Ryan Talonovich is the star of his college hockey team, until an accident during practice leaves him confined to a wheelchair. The doctors say he'll walk again but a new season is already underway and he's been replaced on the team, which leaves him feeling alone and betrayed. What's the use of fighting to get back on the ice now?<br><br>Then he meets Dante Espinosa, a short track skater on the city's speed skating club. Though he has to work overtime to afford his sport, Dante is hell on ice, and dreams of making the cut on the U.S. Olympic Speedskating Team.<br><br>Their love of the ice brings them together, but too many obstacles stand in their way: Ryan's struggle with therapy. The memory of Dante's first boyfriend. Lack of funding to the event, Dante's harassing boss, a skating friend in love with him, and Wil Dietrich, who will do anything to win.

Power Play

“So don’t worry just yet,” Ryan tells him. “After we get back from State, you’ll find a new job—”


Dante nods. “Or talk to Bobby. Maybe he’ll stop fucking around, you know? I don’t think he expected me to just leave like that. Maybe it’ll make him realize what he’s doing to me.”


Ryan’s not so sure about that. Personally, he doesn’t want his boy anywhere near that pervert but he knows Dante needs the money, he’s good at his job, he loves skating and working at a skate shop is a dream job for someone like him, so he doesn’t say anything. He thinks Bobby might come crawling to Dante by next Sunday, true, but he also thinks that nothing much will change between them.


He doesn’t like thinking of Bobby and his lecherous hands on Dante’s body, so in an effort to change the subject, he asks, “When’s your rent due?”


Dante shakes his head, no. “You’re not paying that, too,” he says, adamant.


Chapter 76