Page 7 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

Chapter five

Jake

T he hallway reeked of industrial floor cleaner and whatever they used to mop up spilled beer from the junior game the night before.

I was sneaking past the media alcove, Gatorade in hand, trying to avoid warm-ups for another ten minutes. No one trusted a guy who stretched before he chirped, and I had a reputation to maintain.

What I hadn't counted on was Juno Park.

She was leaning against the wall like she'd been waiting for me specifically, one combat boot propped behind her, and a digital recorder in her hand. Her blue hair caught the overhead lights, and she wore a wicked smile.

"Jake Riley." She pushed off the wall. "Fancy meeting you here."

I stopped mid-stride. "Uh. Hi?"

"Walk with me." Not a request, an order.

We fell into step down the hallway, past old team photos. Juno moved like she owned the place. Basically, she did. Her podcast had more downloads than the Storm had season ticket holders.

She clicked the recorder on. "So, which came first? The rap video or the crisis of identity?"

I nearly choked on my Gatorade. "Holy hell. Right into it, huh?"

"I find it saves time." She kept walking. "Most people spend twenty minutes dancing around what they want to know."

"Fair enough."

Through the arena's main doors, I heard the Zamboni making its final pass. The sound usually grounded me.

"The crisis came first," I said. "And the video skipped along behind."

"First how?"

The hallway stretched ahead, empty except for a maintenance guy with a mop bucket. I took another sip of Gatorade, buying time.

" Love on Ice was supposed to be a comeback. Post-injury visibility. Get my name out there again." I stopped walking. "I didn't realize that reality TV editors are emotional terrorists with film degrees."

Juno raised an eyebrow. "Explain."

"They told me to cry. I'm not shitting you. 'Jake, we need you to cry like you mean it.' I did because..." I choked up. "Because I was falling for someone they'd already decided was too boring for television. When I eliminated myself, it was real. The tears were real."

"But the edit wasn't."

"The edit made me look like I was proposing to the entire rink. They took the most genuine moment I'd had in months and turned it into a meme template."

"And 'Puck Life?'"

"'Puck Life' was..." I raked my fingers through my hair. "When a million people are laughing at you, you can hide, or you can set the punchline yourself. I figured if everyone was already convinced I was a joke, maybe I could at least be a joke on my own terms."

"Was it? On your own terms?"

I heard skate blades hitting the ice—someone getting an early start. Maybe it was Evan with his color-coded practice schedule.

"I didn't make 'Puck Life' to go viral. I made it because I didn't know how to ask for help."

Juno's thumb hovered over the recorder. "Help with what?"

"With being seen as something other than a punchline. By proving I could still play hockey instead of only playing a character." I shrugged.

Silence reigned between us. Juno studied my face.

She finally spoke. "You know what I think?"

"That I'm a walking disaster with commitment issues?"

She smiled. "I think you're a better storyteller than you realize. And I think this story deserves someone telling it the right way."

She clicked off the recorder, slipped it into her jacket pocket, and nodded. "See you around, Riley."

Her combat boots clicked down the hallway toward the exit, leaving me standing there with an empty Gatorade bottle and the weird sensation that she actually saw me. It didn't feel like a trap.

Twenty minutes later, I was flying.

The interview had done something to me—loosened a knot I didn't know I was carrying. Maybe I could rewrite my story. Maybe Thunder Bay was where I figured out how to be Jake Riley instead of only playing the role.

I picked off a pass at the blue line and threaded it through three bodies to Pickle, who botched the one-timer but grinned like he'd scored anyway. The kid's enthusiasm was infectious, even when his execution was garbage.

Hog roared from the bench. "Nice dish, Vegas!"

Coach ran us through a standard forechecking drill, but I read the ice better than before. I saw spaces that existed for half a second, threading passes that shouldn't work but did. My shoulder was solid, and my legs were springy again.

Coach paired Evan with Murphy, who was working on defensive zone coverage. I watched him move—always in position, zero wasted motion.

The puck came around the boards hard, a wild ricochet off Pickle's botched one-timer.

Murphy wound up for a slapper from the point, his stick a blur of reckless force, and Evan dropped to block it without hesitation.

Standard defensive play, except the puck caught his stick blade at an odd angle, deflected by the rink's chaos.

The sound was wrong—not the clean crack of puck on stick, but a sharp ping. Evan's head snapped back slightly.

When he straightened up, blood trickled down his cheek.

I immediately skated toward him. Not thinking, just moving. When I reached him, he was already touching his glove to the cut, checking the damage.

"You okay?"

"It's nothing." That's what he thought, but when he pulled his glove away, a red streak was bright against his pale skin.

I tugged off my right glove and reached up without asking. I touched the edge of the cut with my thumb—just a graze, really, but it was bleeding steadily. Evan froze under my touch.

We were six inches apart. I saw flecks of gold in his gray eyes, and his breath made small clouds in the chilled air.

The arena noise faded—no more skate blades scraping ice, and no more shouted instructions from the bench: only Evan's face and the careful pressure of my thumb against his cheek.

"Jake."

He said my name quietly, testing its sound.

"Yeah?"

Before he could answer, Coach blew his whistle.

"You two gonna kiss, or can we run another drill?"

The spell broke. Evan stepped back, and I dropped my hand, flexing my fingers. The blood on my thumb was already drying, dark against my skin.

He added a perfunctory, "thanks," and skated away.

"No problem."

I returned to my position, clumsily pulling my glove back on. My thumb still tingled where I'd touched him.

The next drill started, but I couldn't concentrate. Evan's cheek blotted everything else out. I missed an easy pass and took a shot off my shin that would leave a bruise.

Worth it.

The locker room was thick with steam and the usual post-practice symphony—gear hitting the floor, and someone arguing with a skate lace that had betrayed him.

I sat at my stall, methodically unlacing my skates.

Evan sat three feet away, doing the same thing.

He worked with his usual precision. The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding, leaving only a thin red line that made him look like he'd been in a fight instead of losing an argument with a deflected puck.

I pulled off my right skate and started on the left, stealing glances at him between tugs on the laces. Sweat plastered his hair in place, and there was a faint mark on his forehead where his helmet had sat. He looked tired but satisfied, as always after a solid practice.

"That puck had a vendetta, huh?"

Evan paused. "Could've been worse. Could've chipped a tooth."

I stared at him. Was that... was that Evan-level flirting? It sounded suspiciously like he was making conversation instead of merely tolerating my existence.

"True. And then you'd have to explain to your dentist that you got taken out by a piece of rubber moving at highway speeds."

"Occupational hazard." He finished with his skate and started peeling off his practice jersey. "Besides, teeth are replaceable. Cheekbones aren't."

Definitely flirting. Had to be. Evan Carter didn't make casual observations about his bone structure unless he had an agenda.

I tried to think of something clever to say back, but Hog's voice boomed across the room before I could form a coherent thought.

"Spreadsheet! How's the battle scar?"

"Healing."

"Good, because we can't have our prettiest defenseman looking like he went ten rounds with a cheese grater."

I snorted. "Prettiest? That's fighting words, Hog."

"You calling me a liar, Vegas?"

I glanced at Evan, focusing on folding his practice jersey into a perfect square. His ears had gone slightly pink.

"I'm calling you a man with excellent taste."

The pink spread to Evan's neck.

Before I could figure out what to do with Evan's blush and my ridiculous grin, Pickle materialized beside our stalls like someone shot him out of a cannon. His mullet was still damp with sweat, and he clutched his phone like it held the secrets of the universe.

"Okay, but like—serious question . " He dropped onto the bench between us, apparently oblivious to the fact that he'd crashed whatever moment was building. "During the rose steal... was it scripted? Or was it, like, emotionally improvised?"

I blinked at him. "What now?"

"The rose ceremony. Episode three. The one where you went down on one knee and basically proposed to that guy Derek while the cameras did that swoopy thing.

" Pickle's eyes were bright with genuine curiosity.

"Because I've watched it like fifteen times, and it either looks completely fake or completely real, and I can't figure out which. "

Evan tried to smother a snort. I stared at him.

"You've seen it?"

"Pickle made me watch it. Last week. During his cultural education campaign."

"It was research!" Pickle protested. "I needed to understand the full Vegas mythology before you got here."

I glanced back and forth at them, trying to process the fact that Evan Carter—Mr. Spreadsheet, Lord of Emotional Constipation—had voluntarily watched me make out with strangers in sequins.

"And?"

"And what?"

"What did you think?"

Evan met my gaze. "I thought the editing was obvious."