The locker room's quiet. Just the low hum of the overhead lights and the sound of Ivy's heartbeat thrumming in her ears. She should leave. Rey's already here-already lacing her skates, already pretending not to look up when Ivy steps inside. But they're past pretending now. Past hate. Past whatever flimsy excuses they used to cling to. Ivy sits beside her without a word. Rey doesn't move, but her voice is steady. "You keep showing up." "Yeah," Ivy says. "And you keep letting me." Their eyes meet-sharp, unreadable. It should still feel like a fight. It doesn't. Outside, the rink waits. Their teammates are starting to whisper. The league is watching. The danger is real. But in here, in this moment, it's just them. Something broken. Something building. Something like almost. Ivy Ransom and Rey Navarro are rivals on the ice, enemies in the locker room-and now, thanks to a scandal and a shady PR deal, reluctant teammates forced into the spotlight together. But when their tension turns electric and enemies become something else entirely, they'll have to choose between protecting their pride... or risking everything for the one person who sees them clearly. No Love, Just Hockey (...until there is love) is a slow-burn, queer romance full of sharp banter, bruising emotion, and chemistry that refuses to quit.
Chapter 1 Suspension
There's blood on the ice, and it's not hers.
Ivy Ransom doesn't notice the cut on her cheek until she's halfway to the locker room, adrenaline roaring through her like a freight train. The sting registers somewhere far away-background noise behind the thudding pulse in her ears, the echo of fans chanting her name.
She just had the best game of her season. Two goals, one assist, and a clean takedown that lit up the arena. Her stick had kissed the net like she meant it, and the opposing team's defense had scrambled just to keep up. It was a clinic. It was art.
It was redemption-or so she'd hoped.
The Ravens needed the win. They'd been sliding ever since the assistant coach got suspended last month. Morale was shit, their lines were scrambled, and the press was circling like sharks. But tonight? Tonight, Ivy carved out a reminder: We are still here. I am still here.
Cameras flash when she hits the tunnel, sweat-soaked and burning. Reporters shout her name. She catches sight of a poster someone's holding up-ICE QUEEN, glittering letters above a cutout of her face mid-slapshot. She smirks, just a twitch of her mouth.
But under that smirk, something tightens. A wrongness. A whisper in her gut.
The kind of instinct you don't survive long in hockey without.
She pushes through the double doors into the locker room.
And stops cold.
No music.
No laughter. No whoops of celebration. No tape-ball fights or sprays of Gatorade. Just... silence.
The air is thick. Stale with sweat and tension.
Her teammates are frozen mid-motion-one with a shin pad half-off, another still holding her stick. Coach Lorne is by the bench, arms crossed and jaw locked so tight it looks like it might snap. And beside him, in dark suits and colder stares, are two men she doesn't want to see.
Federation.
Her heart slams once in her chest.
She knows Bailey-slippery PR guy with slick hair and a reputation for spinning gold out of rot. The other one's unfamiliar, but the federation badge on his blazer glints like a warning.
"Ivy," Coach Lorne says, voice low, unreadable. "We need to talk."
She doesn't sit. Her pads are still half-on, sweat cooling against her skin. "What's going on?"
Bailey steps forward, pulling a phone from his coat. "You should see this."
The screen lights up. Paused footage. Blurry. Zoomed-in. Crowd angle.
She hits play.
It's her. Tunnel footage-between second and third period. The assistant coach, Halverson, is in her face, spitting words. Her expression is a blank wall. No reaction. Then she pushes past him and disappears.
The video cuts there. But the caption below glows like neon in a dark alley:
Star Forward Ivy Ransom ignores teammate assault. Complicit in silence?
Her gut drops.
"This is-this is a stretch," she says, laughing, but it's brittle. "A smear job. I didn't even touch him."
"There's more," Bailey says, and his tone? That's the real punch. Grim. Almost... apologetic.
The next video loads. Audio only. Shitty phone recording, but the voices are unmistakable.
Halverson.
And Liza Min.
"-don't belong on this team," he's saying, voice low, angry. "You think you're special because you're fast? You're not. You're lucky we even let you on the damn roster."
Silence. Then, soft: "Don't touch me."
Liza. So quiet you might miss it.
The clip ends.
No music. No cutaway. Just silence.
Ivy's breath leaves her in a single hard exhale. Her chest is tight, too tight. She remembers that day-Liza crying in the showers. Refusing to take off her gear. Bruises she blamed on practice drills. Ivy had asked, once. Just once.
And when Liza brushed her off?
She let it go.
"You knew," the other suit says, voice sharp. "You didn't report it."
"I didn't see anything," Ivy snaps. Her throat is closing up, her voice cracking against it. "I asked her. She said she was fine. I didn't-"
"Actually," Bailey interrupts, and now he's all business, "as team captain, it kind of is your job to notice."
The word hits harder than it should.
Captain.
Leader.
Face of the Ravens, darling of sponsorships, the "future of women's hockey" according to ESPN. The kind of name kids wear on their backs. The kind of girl they put on cereal boxes and Pride campaigns.
Now she's the villain in a viral exposé.
The other suit pulls a folded letter from his coat. "We're suspending you, pending investigation. Effective immediately."
Her body locks up. "No. That's insane. You want a scapegoat? Fine. But I'm not-"
"You're done, Ivy," Coach Lorne says, and that's what finally does it.
Not the PR guy. Not the suit.
Coach.
He won't even look her in the eyes.
Something cracks open inside her.
She doesn't remember leaving-just her skates scraping the concrete, the weight of all those eyes on her back, and the sound of silence swallowing her whole.
---
Three hours later.
Her apartment is too quiet.
Her stick is propped in the corner. Her gear bag lies open and untouched. She's still in half her base layer, hair damp and matted, the cut on her cheek crusted with dried blood.
Her phone's been going off nonstop. The screen flashes like a slot machine:
114 messages.
23 missed calls.
#IvyKnew is trending.
#ProtectThePlayers.
#BenchTheQueen.
She doesn't open any of them.
The team's official statement is already up. A slick, impersonal paragraph about "ongoing investigations" and "commitment to athlete safety." No names. No accountability.
She tosses the phone on the couch and stares at the ceiling.
She should be furious.
And she is. But not at the Federation. Not at Lorne. Not even at Halverson, not really.
She's furious at herself.
She saw the bruises. She heard the fear in Liza's voice, the way her hands shook during warmups. She knew. And she didn't push.
Because she was scared.
Scared of rocking the boat. Of jeopardizing their already-unstable season. Of being the loudmouth, the drama queen, the "difficult" player who doesn't know when to shut up.
And now?
Now she's reaping what she didn't sow.
She opens her burner Instagram account. The one she never links to press or sponsors. It's the only place she follows people she actually cares about-queer athletes, indie skaters, minor-league grinders who never got their shot because they didn't fit the brand.
Girls like-
There she is.
Rey Navarro.
A reposted clip plays automatically. Rey, standing at a press conference, eyes blazing with fury. No makeup. No script.
"I'm tired of this fake-ass league pretending it cares about us when it buries players like Liza," Rey says, voice shaking with rage. "When it sells people like Ivy Ransom as role models while they stay silent to keep their goddamn sponsorships."
The room goes silent. Even the reporters don't interrupt.
Ivy's breath stutters.
She and Rey were never close. Not really. Same training camps, opposite conference teams. There was tension, always-that quiet, pulsing kind that sometimes crackles into flirtation and sometimes feels like hate.
They'd hooked up once. Maybe twice. Off-season. Not serious. Not messy.
Still-seeing her face like that, angry and raw and right?
It hits somewhere deep.
The post has over a million views. The comments are on fire.
Finally someone says it.
Rey for captain.
Burn it down.
The caption reads:
Ice melts. Empires fall. Truth stays cold.
Ivy doesn't cry.
She hasn't cried in years-not since her scholarship was on the line and her parents said we can't help you anymore, you'll have to earn it. But tonight, her eyes burn.
She drops the phone. Curls into the corner of the couch. Pulls her knees to her chest.
Because the worst part isn't the suspension. Or the press. Or the betrayal.
It's that she doesn't disagree with Rey Navarro.
Not entirely.
And that? That scares the hell out of her.
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