s literally my job,” she says, echoing her words from last night, and the repetition feels significant somehow, a reminder of the line between what she does professionally and what they do privately, the separation they’re both supposed to maintain.
Except Carter doesn’t want separation anymore.
He wants—
No. He doesn’t want. Wanting is dangerous. Wanting leads to expectations and expectations lead to disappointment and disappointment leads to the kind of messy emotional destruction his parents specialized in, fighting and cheating and ultimately destroying each other in divorce proceedings that took two years and left scars Carter’s still carrying a decade later.
This arrangement with Priya is perfect because it doesn’t involve wanting. Just mutual satisfaction, clear boundaries, an end date that prevents anyone from getting hurt.
He repeats it to himself like a prayer while Priya finishes the treatment and steps back, and tries not to notice how empty his space feels when she moves away, how much he wants to reach for her even though he has no right, how the arrangement that seemed so smart three months ago increasingly feels like the stupidest thing he’s ever agreed to.
“You’re good to go,” Priya says, professional and distant. “Ice it tonight if it gets sore. Come back Thursday if you need another session.”
“Thanks.” Carter slides off the table, hesitating in a way he never does because he’s usually decisive, usually knows what he wants and goes after it, but right now he has no idea what to say or do or how to bridge the gap between what they are here and what they are in private. “Priya—”
“I have another appointment,” she interrupts, not quite meeting his eyes. “Tyler’s coming back for his shoulder work.”
Tyler. The rookie who made her laugh earlier, who Carter wanted to murder for no rational reason except possessiveness he shouldn’t feel.
“Right. Yeah. Of course.” Carter heads for the door, then stops, turns back because he can’t help himself. “Tonight—”
“We just hooked up last night,” Priya says, and there’s something careful in her voice, guarded. “Remember? No more than twice a week. Keeps it casual.”
She’s quoting their rules back at him—rules Carter insisted on, boundaries he established—and it shouldn’t feel like rejection but somehow does, makes him want to argue that rules can be flexible, that maybe twice a week isn’t enough anymore, that casual is starting to feel like a constraint rather than a comfort.
But he doesn’t say any of that.
“Right,” he says instead. “Casual.”
Carter leaves the PT office feeling worse than when he entered, Jamie’s words echoing in his head—you’re lying to yourself so hard you actually believe it—and knows with uncomfortable certainty that his friend is right.
This arrangement isn’t working.
It’s not working because Carter wants more than what he’s allowing himself to have, wants Priya in ways that violate their careful boundaries, wants to call her his instead of pretending she’s just a convenient hookup he’ll forget about when the season ends.
But wanting is dangerous.
And Carter’s made a career out of avoiding danger off the ice, protecting himself from the kind of emotional damage relationships cause, keeping everything simple and temporary and safe.
So he’ll keep lying to himself a little longer.
Keep pretending the jealousy is just possessiveness.
Keep insisting the arrangement is working fine.
Keep telling himself he doesn’t have feelings.
And maybe if he repeats it enough times, it’ll eventually become true.
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