Page 36 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

S ix months ago, Pickle would've been the kid setting the bake sale table on fire by accident. Now he was teaching some eight-year-old how to hold a hockey stick without taking out his own teeth. It showed patience that I didn't know Pickle possessed.

The Fort William Barn smelled like someone had detonated a Christmas bomb—pine garland wrestling with the eternal arena cocktail of popcorn grease and Zamboni exhaust. Kids shrieked across the ice in rental skates three sizes too big, and their laughter bounced off the rafters.

"Medically necessary for joy!" Hog's voice boomed from the bake sale table, where he'd stationed himself like a bearded, sweater-wearing bouncer. The sweater was his creation—red and green stripes with reindeer playing hockey.

I leaned against the boards, watching the beautiful chaos unfold.

We were sitting pretty in second place three months into the season and less than two weeks from Christmas.

It wasn't because we were hockey geniuses.

It was because we'd figured out how to be a team instead of twenty guys who happened to share a locker room.

Evan handled the silent auction table. He wore a green sweater pushed up to his elbows. A kid in a too-big Storm jersey tugged on his sleeve, and Evan crouched down, listening with focused attention.

That was my boyfriend. Not the guy I was sleeping with or the roommate I'd accidentally fallen for. Evan Carter was mine, and I was his, too.

My phone buzzed against my ribs. Three texts, two missed calls, and a notification that made my stomach drop:

@JunoParkPod tagged you in a post.

Fuck. What now?

I shoved the phone back in my pocket without looking. Whatever digital disaster Juno had unleashed could wait. A kid in a Rangers jersey was staring at me, waiting for me to notice.

"You're the guy from the internet," he announced, loud enough for half the arena to hear. "The one who rapped about hockey."

"Guilty as charged." I grabbed a stick from the rack behind me. "But today I'm the guy who's gonna teach you how to score on Santa Claus."

The kid's eyes went wide. "Really?"

"Really. First, you gotta promise me something."

"What?"

"Promise me you'll never, ever try to rap about sports. The world can't handle another one of me."

He giggled and nodded solemnly.

Twenty minutes later, a small army of kids followed me around the ice like I was the Pied Piper of minor league hockey. They wanted to know everything—how fast I could skate, whether it hurt when the puck hit me, and why Pickle had such a weird name.

"His real name's Travis," I explained to a gap-toothed girl who couldn't have been more than six. "But when he was little, he ate so many pickles his mom started calling him Pickle, and it stuck."

"That's dumb," she declared.

"Most hockey nicknames are dumb. That's what makes them perfect."

"Is that really Santa?" one of the kids asked, pointing at Coach's red-suited figure tracing figure eights on the ice.

"That's the grumpiest Santa in all of northwestern Ontario," I confirmed. "Legend says if you ask him for hockey gear, he just grunts and tells you to work on your backchecking."

The kids erupted in giggles. One of them—a tiny dynamo in head-to-toe Storm gear—tugged on my sleeve.

"Can you teach me how to do a hat trick?"

"Kid, if I could teach people how to do hat tricks, I'd be charging a lot more than your parents paid for this fundraiser."

More laughter.

The kids eventually got distracted by someone's mom, who brought quality hot chocolate—not the watery arena stuff, but the real deal with marshmallows that looked like tiny snowmen. I used the break to check my phone.

Seventeen notifications. Christ.

The latest was a text message:

Juno: Year-end episode is live. You're gonna love this one. Or hate it. Probably both.

Off the Ice: The Year of Chaos & Control sat at the top of my podcast feed, uploaded twenty-three minutes ago. It already had more downloads than some of her regular episodes got in a week.

I cringed. Two months of good press, solid hockey, and keeping my mouth shut when it mattered, and I still got that flash of panic when I saw my name in the media. My brain was permanently wired to expect the worst.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." Hog appeared beside me, balancing three cookies and a cup of coffee. "Or like Pickle roped you into a tour of TikTok again."

"Juno's year-end episode dropped."

"Ah." Hog bit into a gingerbread man. "The annual roasting of everyone who gave her good material. Are we listening to this or pretending it doesn't exist until someone forces us to confront it?"

Across the ice, Evan had finished helping the kids with the auction. He was with Pickle, who nodded enthusiastically while holding what appeared to be a candy cane shaped like a hockey stick.

"We're listening," I decided. "But not alone. Misery loves company."

"That's the spirit." Hog polished off the gingerbread man's head. "Round up the usual suspects. I'll grab more cookies. If we're going down, we're going down with proper snacks."

Five minutes later, we'd claimed a corner of the rink where the sound wouldn't carry to the kids. Evan, Hog, Pickle, Kowalczyk, and I huddled around my phone like we were planning a breakout play instead of listening to a podcast.

I hit play.

Juno's voice filled the space between us, warm and sharp and immediately familiar:

"Welcome back, you beautiful disasters. I'm Juno Park, and this is Off the Ice, coming to you live from a coffee shop in Thunder Bay, where the barista just asked me if I wanted my latte 'hockey strong' or 'regular person strong.

' I went with hockey strong, obviously, because this is the year-end episode and we've got some ground to cover. .."

Evan leaned closer, his shoulder warm against mine. "She sounds pleased with herself."

"She always sounds pleased with herself," Pickle whispered. "That's her brand."

"Let's start with the Thunder Bay Storm, shall we? Last season, they were the lovable disasters of the Northern League. Scrappy, sure. Entertaining, absolutely. But nobody was putting money on them making a playoff run..."

Hog snorted. "Nobody except us."

"Now? They're sitting pretty in second place, playing hockey that's equal parts smart and absolutely unhinged.

Their power play is like something you'd draw up in a fever dream, but it works.

Their penalty kill is surgical. And their locker room dynamic has gone from reality TV waiting to happen to something that looks suspiciously like team chemistry. .."

My face started to flush. It was the weird part of media attention I'd never figured out how to handle. Bad press, I could deflect or joke away. Good press made me want to hide under something.

Evan gripped my hand. Anchor. Reminder that this was real, not performance.

The episode kept rolling, and Juno's voice shifted into that conspiratorial tone she used when she was about to drop something juicy.

"Speaking of chemistry—and I promise this is the last time I'll be cryptic about my personal life—let's just say that covering hockey has introduced me to some.

.. interesting people. Including a certain rival journalist who shall remain nameless but who definitely doesn't work for any publication that rhymes with Bockey Beast. More on that never, because some things are beautifully off the record. .."

"Holy shit," Kowalczyk muttered. "Juno's got a girlfriend."

"A rival journalist girlfriend," Pickle added. "That's like... enemy territory romance."

Hog grinned. "Good for her. Everyone deserves someone who challenges them professionally and kisses them stupid afterward."

That earned him a look from all of us.

"What?"

The podcast continued, and I knew we were getting close to the part where Juno would inevitably turn her attention to the elephant in the room. Or the hockey players in the room. Whatever.

"But let's talk about the real story here. Jake Riley and Evan Carter..."

And there it was.

"...because honestly? If you'd told me six months ago that a reality TV refugee and a guy who color-codes his sock drawer would become the emotional core of a hockey team, I'd have suggested you switch to decaf. But here we are."

I wanted to crawl under the bleachers. Or into the Zamboni tunnel. Anywhere that wasn't sitting in a circle with my teammates while a journalist dissected my relationship.

Evan's thumb traced across my knuckles. Still there. Still solid.

"The thing about Jake and Evan—and yes, they're listening to this, hi boys—is that they've figured out something most people spend years trying to learn. How to let someone else make you better without losing who you are in the process."

"She's not wrong," Hog murmured.

"Take their on-ice chemistry. Riley's got the vision and the hands, but he used to play like he was auditioning for something instead of actually playing hockey.

Carter's got the defensive instincts of a chess grandmaster, but he played it so safe you'd think risk was personally offensive to him.

Put them together? Suddenly, Riley's making the smart plays because he trusts Carter to be there for the cleanup.

And Carter's jumping into the rush because he knows Riley will find him. "

Pickle nodded like Juno was delivering the hockey gospel. "That's exactly what happens. It's like they have some telepathic thing."

"It's called chemistry, Junior," Kowalczyk said. "Some people have it."

"Some people work for it," Evan corrected quietly.

"But the real story isn't the hockey, is it? It's watching two people figure out that love doesn't have to be neat or predictable or Instagram-ready. Sometimes it's messy and complicated and involves way too many arguments about proper labeling techniques."

"How does she know about the labels?" I hissed.

"Because you told her," Evan said. "During the interview. When she asked about living together."