Page 33 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

Chapter twenty-three

Jake

C oach summoned me to his office. Not asked.

Not requested. Summoned, like I was twelve years old, and he caught me putting gum in someone's hair.

The locker room banter faded behind me as I walked the green mile—Hog's booming laugh cut off mid-sentence when he saw where I was headed, and even Pickle stopped scrolling through TikTok long enough to shoot me a sympathetic look.

Half of me expected to walk away, pink slip in hand. The other half was already rehearsing something cocky to say about how Thunder Bay would miss my sparkling personality and ability to inject crowd appeal into the warm-up skate.

The door was open, but Coach didn't have me sit immediately. He leaned back in his ancient desk chair, working his gum like a cow with cud, giving me a brutal stare that coaches perfected in some secret academy where they learned to see straight through your bullshit.

"Riley." He finally gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Sit."

I sat.

He kept chewing and kept staring. He was quiet for long enough that I began mentally composing my resignation speech.

"You've still got ice time, but don't waste it performing."

I tilted my head to the side. His comment wasn't what I expected. Not even close.

"Performing?"

"You know what I mean." He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "All that dancing around and trying to turn every shift into a highlight reel. Playing for the cameras that aren't there."

I opened my mouth to joke—probably something about how cameras loved me, had he seen my follower count?—but the joke died in my throat. He was right. Fuck, he was so right it hurt.

"I know you think you need to prove something. Show everyone you're more than the memes." He sat up straight again. "Here's the thing—you already have. To the people who matter."

Suddenly, the room was a little warmer.

"Coach—"

"I'm not done." He held up one hand. "You want to know what I see when you're out there? When you're not trying to be someone else?"

I waited.

"I see a player who reads the ice like a book. Who makes his teammates better by being on their line. Who gives a shit about winning, not just looking good while you lose." He paused and chewed his gum more. "That's the guy I want on my team. Not the guy trying to rehabilitate his image."

He had just cracked me open, like an egg waiting to hatch.

"I want to stay." The words rushed out of my mouth. "Not to rehab my image. Not for the headlines. Because this..." I gestured vaguely at the office, the photos, the whole beautiful mess of it. "This feels like something real."

Rusk nodded once, sharp and decisive. "Then play like it."

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out something small and black—a practice puck, battered and scarred from countless drills.

"Here." He tossed it across the desk. "Reminder. This isn't about being perfect. It's about showing up."

I turned the puck over in my hands, feeling the nicks and scratches under my thumb. It was ugly and honest and what I needed.

"Thanks, Coach."

"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when you've earned it."

I stood, pocketing the puck like it was solid gold. At the door, I paused.

"Coach?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks anyway."

"Get out of here, Riley. And don't make me regret this."

I walked out of that office feeling like I'd just been handed the keys to something I didn't know I wanted until it was mine.

Instead of heading straight back to the locker room, I wandered out through the empty arena, replaying Coach's words in my head.

My phone buzzed against my hip.

Evan: Drop in?

I stared at the message, grinning like an idiot. Drop in. It was a hockey term for an unscheduled practice, but also Thunder Bay code for "meet me at The Drop because I need an excuse to drink something blue and watch you embarrass yourself on a karaoke stage."

The double meaning wasn't lost on me. Nothing ever was with Evan.

Jake: On my way. Fair warning: I'm in a dangerously good mood.

Evan: I'll prepare accordingly.

I pocketed the phone and took one more look around the empty arena. With each step, the practice puck pressed against my leg as I headed for the exit, a small weight that promised a bright future.

The Drop hit me like a warm, boozy hug when I pushed through the door.

Juno Park was holding court at the far end of the bar, her blue hair catching the colored lights from the ancient disco ball. She spotted me before I'd taken three steps inside and raised her drink in a salute.

I scanned the room for Evan and found him at a corner table, two drinks already waiting. Beer for him, something aggressively neon blue for me.

"Started without me?" I dropped into the chair across from him, eyeing my drink with appropriate suspicion.

"Started for you." Evan's smirk was dangerously close to smug. "I thought you needed something that matched your current energy level."

"My current energy level?"

"Insufferably pleased with yourself."

I sipped. It tasted eerily like blue raspberry lemonade Kool-Aid with a wicked alcohol kick.

"Fuck, what is this?"

"Something called a Thunder Bay Special. The bartender said a guy who got cut from three different teams invented it, deciding to take his anger out on innocent fruit flavoring."

"Seems about right." I sipped again. "So, to what do I owe this spontaneous drinking occasion?"

He didn't answer the question. Instead, "Karaoke starts in ten minutes."

"And?"

"And we're up third."

I blinked. "We're what now?"

"You heard me. Already signed us up."

"For what song?"

"That would ruin the surprise."

"Evan." I leaned forward, trying to look threatening. "What. Song."

"You'll find out when they call our names." He was enjoying my fear way too much. "Though I will say I chose something that requires commitment. Hog helped with suggestions."

"You know I can't actually sing, right?"

"Neither can half the people in here. And when did that stop you in the past? Honestly, singing quality is not the point."

"What is the point?"

He swallowed a mouthful of his beer. "The point is that sometimes you have to do something ridiculous because it's a night out in Thunder Bay, and you're alive. The alternative is going home to reorganize your sock drawer."

"You reorganized your sock drawer last week."

"Right. Time for a new adventure."

The karaoke host—a guy with a handlebar mustache—tapped the microphone and grinned at the crowd.

"Alright, you beautiful disasters! Who's ready to metaphorically strip themselves naked with musical accompaniment?"

The crowd cheered. Someone in the back yelled something about wanting to hear "Puck Life," which earned a round of laughter and at least three people shouting "NO!"

"Our first brave souls tonight are Sarah and Mike with 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart!'"

I watched a couple in matching flannel shirts take the stage and immediately start butchering the Elton John and Kiki Dee classic.

I leaned in close to Evan. "Any hints about what musical crime we're about to commit?"

"One." He leaned across the table, close enough that I could smell his shampoo. "Rusted."

As I wracked my brain for what song Evan's mysterious clue could imply, the host called out across the bar. "Jake Riley and Evan Carter! You're up!"

Evan stood. "Showtime."

I drained half my blue drink for courage and followed him toward the stage, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into and why I was so fucking excited to find out.

The opening synth line of "Love Shack" exploded through the speakers, and I turned to stare at Evan with a mixture of horror and pure admiration.

"You absolute psychopath."

"Don't you dare back down now." He grabbed his microphone with the confidence of someone who'd been planning this ambush for weeks. "The B-52s don't sing themselves."

The crowd was already losing their minds. Someone wolf-whistled. I heard Hog's distinctive cackle from somewhere near the back, probably already pulling out his phone to document the occasion for future blackmail purposes.

"Fine." I took the microphone, rolling my shoulders in preparation for battle. "I'm doing the weird talking parts."

"That's obvious. I don't have the vocal range for Kate Pierson."

The first verse kicked in, and Evan started singing. Not well—his voice had roughly the same musical quality as someone reading a phone book—but with the kind of deadpan commitment that made it better than actual talent.

I jumped in on the call-and-response parts, being fully theatrical with it. I wrapped the microphone cord around my wrist, cocked my hip, and pointed at random people in the crowd with my free hand.

Suddenly, the clue was there. I shouted the spoken word, "Tin roof! Rusted!"

The entire bar sang along with the chorus. Badly. Loudly. Their drunken enthusiasm turned our performance into a religious experience.

I grabbed Evan's hand and spun him around, microphone cord tangling between us. He laughed and spun back into me hard enough that our shoulders collided.

"LOVE SHACK!" we belted together, our voices clashing and harmonizing equally.

Hog's voice boomed from the back: "THAT'S MY BEAUTIFUL BOYS!" I saw him holding up his phone, grinning like Christmas morning. "THIS IS GOING STRAIGHT TO THE GROUP CHAT!"

Evan was loosening up. He moved to the beat, not standing there like someone had stapled him to the floor. The way he looked at me when he sang—fuck. It wasn't performance. It wasn't karaoke camp or ironic distance. It was Evan Carter, looking at me like I was worth keeping.

I almost forgot my next cue.

All I cared about was how Evan smiled at me—unguarded and real. He'd forgotten to protect himself from feeling something.

We belted out the final chorus together, voices blending and clashing in all the right ways. The song ended with a crash of synthesizers and thunderous applause. Evan breathed hard. His face was flushed, and his hair slightly mussed from all the spinning. Fuck, he looked happy.

"Holy shit," I panted into the microphone. "That was—"

"ENCORE!" Hog bellowed from the back. "DO 'BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY'!"

"Absolutely not," Evan said, but he was still smiling.

We returned the microphones to the host and stumbled off the stage to a round of applause that felt too generous for what we'd inflicted on everyone's eardrums. As we made our way back to our table, Evan reached for my hand and wove his fingers together with mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.

We collapsed into our seats, still laughing.

I reached for the remains of my blue drink. "Remind me never to trust you with song selection again."

"You loved every second of it."

"I did not love—" I saw his expression and gave up the fight. "Okay, fine. I loved it. But if anyone asks, you coerced me."

"Noted. Your reputation as a serious hockey player remains intact."

I was about to chirp back when something over Evan's shoulder caught my attention. At the far end of the bar, where the lighting got dimmer and the conversations quieter, Hog was leaning against the polished wood, talking to someone.

Not someone. A guy. Tall, confident, wearing a flannel shirt that fit him well instead of hanging off his frame like a tent. He was the kind of guy who belonged in Thunder Bay—weathered hands and easy smile. He probably drove a pickup truck and knew how to fix things when they broke.

Hog's behavior riveted my attention.

The Connor "Hog" Hawkins, who could silence a locker room with a single booming laugh, was gone. In his place was someone quieter. More careful. He leaned in, listening hard to whatever the guy was saying.

"Okay," I said, nudging Evan's ankle under the table. "Either Hog's working on a hostage negotiation or that's flirting."

Evan turned to follow my gaze, and I watched his eyebrows rise. "If that's not flirting, I'll eat your neon drink umbrella."

The townie spoke, hands moving as he gestured, and Hog nodding along, focused, entranced. When the guy laughed at something, Hog's smile wasn't his usual megawatt grin—it was smaller, more nervous.

"Holy shit," Evan murmured. "Look at his hands, and I thought Hog was into women."

I looked. Hog's massive hands—the same ones that could crush beer cans and knit intricate scarves with equal skill—were fidgeting.

He tapped his fingertips against his beer bottle and then ran them through his beard before drumming against the bar top like he couldn't figure out what to do with them.

"Well, a guy who likes that." I shrugged. "I've never seen him nervous."

"I've never seen him quiet for this long." Evan drank from his bottle. "The guy must be something special to shut up our man Hog."

The townie leaned closer—close enough that their shoulders touched—and tapped the rim of Hog's glass as if to emphasize whatever point he was making. Hog froze momentarily, then nodded, that nervous smile spreading across his face again.

"Well, I'll be damned," I muttered, settling back into the booth. "Hog's got game."

"Hog's got feelings," Evan corrected. "There's a difference."

It was none of my business, but I found myself rooting for whatever was happening over there, hoping the big guy got whatever he was working up the courage to ask for.

The music and laughter around us started to fade into background noise as I turned my attention back to Evan.

"Think he'll ask for the guy's number?" Evan asked.

"Think he already has it."

I looked around The Drop—really looked. At the scuffed wood floors that had seen thousands of nights just like this one.

At the neon beer signs casting colored shadows across faces I was starting to recognize.

At Juno, holding court near the dartboard, probably collecting material for her next podcast.

"You're thinking too hard," Evan said. "I can practically hear the gears turning from here."

"Processing."

"Processing what?"

"This," I said simply. "All of it."

"Good this or bad this?"

"Good this." I reached out for his hand, where it rested on the table. "Really fucking good this."