Page 37 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

Right. The interview. When I'd rambled for five minutes about Evan's organizational systems and how they made me feel safe instead of constrained. Apparently, I'd been more honest than I thought.

"What I love about their story—and this is where I get embarrassingly sentimental, so bear with me—is that it's not a redemption arc.

It's an evolution. Jake didn't need saving, and Evan didn't need fixing.

They only needed to find someone who saw their chaos or their control and thought, 'Yeah, I can work with that. '"

The episode moved on to other teams and stories, but I barely heard the rest. My brain was stuck on that word: evolution. Not redemption or rehabilitation. Not any of the other media-friendly narratives that had been plastered on my life for the past year.

Evolution. I liked it. I was becoming something better, not trying to erase something broken.

"That wasn't so bad," Evan said when the episode ended. "She made us sound almost functional."

"Almost," I agreed.

Hog scrolled through his phone. "Speaking of functional." He turned his phone around so we could see the screen. "You two might want to take a look at this."

I saw enough of the thumbnail to know precisely what it was. Me in a Santa suit and Evan in an elf costume from a fundraiser last week.

"Oh no," Evan said.

"Oh yes," Hog said, and hit play.

The video was fifteen seconds long and filmed from across the room with shaky phone camera work. Evan approached the bake sale table where I sat in full Santa regalia. He pointed at something—probably Hog's festive seasonal banana bread. I leaned across the table to grab it.

And then the mistletoe. Someone had hung it above the bake sale table as a joke, and when Evan looked up at it, I kissed him—Full-on, no hesitation, right in front of half of Thunder Bay.

The video caught all of it. The kiss and Evan's surprised laugh afterward, complete with a readjustment of the elf hat. Hog's voice could be heard yelling "THAT'S MY BOYS!" from somewhere off-camera.

"How many views?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Hog checked. "Forty-three thousand and climbing. Posted two hours ago."

Forty-three thousand people had watched me kiss my boyfriend while dressed as Santa Claus.

"Could be worse," Evan said, with the tips of his ears turning pink.

"Could be better," I countered. "That elf costume makes your ass look incredible. The camera angle doesn't do it justice."

Pickle snorted. Kowalczyk grinned. Hog looked like he wanted to frame the phone and hang it in his locker.

And Evan? Evan watched the video again, with that little crease between his eyebrows that meant he was processing something.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. It's just..." He looked up at me. "We look happy."

We did. In the grainy phone footage, surrounded by Christmas decorations and the disarray of a community fundraiser, we were two people who'd figured out how to be stupid in love without being ridiculous about it.

"That's because we are happy."

"Yeah," Evan smiled. "We are."

When we returned home, the apartment was quiet. When I first moved to Thunder Bay, the lack of noise would make me nervous. Now, it felt like coming home.

The whole place smelled like cinnamon and pine, courtesy of Evan's decorating.

"Beer?" Evan called from the kitchen, already opening the fridge door.

"Yeah, thanks."

I followed the sound of his voice. He handed me a beer, already opened, condensation cool against my palm. "Good party."

"Yeah. Pickle only set one thing on fire, and it was supposed to be on fire, so I'm calling it a win."

Evan smiled, that small, pleased expression he got when everything had gone according to plan. He opened the fridge again, probably looking for those leftover cookies I'd seen him sneaking into a container before we left.

That's when he saw it.

My latest label, stuck to the side of a plastic container that held cookies: Evan's Cookie Karma – One per Kiss.

He pulled the container out, holding it up to read the label again.

"Cookie karma?"

"It's a new system I'm implementing. Very scientific. Evidence-based." I leaned against the counter, grinning.

Evan set the container on the counter and turned to face me.

"One per kiss," he repeated.

"That's the rate. Though I'm open to negotiations if you want to discuss bulk pricing."

"And if I want multiple cookies?"

I didn't say anything. I pointed at my lips.

Evan smiled and kissed me. It tasted like cinnamon and candy canes and the sweetness of a day that had gone exactly right.

"That's one."

"I know," Evan said, and kissed me again.

Six months ago, I'd been a walking disaster with a viral rap video and a reputation for spectacular self-destruction. Now I was standing in a kitchen I helped pay for, kissing a man who loved me enough to let me reorganize his life while he reorganized mine.

Evolution, Juno had called it. Not redemption. Not a comeback story or a rehabilitation narrative.

Two people figuring out how to build something real in the space between chaos and control.

"How many cookies are in that container?" Evan asked.

I smiled. "Why don't we find out?"

***

Thank you for reading Puck Wild . It is the first book in the Storm Warning series. .