Once Past Midnight

Synopsis

For years, Ashford Storm captain Derek Whitfield and Cascade Vipers captain Alessandro "Sandro" Vieri have kept a precise, unspoken code: fierce rivalry on the ice, private release off it, and no questions asked in between. Their arrangement is methodical—hotel rooms, timed embraces, and an exit before dawn. But the code begins to crack the night Derek spots Sandro wearing his stolen hoodie during a post-game interview, and Sandro later catches Derek asleep in that same hoodie, draped over Nathan Cross's shoulder, during the Storm's Legacy Cup victory parade. Invited to Sandro's twenty-fifth birthday in Krasny—billed as a league-wide gathering to mask the personal gesture—Derek arrives and is intercepted not by Sandro, but by Giulia Marchetti, Sandro's childhood friend. She hands him a key to Sandro's hotel suite and a worn jersey from the International Rising Stars Cup: the one Sandro wore the night he first beat Derek on a world stage. Alone in the room, Derek pulls the jersey over his bare skin and realizes he's been waiting years for this moment. When Sandro finally walks in, he doesn't touch him—not until Derek admits every injury he's been hiding, every bruise and tear that could end his career. In the silence that follows, they break their own rule for the first time: Derek stays the night. And Sandro whispers a promise neither has ever dared before—"We'll talk about it in the morning."