Page 57 of Hockey Halloween

Archer

I have a bad feeling about this . Archer Reid stared out the window of his Uber inching along in Vegas Monday evening traffic and shifted uncomfortably with his hockey bag stretched across the backseat and over his lap.

His stick was angled from the opposite foot well so that the butt end rested on his shoulder.

He wasn’t exactly a small guy. It was a less-than-ideal way to get to his debut game as a Sinner, and he was going to be late .

What a way to make a first impression. Well, second, technically. The first had been worse.

The engine of the aging sedan, which had been making curious sounds since his hotel pick-up, mewled and grinded, and the car jerked. Jerked again. Stopped. The driver slapped the dashboard. “Come on! Not again.”

Archer’s anxiety spiked along with his heartrate. Shit . It wasn’t like he could call an Uber from an Uber. There wasn’t time. He was only two blocks from the arena. He’d be gassed by the time he got there, but what choice did he have? “Hey, I’m just gonna walk from here.”

The driver muttered an apology, still mostly focused on his own misfortune, and Archer climbed out in an awkward shuffle of bag, stick, long limbs, and a bulky body in an awkward, struggling wiggle that could have slayed on America’s Funniest Home Videos .

Horns honked all around him as he navigated to the sidewalk into a sea of tourists all headed in different directions.

He made it about twenty feet, feeling like a salmon swimming upstream, fighting all the way, when another horn honked.

Then honked twice. It was the final performance of “Shave and a Haircut” ending with beep beep that finally made him look.

A woman had pulled up to the curb in an iridescent purple car and waved at him.

He stopped in his tracks for a second because she wasn’t just a woman.

She looked like a Victoria’s Secret model.

And she was wearing angel wings. Literally.

Then again, it was almost Halloween. And Las Vegas.

She rolled the passenger window down. “Get in!”

“Oh. I can’t?—”

“Yes, you can. Get in! I’m going to the game too. Swear I’m not a stalker.” She lifted a Las Vegas Sinners Staff badge on a lanyard hanging from her neck.

Relief flooded him, and he made his way to her, tossing his stuff in the back of her car before dropping into the passenger seat. She pulled back into traffic, using her mirrors to full effect to pull off an impressive maneuver that got them in the left lane and moving steadily toward the arena.

“You saved me. Thought I was going to be late to my first game here. I’m Archer Reid. New call-up.”

“Teddy Walker. I’m new to the organization myself. But you probably recognize me.” There was no ego in her tone. It was matter of fact, like everyone knew her and she was used to it.

Except he didn’t. “Oh. Yeah.” He tried to be nonchalant, but she must have caught something in his voice or the surely less-than-convincing expression on his face.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and a wide smile curled her full lips. “You really don’t. Wow. That’s nothing bad on you, just new for me. I have a…pretty big following on TikTok.”

“Oh, I’m not on social media.”

Her perfectly manicured brows pinched in confusion as if he’d slipped into speaking Greek. “Well, not everyone’s on TikTok. You probably stick with Insta.”

“Nope.”

“Snapchat?”

“Sorry.”

Her small, freckled nose wrinkled slightly as if it pained her to even say it. “Facebook?”

“I can save you some time. I have an email address. That’s it.” He’d never been self-conscious about it before, but some heat crept up his neck and into his face.

“Oh.” She looked gobsmacked like it never occurred to her that a human could exist off socials.

He shifted in his seat, angled toward the window.

Her hand landed on his knee and gently squeezed, threatening a different kind of embarrassing reaction.

“I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.

” Oblivious to the idea that an intimate touch might do the same.

Not that he was complaining. Even though his shyness was at war with his attraction.

There was something easy about the way she touched him, like she’d known him a long time instead of five minutes.

At a red light, she faced him fully, and the sarcasm and judgement he might expect from someone who looked the way she did was not there.

At all. Instead, a warmth radiated from her light blue eyes that eased the tension in his shoulders and the knot in his stomach.

In fact, his anxiety melted away under her smile that was just a little sideways. “Forgive me?”

Anything . “Yeah, no big.”

She exhaled, looking relieved as the light changed, and she made her way into and around the arena lot. “Good, because pretty soon you’re really gonna resent me. I’d hate to start off in the deficit.”

“What do you?—”

“This is your stop! Better hoof it from here.” She braked about a hundred feet from the entrance. “Only a half hour till gametime.”

His attention snapped back to his immediate concern, and he jumped out then collected his stuff from her backseat. “Thanks again.”

“See you around!”

Under other circumstances, he’d look forward to that, but her comment about resenting her haunted him all the way to the locker room.

“Reid. You’re late.” Coach and former Sinners player Carter Phlynn made the observation with only a little annoyance in his tone.

“Sorry, Coach. Won’t happen again.”

“I know it won’t,” Phlynn remarked without looking up from his clipboard. It was either a vote of confidence or the surety that Reid would be back in Carson City by morning.

Great. With a heaviness in his chest, Archer glanced around the circular room and saw an empty locker with Reid written on a piece of painter’s tape across the name of the true owner of the stall. Another reminder that he’d have to work his ass off to earn the right to stay here.

“He won’t hold it against you as long as you don’t do it again.

” The words came from the player to Archer’s right.

Holy shit, it was Dylan Cole. Archer had seen him in training camp the year before, and logically, he knew the man would be in this room tonight, but being right next to him was a different thing entirely.

The guy had taken the league by storm when he was barely eighteen and almost fifteen years later was still breaking records every season.

“I-I swear I won’t. My Uber broke down in traffic halfway to the arena.”

Cole raised a brow as he taped the blade of his stick. “How’d you get here?”

“A woman, I guess she works here, flagged me down when she saw me trying to run on the sidewalk and gave me a ride the rest of the way.”

“Oh yeah? Who? Everyone kind of knows everyone here. You’ll get used to it.”

“Uh…her name’s Teddy. Teddy Walker? Blonde. Pretty. Angel wings? ”

“Sounds like my wife. But her name’s Lori.” Cole glanced up with a grin. “The wings, are we talking literal or…?”

“Legit angel wings and a halo. For the Halloween game. Probably.”

“Ah. Haven’t met her yet, but I’ve heard talk. Word is she’s set to be the team’s social media manager. She’s some TikTok star, right?”

Archer nodded numbly. Social media manager.

No wonder she’d had that reaction to him.

And her off-hand comment started to make more sense.

Oh God . He fought the rise of dread at imminent future embarrassment and forced his focus on getting dressed and ready for the game.

If he bombed tonight, he could say goodbye to Vegas.

And getting to know Teddy. Despite himself and for reasons he couldn’t imagine, he wasn’t ready to do either one yet.

Teddy strode into the press box to be rushed by Saralynn Reese, her boss.

“Thank God you made it. The puck’s about to drop.

Cute costume.” Saralynn herself was dressed as an obsessed Sinners fan in head-to-toe black and green, glittery logos everywhere they’d fit, face paint, and the obligatory glow horns headband.

“Thanks. Crazy story getting here.”

“Tell me in a second. I need your eyes on the pre-game to catch any missed opportunities.” Saralynn took her hand and guided her to the chairs closest to the railing overlooking the ice.

That was to be Teddy’s job in a nutshell. Searching every nook and cranny of the organization for social media golden nuggets. And damned if a whole treasure chest hadn’t fallen into her car on the way to the game. But first things first.

The lights went down, the announcer boomed his introduction of the starting lineup, and the players skated out of a giant inflatable devil head to “Sin City” by AC/DC.

The dance team lined their entrance, shaking silver pom poms and their hips.

The whole arena sang along, and pyrotechnics shot off overhead while Sinbad the mascot pumped up the crowd on the Jumbotron screen.

It was an impressive production and gave her a dozen ideas off the bat .

Teddy raised her voice as the announcer called the starting line-up.

“Pre-game is fire, but I’m thinking the dance team and Sinbad need their own socials.

The dancers could take video in practice on and off the ice.

Give makeup and hair tutorials. They’d get brand deals for sure, and the team would benefit too.

Sinbad could pull silly pranks around the arena, even in spots of the building fans and media don’t usually get to see.

Help introduce the whole organization. The more the fans know you all, the more loyal they’ll be. ”

Saralynn nodded along with a hard-to-pin smile and a sparkle in her eyes that probably equated to dollar signs.