Updated Mar 22, 2026 • ~19 min read
Chapter 6: The Jealousy
POV: Carter Vaughn
The team party is at Jamie’s place—sprawling house in Brookline, the kind of space a married hockey player with good financial planning can afford, warm and welcoming in ways that bachelor apartments like Carter’s aren’t—and it’s supposed to be relaxed, casual, just the Blades organization celebrating a six-game winning streak that’s pushed them into first place in their division with legitimate playoff momentum building.
Carter’s been here for an hour, nursing the same beer and making conversation with teammates and staff, playing the captain role of being visible and social and present even though what he really wants is to be alone with Priya, has been wanting that since she showed up twenty minutes ago wearing jeans and a soft sweater that makes her look approachable and touchable and entirely too attractive for Carter’s peace of mind.
They’re maintaining careful distance at the party—professional boundaries, no indication that they’re anything more than PT and captain, the discretion that’s kept their arrangement mostly secret for three months now—but Carter’s aware of exactly where Priya is at every moment, tracks her movement through the room like he’s analyzing opposing team formations, can’t stop watching even though he knows he should focus on something else, someone else, anything except the woman he’s supposed to be keeping casual but increasingly can’t stop thinking about.
Which is why he notices immediately when Tyler Morrison—twenty-three, rookie forward, engaged to his college girlfriend Emma according to team gossip—approaches Priya where she’s standing near the kitchen talking to one of the equipment managers, notices the way Tyler’s face lights up when she smiles at him, notices how he leans in close to say something that makes Priya laugh, and feels jealousy hit his system like a bad check, sudden and vicious and completely unreasonable.
They’re just talking. Tyler’s engaged. Priya’s doing her job, being friendly with players, maintaining the professional relationships that make her effective as a PT. There’s nothing happening that warrants the surge of possessive anger currently making Carter’s hands clench around his beer bottle hard enough that he’s mildly concerned about the glass shattering.
“You okay there, Cap?” Jamie’s voice cuts through the haze of irrational fury, and Carter turns to find his friend watching him with knowing amusement, clearly tracking the direction of Carter’s attention. “You look like you want to murder someone.”
“I’m fine,” Carter says through gritted teeth, still watching Priya and Tyler across the room—watching the way Tyler gestures animatedly while talking, the way Priya’s paying attention with genuine interest, the way Tyler touches her arm briefly to emphasize whatever point he’s making, and the jealousy ratchets up another notch into territory that’s definitely not fine, definitely not casual, definitely violating everything Carter’s been telling himself about their arrangement.
“Just casual, huh?” Jamie says quietly, and there’s sympathy in his voice underneath the teasing. “Nothing complicated?”
“Shut up.”
“You’re staring at her like you want to stake a claim in front of the entire team.” Jamie takes a drink of his own beer, still watching Carter with that too-perceptive assessment. “That’s not casual behavior, man.”
Carter knows he’s right—knows that possessive jealousy over someone talking to Priya is relationship behavior, not FWB behavior, knows that caring this much about who she’s conversing with at a party violates their arrangement’s entire premise—but logic doesn’t stop the feeling, doesn’t prevent the urge to cross the room and interrupt and make it clear that Priya’s his even though she explicitly isn’t, even though their arrangement specifically doesn’t include exclusivity or claims or any of the territorial bullshit currently consuming Carter’s rational thought.
Across the room, Tyler says something else that makes Priya laugh again—genuine amusement, the kind of uninhibited response Carter rarely sees from her at work events where she’s usually more guarded—and something inside Carter’s chest twists painfully, sharp and undeniable.
He can’t do this.
Can’t watch her be charming with other men.
Can’t pretend he’s okay with their non-exclusive arrangement when the thought of Priya with anyone else makes him want to break things.
Can’t maintain casual when every cell in his body is screaming mine, mine, mine in a way that’s definitely not casual at all.
“I need another beer,” Carter says, setting down his empty bottle and heading toward the kitchen before Jamie can call him on the obvious lie—he’s not going for beer, he’s going to interrupt whatever conversation Priya’s having with Tyler, going to do something probably stupid and definitely possessive, going to risk exposing their arrangement to the entire team because apparently Carter’s self-control only extends so far before jealousy overrides common sense.
He crosses the room with the same focused intensity he brings to pursuing the puck during games—direct, determined, not particularly subtle—and arrives at Priya’s side just as Tyler’s saying something about physical therapy techniques and whether Priya thinks his shoulder mobility has improved since she started working with him.
“Priya, can I talk to you? Privately.” Carter interrupts without preamble, not bothering with pleasantries or excuses, just need to get her away from Tyler, away from everyone, somewhere he can breathe without the weight of possessive jealousy crushing his chest.
Priya turns to look at him, and Carter watches her expression shift from surprised to concerned to something almost knowing, like she can read exactly what’s happening even though Carter’s trying to keep his face neutral. “Carter, I’m in the middle of—”
“It’s important.” He’s not asking, not really, and Priya must hear the edge in his voice because she hesitates for just a second before nodding.
“Okay. Sure.” She turns back to Tyler with an apologetic smile. “Excuse me. We can continue this later.”
“Yeah, of course. No worries.” Tyler grins, completely oblivious to the tension radiating off Carter in waves. “See you at practice Monday, Priya.”
Carter barely waits for Tyler to finish speaking before he’s guiding Priya away with a hand on her lower back—possessive, proprietary, definitely not how a captain should be touching the team PT in public—steering her toward the hallway where Jamie’s home office sits empty and private, somewhere they can have this conversation without an audience.
“Carter, what—” Priya starts, but Carter’s already opening the office door and ushering her inside, closing it behind them and finally, finally having her alone where he can think clearly without the distraction of watching other men make her laugh.
“What the fuck was that?” Priya demands the second the door closes, spinning to face him with fire in her eyes, and Carter realizes maybe she’s not as understanding about being manhandled as he’d assumed. “You just dragged me away from a conversation in front of half the team! So much for discretion!”
“He was all over you!” The words come out more aggressive than Carter intends, jealousy still burning hot in his veins, making him reckless in ways he’s usually not.
“We were talking! We’re not exclusive, remember?” Priya’s voice rises to match his, and there’s anger there but also something else underneath—hurt maybe, or frustration, something that suggests this conversation touches on issues bigger than just Tyler Morrison’s flirting. “That’s literally our arrangement—casual, no expectations, we can see other people!”
The reminder hits like a slap shot to the gut because Priya’s right—they explicitly didn’t establish exclusivity, specifically kept their arrangement open-ended so neither of them would feel constrained, purposely avoided relationship parameters like monogamy and commitment—but hearing her say it out loud, hearing her confirm that she could be with other people if she wanted, makes Carter feel like he’s being carved open with a skate blade.
“Maybe we should be,” Carter says before his brain catches up with his mouth, before he can think through the implications, before fear can override the desperate need to stake some kind of claim on the woman currently glaring at him like he’s lost his mind.
Priya goes completely still, her expression shifting from angry to shocked. “What?”
And that’s when Carter’s panic kicks in—when he realizes what he’s almost said, what he’s almost confessed, how close he came to admitting that he wants more than their arrangement allows, that he’s falling for her, that casual stopped being accurate months ago and he wants exclusivity and commitment and all the things he swore he’d never want again.
“Exclusive FWB.” The words tumble out rushed, desperate to backtrack, to avoid the vulnerability of actual confession. “No one else. Makes it simpler.”
Simpler. Like that’s the reason. Like this is about logistics instead of the fact that the thought of Priya with another man makes Carter want to put his fist through a wall, like it’s practical instead of possessive, like he’s not essentially asking for relationship parameters while still maintaining the fiction of casual.
Priya stares at him for a long moment, and Carter can see her processing—confusion and hope and something that might be disappointment all flickering across her face in quick succession—and he realizes with sinking certainty that he’s fucked this up, that this isn’t what she wanted him to say, that maybe she was hoping for something more when he said “maybe we should be” before he chickened out and retreated into arrangement-speak.
“…Okay. Exclusive.” Her voice is careful, neutral, giving nothing away. “Just us. No one else.”
Relief crashes through Carter’s system so intense it’s almost painful—she’s agreeing, she’s his, at least in this limited capacity he’s capable of offering—immediately followed by guilt because he can see in her expression that this isn’t enough, that he’s given her a baby step forward when maybe she wanted a leap, that “exclusive FWB” is still just a upgraded version of an arrangement instead of the real relationship she might be hoping for.
But it’s all Carter can offer right now.
All he’s brave enough to give when commitment still feels like a trap and relationships still look like his parents’ disaster and the thought of letting Priya all the way in terrifies him more than any hit he’s taken on the ice.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, and knows it’s inadequate, knows he should say more, should explain why watching Tyler flirt with her felt like dying, should confess that he’s falling for her despite every defense he’s built.
But the words stick in his throat, trapped behind fear and self-protection and the certainty that admitting feelings makes them real, makes him vulnerable, makes it possible for Priya to hurt him the way his parents hurt each other.
Priya’s watching him with an expression Carter can’t quite read—searching for something, maybe, or waiting for him to say more—and he wants to give her what she’s looking for, wants to be brave enough to offer more than just exclusive sex with no emotional attachment.
He’s just not there yet.
“We should get back to the party,” Priya says after the silence stretches too long, and there’s resignation in her voice that makes Carter’s chest ache. “Before people notice we’ve been gone.”
“Right. Yeah.” Carter moves toward the door, then stops, turns back because he can’t let this moment end on the wrong note even if he doesn’t know what the right note would be. “Pri—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, stopping him with a gesture that feels like protection. “Whatever you’re about to say, just—don’t. Not right now.”
Carter nods, throat tight, and follows her out of the office and back to the party where they immediately split up, Priya heading toward the kitchen and Carter returning to Jamie’s side, both of them maintaining the careful distance that’s supposed to prove they’re nothing more than professional colleagues even though Carter just essentially claimed her in the most possessive way possible.
“That looked intense,” Jamie observes once Carter’s back in position near the living room windows, nursing a fresh beer he doesn’t want. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” Carter watches Priya across the room—she’s talking to Kevin now, the other PT, her expression animated and friendly in a way that doesn’t trigger Carter’s jealousy because Kevin’s not a threat, doesn’t look at Priya like Tyler was looking at her. “We just—we talked. Set some boundaries.”
“Boundaries.” Jamie sounds skeptical. “That’s what we’re calling it?”
“We’re exclusive now,” Carter admits quietly, because Jamie already knows about the arrangement and lying seems pointless. “Just the two of us. No one else.”
Jamie’s quiet for a moment, and when Carter glances over he finds his friend watching him with something that looks like pity. “Man, that’s not casual.”
“It’s still just physical—”
“No, it’s not.” Jamie cuts him off, voice gentle but firm. “Exclusive FWB is just dating with a different label. You know that, right?”
The words hit harder than they should because deep down Carter knows Jamie’s right—knows that adding exclusivity to their arrangement fundamentally changes it, makes it relationship-adjacent even if they’re still avoiding that word, makes his claim on Priya official even if he’s too scared to call it what it really is.
“It’s simpler this way,” Carter says, repeating his justification to Priya even though it sounds hollow now, even though simple stopped being accurate the moment he caught feelings. “No complications.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Jamie shakes his head. “But from where I’m standing, you’re already in a relationship with her. You’re just too scared to admit it.”
Carter doesn’t have a response to that—can’t deny it, can’t confirm it, can’t do anything except watch Priya across the room and wonder if Jamie’s assessment is accurate, if he’s already given Priya more than he realizes, if the walls he’s been maintaining are actually as solid as he thinks or just illusions he’s constructed to feel safer.
The party continues around them—teammates laughing and drinking, music playing, the warm chaos of people celebrating success together—but Carter feels separate from it, isolated in his own head while he processes what just happened, what he almost said, what he chickened out of confessing.
Maybe we should be.
For a second there, he was going to say it—was going to suggest they make this real, make it official, stop pretending this is just an arrangement when it clearly stopped being casual months ago for both of them.
But then panic hit and Carter retreated into the safety of FWB language, into the comfortable fiction that this is still just physical, into the denial that’s kept him protected for years.
And Priya agreed to exclusive, but Carter saw her disappointment, saw the moment where she realized this wasn’t the conversation she wanted, saw her hope dim when he backpedaled from relationship to just upgraded arrangement.
He hurt her.
Not intentionally, not maliciously, but by being too scared to give her what she deserves, by offering half-measures when maybe she wants all of him, by maintaining emotional distance when the physical exclusivity suggests they’re already more than their arrangement allows.
Carter knows he should fix it—should pull her aside again and have the real conversation, should be honest about his feelings, should risk vulnerability for the chance at something more—but the thought of that confession, of admitting he’s falling for her, of giving her the power to hurt him the way his parents hurt each other, paralyzes him with fear he can’t override.
So he stays across the room, watching Priya laugh with colleagues, and tells himself that exclusive FWB is progress, that he’s given her something meaningful, that this baby step forward is better than nothing even if it’s clearly not enough.
Later, after the party winds down and people start heading home, Carter catches Priya’s eye across the room and tilts his head toward the door in silent question—my place?—the invitation they’ve perfected over three months of this arrangement.
She hesitates for just a second—barely noticeable, probably not visible to anyone except Carter who’s spent months learning to read her subtle expressions—before nodding, a small movement of agreement that makes relief and anticipation surge through Carter’s system in equal measure.
They leave separately, maintaining discretion even though half the team probably suspects by now, and Carter drives home with his mind racing through what he should say when Priya arrives, how he can fix the disappointment he saw in her expression earlier, whether he’s brave enough to push past his fear and offer her more than just exclusive sex.
By the time she knocks on his door twenty minutes later, Carter still hasn’t found adequate words, still doesn’t know how to bridge the gap between what he’s capable of giving and what Priya deserves, still hasn’t solved the fundamental problem of being terrified of commitment while simultaneously falling for someone who makes him want to try anyway.
“Hey,” Priya says when he opens the door, and her voice is carefully neutral, guarded in a way it usually isn’t when they’re alone. “So. Exclusive FWB. That’s new.”
“Yeah.” Carter steps aside to let her in, closing the door and facing her in his entryway, suddenly uncertain how this is supposed to work now that they’ve changed the parameters. “That okay? I know I kind of just—I didn’t really ask properly—”
“It’s fine.” Priya cuts him off, but there’s something brittle in her tone that suggests it’s not actually fine, that she’s upset about something Carter can’t quite identify. “Exclusive is good. Simpler, like you said.”
She’s quoting his words back at him, and Carter knows he deserves the edge in her voice, knows that “simpler” was a bullshit reason that didn’t address the real motivation—he wants exclusivity because he’s possessive and falling for her and can’t stand the thought of her with anyone else, not because it’s logistically easier.
“Pri, I—” Carter starts, then stops, still not knowing how to finish that sentence, still trapped between wanting to confess everything and being too scared to risk it.
“You what?” Priya’s looking at him with challenge in her eyes, like she’s daring him to be honest, to say what they’re both thinking, to acknowledge that this arrangement stopped being casual a long time ago and they’re just pretending otherwise. “What were you going to say at the party before you decided on ‘exclusive FWB’? What did you almost offer me?”
The question hangs between them, sharp and pointed, and Carter realizes with uncomfortable clarity that Priya knows—knows he almost said something more, knows he chickened out, knows she’s being given scraps when maybe she wants the whole meal.
“I don’t know,” he admits, which is partly true and partly lie—he knows what he wanted to say, just doesn’t know if he’s capable of actually saying it. “I just—seeing you with Tyler, it made me—”
“Jealous?” Priya supplies when Carter trails off. “Possessive? Like maybe this isn’t as casual as we keep pretending?”
Yes. All of that. But Carter can’t make himself say it, can’t push past the fear long enough to be vulnerable, can’t risk the confession that might change everything.
“Yeah,” he says instead, inadequate and insufficient. “I didn’t like it.”
Priya looks at him for a long moment, and Carter can see her making a decision, see her weighing whether to push for more or accept what he’s offering, see the exact moment she chooses to let it go even though it clearly costs her something.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Exclusive FWB. Just us. I can work with that.”
It’s not the conversation she wanted—Carter can see it in her expression, in the resignation that settles over her features—but it’s something, it’s progress, it’s Carter taking a baby step toward something more even if it’s nowhere near enough.
He crosses the space between them and kisses her—desperate and claiming and possessive in ways that say what he can’t verbalize, trying to communicate through touch what he’s too scared to put into words—and Priya responds with equal intensity, her hands fisting in his shirt like she’s trying to hold onto something that keeps slipping away.
They end up in his bed like always, bodies tangled together in familiar choreography, and afterward when Priya curls against his side instead of leaving immediately, Carter holds her close and tries not to think about how this feels like a relationship, like commitment, like everything he swore he’d never want but can’t seem to stop himself from needing.
“This isn’t enough, you know,” Priya whispers against his chest, so quiet Carter almost misses it. “Eventually you’re going to have to decide what you really want.”
The words settle like weights in Carter’s chest because she’s right—exclusive FWB is just delaying the inevitable, just postponing the real conversation they need to have, just Carter buying himself more time before he has to choose between his fear and the woman currently in his arms.
“I know,” he admits into her hair. “I’m just not there yet.”
“I know.” Priya’s hand presses over his heart, and Carter wonders if she can feel how fast it’s beating. “But I need you to get there soon. Because I can’t keep doing halfway much longer.”
It’s the closest either of them has come to admitting the truth—that this arrangement is killing them both, that they need more, that the boundaries they’ve maintained are suffocating instead of protecting—and Carter knows he should respond with honesty, should confess his feelings, should take the leap she’s asking for.
But fear keeps him silent.
And Priya eventually falls asleep against his chest.
And Carter lies awake holding her, wondering how long he can maintain this halfway position before everything falls apart.
Not long, he suspects.
Not nearly long enough.
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