Page 17 of Cold Shoulder, Hot Take (Seattle Puckaneers #2)
GOLDA
T he drive home from the charity game feels endless. Tyson chatters excitedly from the backseat about sitting on the player bench, how cool the professional equipment looked, how the firefighters were “actually pretty good for guys who aren’t real hockey players.”
“Did you see Coach Dex’s face when they scored the first goal?” he asks. “He looked so surprised!”
Surprised. That’s one way to put it.
“I saw,” I manage, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter.
“Why do you think they lost so bad?” Blythe chimes in. “I thought professional players were supposed to be really good.”
“Sometimes people have off days,” I say carefully, the same explanation I’ve been giving myself for the past hour.
But it wasn’t just an off day, was it? It was something else entirely. The way Dex looked at me after I sang, like I’d surprised him somehow. The way he played afterward—distracted, unfocused, like his mind was somewhere else entirely.
Like maybe what I did had affected him.
The thought makes my stomach churn with guilt.
“Can we get ice cream?” Tyson asks as we pull into our driveway. “To celebrate me sitting with the real team?”
“It’s almost dinnertime,” I start, then catch sight of his hopeful face in the rearview mirror. After everything today, ice cream seems like the least I can do. “You know what? Sure. But just small ones.”
Their cheers fill the car, and for a moment I can pretend this is just a normal Saturday. That I didn’t just sing in front of hundreds of people. That a professional hockey player didn’t have some kind of breakdown that might have been related to me.
That I’m not sitting here wondering what the hell just happened.
Later that night, after the kids are finally asleep and the house has settled into its familiar quiet, I find myself wide awake in bed with my laptop balanced on my knees. I should be working on the new audiobook script—three chapters due by Friday—but I can’t concentrate.
I keep replaying the moment when our eyes met across the rink after I finished singing. The look on his face—stunned, almost confused. And then what happened during the game, how he seemed to forget how to play hockey.
Did I somehow cause that?
The thought has been eating at me all evening. What if my singing was so bad it threw him off? What if I embarrassed myself and by extension embarrassed him in front of his teammates and the crowd?
Before I can talk myself out of it, I open a new browser tab and type: “Dex Malone Seattle hockey.”
The results are immediate and extensive.
His official team photo appears first—all sharp jaw and confident smirk in his uniform.
Then the news articles: “Malone Leads Puckaneers to Victory,” “Star Forward Signs Contract Extension,” and buried further down, “Seattle’s Most Eligible Bachelor Strikes Again. ”
I click on that last one despite my better judgment.
The sports blog post is from three months ago, featuring a photo of Dex in a perfectly tailored tuxedo at some charity gala. His arm is around a woman who looks like she stepped off a magazine cover—all legs and glossy hair and a dress that even pre-children I would never have dared.
“Sources confirm Malone’s latest companion is Victoria Carhart, the model-slash-influencer who recently graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. The pair were spotted at Il Posto’s VIP section, where Malone reportedly dropped four figures on champagne...”
Four figures. On champagne. For one night.
I scroll down to the comments section, despite knowing exactly what’s coming:
DaddyDex4eva: Still waiting for my turn
PuckBunny2023: Why does he always go for the same type? We get it, you like tall blondes with fake everything
SeattleFan: My ovaries just exploded
HockeyMom47: He can check me into the boards any day
The age and explicitness of the comments makes my skin crawl. These aren’t teenagers—some of these women mention kids, husbands. They’re talking about a man they’ve never met like he’s merchandise.
I close that tab and try Instagram, which turns out to be a mistake of epic proportions.
His official account has 2.8 million followers. The most recent post is from two weeks ago—a team photo after their last win. The comments are a wasteland of thirst:
Miss you
Still waiting for you to notice me
Daddy energy is STRONG with this one
There’s that “Daddy” thing again. I should stop, but like a train wreck I can’t look away.
I scroll through his photos. Expensive restaurants. Red carpet events. Charity galas where he’s always with a different stunning woman. There’s a pattern—they’re all tall, glamorous, the kind of women who look effortless in designer gowns while I struggle to find jeans that hide my mom-pooch.
In one photo from last summer, he’s on a yacht (of course he has access to yachts) with three women in bikinis. The caption reads: “Seattle summers hit different ”
The comments on that one are particularly brutal:
Pick me next
I volunteer as tribute
My DMs are open
I continue scrolling like I’m performing surgery on myself. More yacht photos. More galas. More gorgeous women who look like they belong in his world of private jets and champagne towers.
Then I find the video.
It’s from a local morning show from months ago.
The host, a perfectly styled blonde who’s definitely part of Dex’s usual demographic, is interviewing him about the team’s playoff hopes.
But she’s also clearly flirting, leaning forward just enough to show her cleavage, laughing too loudly at his jokes.
“So Dex,” she purrs, “our viewers want to know—what kind of woman catches the eye of Seattle’s most eligible bachelor?”
He grins that practiced media smile. “Someone who can keep up with my schedule. Someone who understands the lifestyle.”
The lifestyle. Like dating him requires a specific skill set that I definitely don’t possess.
I’m about to close the video when the interview cuts to game footage—highlights from their recent win against Vancouver. And suddenly, everything changes.
In uniform, Dex is a completely different person. Gone is the polished media personality, replaced by something raw and focused and devastatingly competent. He’s moving across the ice like he was born there, stick handling the puck with movements so fluid they look choreographed.
The camera follows him as he sets up behind the net, and I find myself leaning closer to the screen.
The way his body moves—all controlled power and athletic grace—is mesmerizing.
His thighs flex as he pivots, muscles visible even through the hockey pants, and when he whips around to make a pass, the motion is so smooth and precise it’s almost artistic.
“Jesus,” I breathe, then immediately feel guilty for the reaction.
The footage switches to slow motion as he takes a shot—the wind-up, the follow-through, the way every muscle in his body coordinates for maximum power.
His face is intense, focused, completely absorbed in what he’s doing.
This isn’t the cocky playboy from the yacht photos.
This is an athlete at the top of his game, and it’s. ..
It’s really attractive.
Uncomfortably attractive.
I slam the laptop shut, heart racing for reasons I don’t want to examine. What is wrong with me? Five minutes ago I was disgusted by his lifestyle, by the parade of Instagram models and comments. Now I’m getting flustered watching him play hockey like some kind of sports-obsessed teenager.
But I can’t stop thinking about the way he moved. The precision. The control. All that athletic ability wrapped up in a body that—despite everything I know about his character—is undeniably impressive.
I open the laptop again, telling myself I’m just being thorough in my research.
This time I search for “Dex Malone highlights” and immediately regret it.
The first video is a compilation set to aggressive music, titled “Dex Malone - Pure Skill.” It’s five minutes of him dominating on ice—scoring goals, making impossible passes, checking opponents into the boards with the kind of controlled violence that should appall me but somehow doesn’t.
There’s a shot where he’s coming out of the penalty box, jaw clenched, hair damp with sweat, and he looks like something out of a very specific type of fantasy. The kind I definitely shouldn’t be having about my son’s hockey coach.
“Focus, Golda,” I mutter to myself, but my eyes are glued to the screen.
The next clip shows him in practice gear—just a simple drill video posted by the team’s social media. He’s working on stick handling, moving the puck through a series of cones. His movements are economical, efficient, no wasted motion. Every touch is deliberate.
I find myself wondering what those hands would feel like. How that precision and control might translate to... other activities.
The thought hits me like a slap, and I actually say “No” out loud to my empty bedroom.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to becoming one of those women in his Instagram comments. The ones making embarrassing propositions to a man who sees them as interchangeable entertainment.
But then the video cuts to him helping one of the youth players—a kid maybe Tyson’s age who’s struggling with backwards skating. Dex drops to one knee on the ice, demonstrating the foot positioning with infinite patience, his voice gentle and encouraging even though I can’t make out the words.
It’s the same patience I’ve seen him show Tyson. The same focus, but directed at teaching instead of scoring goals. And watching him with that kid, seeing the genuine care in his expression...
That’s even more attractive than the athletic prowess.
Which is a problem. A big, complicated problem that I definitely don’t need in my life.