Page 3 of Moms of Mayhem (Mayhem Hockey Club #1)

My knee bounced constantly, nervous energy coursing through me as the players took the ice. Jace came out with the first shift and bile rose in my throat.

“Yeah,” Ty answered. “The best we have.”

“And he’s a freshman? On first string?”

I could hear the surprise in Beckett’s voice, and part of me wanted to reach across and slap him for doubting Jace, but I was too keyed up to move.

“I told you he’s good.”

Brother of the year, right there. As much as I hated letting Ty swoop in to save the day for me, he was more than half the reason I’d moved back to Linwood, the support system and role model I wanted for Jace that he’d never had in Ryan.

Sure, he wasn’t his dad, but as today proved, Ty showed up far more than Ryan ever did, even when we’d lived in the same house.

The music in the arena stopped, and I held my breath, watching the players take their positions.

Jace leaned down on his stick, his gaze laser-focused on the ref standing in the middle of the ice, ready to drop the puck.

Between Ty, then Ryan, then Jace, I had been to thousands of hockey games in my life, but this one mattered more.

“Come on, buddy,” I muttered, my hands steepled in front of my mouth. “Show them what you’re made of.”

I felt Ty and Beckett looking at me, but I could hardly breathe, let alone care about what anyone thought of my crazy mom vibes.

No one loved my son more than me, and my son loved hockey more than he loved anything.

He had been pissed when I moved him across the country this summer, but it was a mother’s job to do what was best for their kids, and Ryan was not it.

The puck dropped, and I shot to my feet. Thankfully, Ty knew this about me, which was why he chose the last row. No one behind me was going to ask me to sit down.

“Let’s go bud!” I screamed, unable to keep the words in my mouth.

Jace took off after the puck, faster than anyone else on the ice despite being younger than all of them. He caught the puck on a pass, then cut to the right, flying past a defender and toward the net. The game moved fast, the way all good hockey did, and I gasped and screamed in turn.

A kid twice Jace’s size flew toward him, and Jace dumped the puck to a teammate, but it was intercepted. Jace stood upright, frustration evident as he took off back down the ice, chasing it again.

“I’m going to puke,” I mumbled, adrenaline sending my heart into overdrive like it was me down there instead of my son.

“Careful, Jace,” Ty said next to me, and I shot my brother a look that said, talk shit about him, and I’ll murder you in your sleep.

Before Jace could catch up with the puck again, his shift came off the ice and he sat down hard on the bench. I sagged down onto my own seat, my shoulders dropping.

“He’s off tonight,” I said to no one in particular. “Dammit, Ryan.”

Ty patted my leg, then stood when the ref blew the whistle for an offsides call. “I’ll go get you a pretzel. Need anything else?”

“Fireball?” I suggested. “Xanax? A tranquilizer, maybe?”

Beckett chuckled, and I shot my brother’s best friend a look. “Long game ahead of you for you to be losing it this quickly.”

“Once you push a 9-pound baby out your nostril you can tell me how to mother. Until then, keep your mouth shut.”

He held his hands up, and Ty slapped me on the shoulder. “One hot pretzel, coming up. Diet Coke too?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

My brother shook his head, then walked down the aisle, Rowdy hopping along at his heels.

The game moved on, and I tried to remember the names of the other players on the Mayhem, but this was his first season with this team, and I’d been too busy moving and setting up Elevation Pilates, my studio in town, to attend as many practices as I usually would have.

The Bruins had a shot on goal, and our goalie dropped, blocking the puck with his stick. Beckett let out a long whistle at the save, and I glanced his way.

It had been years since I’d thought seriously about Beckett Conway, but the moment I saw him, it hit me like a freight train of memories and pheromones .

Damn .

He was even more gorgeous than I remembered—bigger now, broader in the shoulders, all adult muscle and quiet confidence, but still carrying that same effortless magnetism that used to make every girl in town lose her mind.

We’d grown up under the same roof more weekends than not, with him raiding our fridge and roughhousing in the yard with my brother.

He left for Juniors at 16 and never looked back.

The last time we were in the same room, I had braces and a bad attitude, and he was already halfway to becoming the town’s collective heartbreak.

Now he looked like the universe had given him an upgrade just to mess with me.

The scruffy dark beard clinging to his jaw had no business being that hot—messy enough to look effortless, trimmed just enough to know he cared.

His Denver Yetis hat was pulled low over his brow, but I didn’t need to see his eyes to remember their exact shade.

Unfairly blue, like the brightest summer day, warming you to the core.

They used to sparkle when he laughed, and I hated that I still remembered the sound.

Worse, I was suddenly hyper-aware of every nerve ending I had.

I didn’t want to notice. Didn’t want to feel anything.

But there he was, real, magnetic, and hotter than sin, and my lungs forgot how to work.

My brother didn’t talk about Beckett much—then again, my brother didn’t talk much at all—but I knew the space Beckett had let stretch between them hurt more than he let on. And honestly, that was enough for me.

Beckett Conway was a selfish, self-absorbed hothead who clearly cared more about his precious NHL dreams than the people he’d left behind.

Sure, he was hot. Like, infuriatingly hot.

But I was stubborn and petty, and more than capable of holding a grudge.

I had a whole list of reasons to dislike him—number one being the fact that he stole my parking spot and did it with the smug confidence of a man who was sure he deserved all the good things.

By the time Ty got back with a hot pretzel and a Diet Coke, Jace was back on the ice. I shot to my feet again, this time clutching the pretzel and shoving chunks into my mouth like a rabid chipmunk.

“What’d I miss?” Ty took the seat between Beckett and I again and flipped his hat around backward, adjusting it several times in what I knew was a nervous tick. Rowdy settled between his legs, curling up like he had a thousand times.

“Our goalie is quick,” Beckett answered. “Reflexes are great, but his glove hand was nowhere near where it needed to be.”

Ty hummed, and I chewed, savoring the salty, buttery pretzel. Tate made the best ones in town—it was a shame all she ran was a bougie concession stand and not a restaurant. She’d make a killing.

Jace got the puck again, and I clutched the pretzel to my chest, swallowing as fast as I could.

He raced down the ice; the countless hours he spent conditioning with Ty this summer showing in how fast he moved.

I bounced in place, my calves screaming after today’s Pilates classes, but things like physical pain didn’t register in the delirious state I resided in while watching my kid play.

“She always like this?” Beckett asked .

My head snapped his way, and if this had been any pretzel but Tate’s, I would have chucked it at his head. My mouth was too full to shoot off the sassy retort I had planned, then the sound of bodies slamming against the glass ricocheted through the arena.

I sucked in a breath, damn near choking on the last of the pretzel in my mouth as I looked back toward the ice. Jace was on his knees, scrambling to get back up, and the Bruins had the puck again.

“Get up, get up,” I mumbled, my eyes trained on my son, reading every furious line of his body. “Keep it together, bud.”

Before Jace made it down the ice, the buzzer sounded, and the Bruins scored.

“Shit,” Beckett said, and I sagged back onto the bench. The shift changed and Jace came off the ice again, except this time he knocked the water bottle off the bench, sending it flying.

“He’s going to lose it,” I said to no one, dropping my head in my hands, dread coursing through me.

Even from across the rink and separated by layers of glass, I could feel the frustration pouring off my kid in waves. He’d always had a temper, but every time Ryan broke a promise to him, it got worse. Unfortunately, we had a lot of experience with unfulfilled promises.

I pushed my head down between my knees, unable to watch the rest of the game, knowing how this would go.

“He’s back on,” Ty said.

I gave him a thumbs up but kept my head down. The buzzer sounded again, and no one around me cheered.

0-2.

I peeked at the game between bouts of panic attacks, munching on my pretzel and sipping the Diet Coke when I could, but by the time we were down 0-4, it was hard to watch.

The third period started, and you could feel the energy in the rink deflate. Lots of families left, and I could hardly blame them. Hockey was a fast game, and every second mattered, but this one felt like a runaway train.

I didn’t bother texting Ryan or sending any videos—the last thing Jace needed after this beating was a phone call from his absent father dissecting everything he’d done wrong.

Jace was on the starting shift again, and even behind his mask I could see the anger on his face. He hated losing, but I knew it was Ryan’s absence that was the real problem.

Teen years meant my son acted indifferent about almost everything these days, but their Thanksgiving visit had gone well, and Jace was excited to show Ryan Linwood.

He’d talked about maybe staying at the hotel in Vail with his dad, and where they’d eat this weekend, and the video game he wanted to show him. He’d even worn a University of Michigan shirt to school today—Ryan’s alma mater.

Beckett’s too, but the last thing Jace needed was to know his idol was watching him lose this bad.

Jace got the puck off the tip off and shot toward the net like a bat out of hell.

But the Bruins’ defender had his number now, and raced forward at the same time, slamming him into the boards.

Jace’s head snapped back from a high stick, then crumpled.

He was back up in an instant, but his stick was gone.

I shot to my feet as Jace flew toward the defender with control of the puck, his shoulders dropped. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

In an instant, Jace threw himself into the defender’s abdomen, dragging him down to the ice. He sat on his chest and slammed a glove into his face, and I turned my back. “Tell me when it’s over.”

The ref blew the whistle, and—I knew it was coming—ejected my son.

“Bruins’ Number 12: five-minute major and a match penalty for intentional high sticking.

Mayhem’s Number 61: two minutes for instigating, five for fighting, and a game misconduct.

Number 12 and Number 61 are both ejected from the game. Penalties will be served as assessed.”

I dropped my head, then sighed. Ty bumped my shoulder, and I shrugged him off, not ready to hear whatever he had to say. Grabbing my purse, I stormed down the steps toward where my son was coming off the ice.

So much for a great day.