Page 8 of Puck Wild (Storm Warning #1)

It shouldn't have mattered, but… hearing Evan say he could see through the bullshit. He'd looked at the most embarrassing moment of my public life and recognized it as a lie—

"So it was real!" Pickle bounced slightly on the bench. "I knew it. You can't fake that level of emotional devastation."

"Thanks, kid. Really building my confidence here." I leaned forward, mock-serious. "But here's the real question, Pickle. You ever see a Zamboni kiss back?"

Pickle's face lit up like I'd delivered the key to the meaning of life. "That's a yes. Real."

"That's a mind your own business before I tell Coach you've been using his office to livestream your hair care routine."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

Pickle grinned and bounced up, apparently satisfied with whatever cosmic truth he'd uncovered. "This conversation never happened."

He wandered off toward the showers, leaving me alone with Evan.

"So, you really watched it?"

"Pickle can be very persuasive when he's determined to educate people."

"And you thought the editing was obvious."

Evan shrugged, pulling his gear bag out of his stall. "Reality TV isn't subtle. Neither are you, usually, but in that scene..." He paused, considering his words. "You looked like someone who was actually feeling something."

He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed toward the exit, leaving me sitting there with my skates half-off and the strangest sensation that Pickle might be an even better chaos agent than me.

Three hours later, I sprawled on the apartment couch with a bag of frozen peas on my shin—courtesy of the shot I'd taken during the distracted-by-Evan drill—when my phone buzzed.

Juno: It's live.

Below the text was a link. I stared at it, thumb hovering over the screen.

I didn't know what to do. I was curious about the story she created, but I was also terrified she'd make it worse somehow.

I set the phone face-down on the coffee table and tried to focus on the hockey highlights playing on the muted TV. It was some AHL game from last night, guys I'd played with or against, scratching for their second chances.

The apartment was quiet except for the refrigerator's hum and the distant sound of Evan moving around in the kitchen. He'd been in there since we got home, doing whatever mysterious thing he did that made the entire place smell like vanilla.

My phone buzzed again. Then again.

I ignored it.

Evan called from the kitchen. "Jake. You should probably look at this."

I found him leaning against the counter, laptop open in front of him. He'd changed into the gray hoodie that made his eyes look more blue than gray.

"What is it?"

He turned the computer toward me. A headline filled half the screen in bold letters: "The Real Jake Riley: Not a Villain, Not a Joke."

Below the title was a photo I didn't remember Juno taking—me in the hallway, mid-conversation, looking more serious than I'd felt in months and not posed. Not performing. Talking.

I started reading slowly, braced for the worst.

Jake Riley doesn't walk into the Thunder Bay Storm's arena like he owns it—he walks in like he's borrowing time. Three months removed from a reality TV meltdown that spawned a thousand memes, the Storm's new winger is rebuilding more than his career.

My stomach clenched. Here it comes, I thought—the takedown.

Instead, the following paragraph stopped me cold:

What struck me wasn't Riley's carefully crafted charm or his practiced deflection—it was the moment that charm cracked.

His voice hitched when he talked about eliminating himself from Love on Ice .

It wasn't the manufactured emotion of reality television, but something raw and unguarded.

This man was genuinely heartbroken, then watched editors turn that heartbreak into a punchline.

I had to stop reading. My hands trembled.

"Jake?" Evan's voice sounded far away.

"She..." I cleared my throat and tried again. "She wrote about the crying. About how they told me to cry, and why I actually did." I scrolled down, reading faster now.

Riley's "Puck Life" video wasn't the desperate grab for relevance that critics claimed—it was a Hail Mary from someone drowning in other people's narratives.

Evan moved closer, reading over my shoulder. The vanilla scent clung to his hoodie.

The article continued, and somehow, Juno turned my messy explanations into something almost dignified.

She'd written about the injury, comeback attempt, and how reality TV twisted my genuine feelings into entertainment.

But more than that, she'd put into words what I couldn't say—that everything I'd done, the show, the video, even coming to Thunder Bay, was about trying to control my own story for once.

In Thunder Bay, Riley is learning something that might surprise his critics: he's better at being himself than he ever was at being a character.

I whispered, "She got it right."

Evan closed the laptop and looked at me. "Yeah. She did."

"Maybe it's not the worst thing, being myself."

Evan nearly smiled. "Maybe not."

My phone buzzed again from the living room, probably with notifications I'd want to read for a change. I couldn't move, though. Evan continued to look at me. Maybe this was it—the moment the story stopped being theirs and started being mine.