Page 2 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

Chapter two

Evan

T he equipment room was still mine, for now.

Technically, it belonged to the trainers, but they'd long since learned to leave me alone when I had my laptop out and the label maker clutched in my hand like a holy relic. I was mid-spreadsheet—housing assignments, locker shifts, fridge rotation—when the radiator groaned behind me.

I didn't flinch.

This was my sanctuary. Four walls, a locked door, and the soft click of tabs populating everything with color-coded sanity. Yellow for rookies. Blue for veterans. Red for anyone who might explode before Christmas. Jake Riley's name was still gray—pending evaluation.

The label maker clicked once, then fed out a strip of black text on clear tape: Practice Jerseys - Clean - Thursday .

With my thumb, I peeled it from the backing and smoothed it onto a bin, pressing down each edge until the corners sealed flat.

The equipment room smelled like sharpened skate blades and industrial disinfectant, with an undertone of something warmer—the leather conditioner I'd applied to my gloves that morning.

My laptop balanced on a stack of helmet boxes, cursor blinking in cell B47 of the spreadsheet I'd titled "Roommate Logistics - October." Utilities split down the middle. Shower schedule staggered by fifteen-minute intervals. Fridge territory mapped into quadrants with color-coded labels.

Pickle's voice drifted through the doorway, bright with rookie enthusiasm.

"No, bro, like iconic. The way he dropped that bow? I need that energy in my life."

The unmistakable cackle that followed had to be Hog. Either that or someone had smuggled a goat into the locker room. Not impossible.

"Kid's got a point. Takes 'nads to own your mess like that."

Jake's name surfaced in the conversation like a hockey puck everyone wanted to touch. Again. It had been three hours since practice ended, and somehow, he was still the main topic in every corner of the building.

I saved the spreadsheet and closed the laptop.

Jake Riley was already everywhere, and that was alarming. Not because of the reality TV nonsense or the viral rap—those were noise. It was because when he'd looked at me across that three-foot gap between our stalls, something in his expression had been too familiar—comforting even.

I knew that look. I'd perfected it.

The equipment room fell quiet except for the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant sound of Zamboni blades scraping ice clean. I picked up the label maker and pressed the button again.

Helmet Shields - Replacement - Friday .

The routine should have been calming. Organization was order. Order was control. Control meant I didn't get moved to another placement in the middle of the night with thirty minutes to pack everything I owned into two garbage bags.

Instead, my hands were unsteady, and the label came out crooked. I cursed under my breath and smoothed it with the side of my thumb. The tape caught on itself—cheap roll from the team supply drawer, not the good one I kept at home.

I walked to the storage cabinet and pulled out a fresh drawer of practice socks, still warm from the industrial dryer. The cotton was soft between my fingers, and I sorted them by size—small, medium, large—into neat stacks on the equipment bench.

The label maker felt familiar in my palm as I pressed the keys: Practice Socks - Washed - Thursday .

The backing peeled away with a soft ripping sound, and something about that noise—the adhesive separating from paper—pulled me almost a decade into the past.

A kitchen in Mississauga. Age fifteen. Third foster placement in two years. This one a split-level in the suburbs with stained carpet and a foster dad who didn't speak unless it was about hockey stats or car repairs.

The house smelled like cigarettes and instant coffee, and the pantry was a disaster—cereal boxes shoved behind canned soup, peanut butter jars with lids sticky from fingers that never got washed, and oatmeal packets scattered like someone had given up halfway through putting groceries away.

Three other boys lived there. Marcus, who hoarded food under his bed. Danny, who'd been there two years and acted like he owned the place. And Kyle, who cried at night when he thought no one could hear.

I'd spent my first week keeping my head down, learning the unspoken rules. Don't touch Marcus's stuff. Don't challenge Danny's authority. Don't ask Kyle if he's okay.

The kitchen drove me insane. Every morning, I'd watch people dig through the mess looking for cereal, getting frustrated, and slamming cabinet doors. I feared the infectious disorder would spread to the rest of the house and my life until nothing made sense anymore.

So, one night, after everyone had gone to bed, I snuck downstairs and started organizing.

Alphabetized the condiments. Grouped the oatmeal packets by flavor.

Turned all the labels to face forward. It took two hours, and my knees ached from kneeling on the linoleum, but when I finished, the pantry looked like it belonged to people who planned ahead. People who stayed.

No one noticed the next morning. Marcus found his cereal faster, but he didn't say anything. Danny grabbed the peanut butter without cursing at the sticky lid. Kyle got his instant oatmeal—apple cinnamon, his favorite—without first digging through six other flavors.

That night, for the first time since arriving, I slept through until morning without waking up to check if my duffel bag was still packed by the door.

Back in the present, I smoothed the label onto the sock drawer and pressed down each corner until it held firm. The memory faded, but the emotions lingered. I had a desperate need to impose order and prove I could make things better, even if no one requested my assistance.

The equipment room was perfectly organized. Labels crisp and straight. Gear sorted by size and function. Everything in its place.

That was at the barn. I had a bigger question to face later. Jake Riley would be in our apartment tonight, and there wasn't a spreadsheet in the world that could prepare me for what he might do to the careful balance I'd built.

They traded my old roommate, and the Storm didn't pay enough for solo units—unless you were a goalie or dating the GM's nephew. Coach Rusk said he didn't believe in meddling.

The apartment was silent when I got home, except for the steady hum of the refrigerator and the soft beep of the thermostat resetting itself to evening mode. I hung my keys on the hook by the door and carried my grocery bags to the kitchen.

Flour. Butter. Vanilla extract. Cornflakes.

I unpacked each item, placing them on the counter in the order I'd use them.

The butter needed to soften, so I unwrapped it and set it on a plate near the window where the late afternoon sun could work on it.

The flour canister was nearly empty—just enough for one batch, which was perfect.

I didn't like having too much of anything sitting around.

Chocolate chip-cornflake cookies.

Lorraine had taught me the recipe at my second placement, the house in Hamilton with yellow curtains and a garden that actually grew things. She'd called them "first-day cookies"—the kind you made when someone new was coming, or when you needed people to try a little harder to like you.

"Sweeter than regular chocolate chip," she'd said as she measured cornflakes into a bowl. "But with that crunch that surprises people. Makes them remember you."

She'd paused, flour dusting her dark hands, and looked at me with the kind of directness that foster kids learned to fear. "It's harder to send someone away when they smell like vanilla."

I'd been eleven. Too young to understand that she was teaching me survival, not merely baking skills.

Fifteen minutes later, the butter had softened enough. I creamed it with sugar until the mixture turned pale and fluffy, the electric mixer's whir filling the quiet apartment. Eggs next, then vanilla—the real stuff, not the imitation that smelled like plastic.

I didn't mean to think about Jake while I folded in the flour.

I did anyway.

That ridiculous theatrical bow in the locker room, acceptance of an award for getting through his first day without combusting. The overly practiced deflection smile and how he'd looked straight at me when twenty guys were deciding whether to laugh with him or at him.

He sat too close, talked too loud, and wore that stupid hoodie like a shield. He wasn't scared. Not of being seen. Not the way I was. Not the way I still was.

The cornflakes crackled as I stirred them into the dough, along with chocolate chips that would melt just enough to bind everything together. I shaped the cookies with a spoon, dropping them onto parchment paper—two inches apart, room to spread but not touch.

I set the oven timer for twelve minutes. While the cookies baked, I washed the mixing bowl and spoon, dried them, and put everything away in its designated place.

The kitchen smelled like butter and brown sugar, warm and comforting.

When the timer chimed, I pulled the cookies from the oven and set them on the cooling rack. Golden brown with dark chocolate chips peeking through the cornflake crunch. Perfect.

I transferred two to a plate and left the rest on the counter.

Jake would arrive in three hours with whatever chaos he considered essential belongings.

I sat on the couch with my laptop balanced on my knees, still wearing the plaid button-up I'd pulled on after my shower. The cookie on the plate beside me had cooled completely, and I broke off a piece, savoring how the cornflakes added texture to the familiar sweetness.

The cursor blinked in the search bar. I'd been sitting there for ten minutes, telling myself I was checking email, updating my training log, doing anything except what I was actually doing.

Finally, I typed: Jake Riley highlight reel .

I expected lowlights. Blooper reels. More footage of sequined jerseys and autotuned disasters. The internet loved a good trainwreck, and Jake Riley had given them plenty of material to work with.

What I found surprised me.

The first video was from three seasons ago, before the shoulder injury that derailed everything.

Jake streaked down the left wing, stick handling through traffic with the kind of quick hands that coaches couldn't teach.

He threaded a no-look pass between two defenders, finding his teammate's blade in the precise spot the goalie couldn't reach.

I clicked on another clip. Jake scored from an impossible angle, the puck somehow finding the top shelf despite three bodies in front of the net. What caught my attention most wasn't the goal—it was what happened after.

He'd collided with the opposing defenseman on his way to the boards, and instead of celebrating, he'd turned back to check if the guy was okay. Helped him to his feet. Patted his shoulder.

The camera had caught it all, including the act of kindness, but the announcers didn't mention it. Too busy replaying the goal from six different angles.

I scrolled through more videos. Jake set up plays that never made the highlight packages because assists didn't trend like goals. He backchecked hard in the defensive zone, throwing his body in front of shots that would leave bruises for weeks.

It wasn't only flash. There was instinct. Awareness. And something else—a carefulness with other people that didn't match the mayhem of his public persona.

I paused on a frame of Jake mid-laugh, head thrown back, completely unguarded. Not the practiced grin from the locker room or the deflective smirk from Love on Ice . Pure joy.

I slammed the laptop shut, heart hammering. Jake Riley wasn't supposed to be complicated. He was supposed to be noisy and chaotic and easy to dismiss.

Another memory hit me without warning. Junior hockey, six years ago.

A kid named Aiden Walsh, who played right wing and never went to the team parties.

Quiet, serious, the kind of player who arrived early and left late.

He'd come out to a few of us after a road game in Barrie, sitting in the hotel room we shared, speaking barely above a whisper.

"I wanted you guys to know." He stared at his hands. "In case it matters."

Three weeks later, the team cut him—no explanation given. No warning. Gone.

I'd known it wasn't about how he played. Aiden had been solid, reliable, fast, and had good vision. He was the kind of player coaches built teams around.

I didn't say anything. Not to the coaches, other players, or even to Aiden himself before he'd packed his gear and disappeared. I'd watched it happen and convinced myself it wasn't my business.

It had felt like betrayal then. Six years later, it still did.

The apartment was quiet except for the refrigerator cycling on and the distant sound of traffic on Memorial Avenue. I picked up the cookie and took another bite, tasting butter and vanilla.

Jake Riley would arrive soon with his duffel bags and his complicated history. He'd disrupt my routines, test my carefully maintained boundaries, and probably leave his gear scattered across the living room floor.

I didn't know whether I liked him, but I couldn't ignore him.

The front door lock clicked, and I heard the sound of someone juggling keys and luggage in the hallway.

I set the laptop aside and stood, brushing cookie crumbs from my shirt. Time to find out what sharing space with a chaos agent was like.