Page 215 of Tell Me Pucking Lies

Play develops but I can barely follow the puck because I’m watching them. Watching the way they target each other every shift, the way this stopped being about hockey the moment they stepped on the ice together.

Atticus joins in on the next play, cutting Koa off at center ice with a check that sends him sprawling. Koa’s back up immediately, skating hard, and the next time they’re on the ice together he absolutely destroys Atticus with a hit that makes the crowd gasp.

Atticus goes down hard, sliding into the boards. For a second he doesn’t move and my heart stops.

Then he’s up, shaking it off, but there’s blood on his lip.

That’s when Revan retaliates.

He waits until Koa doesn’t have the puck, until he’s vulnerable following through on a shot, and then levels him with a check that’s borderline late. Koa goes down and this time he’s slower to get up.

The ref’s whistle blows. Two minutes for roughing.

Revan doesn’t care. Just skates to the box with his head high while Koa glares at him from the ice.

The game continues but it’s barely hockey anymore. It’s warfare in skates, each shift escalating, the refs losing control. Both teams are feeding off the energy, hits getting harder, play getting chippier.

And I’m sitting in the stands with my pulse racing, hands clenched in the hoodie pockets, and I realize with disturbing clarity that I’m not afraid of what they’re doing to each other.

I’m turned on. This is hot. I’m aroused.

Watching them fight over me makes something dark and primal wake up in my chest. The same thing that pulled the trigger in that warehouse. The same thing that walked away from my father’s body without looking back.

Power.

The game intensifies. Koa scores first—a beautiful shot top shelf that the goalie never sees. He doesn’t celebrate, just skates past the Blackridge bench and stares at Revan through the glass.

Revan answers five minutes later with a goal of his own, assisted by Atticus. When he scores he searches the stands, not finding me.

The second period is even more vicious. Gloves come off twice—not Koa, Revan, or Atticus, but their teammates feeding off the intensity. The refs are calling penalties left and right, but it doesn’t matter. The game has taken on a life of its own.

Then third period, ten minutes left, tied game. Koa has the puck along the boards. Atticus comes in for the check, but Koa sees him, braces for impact. They collide with enough force that I feel it in my chest.

But Koa doesn’t go down. Instead he drops his gloves.

Atticus’s gloves hit the ice a second later.

The crowd goes insane as they start throwing punches, and suddenly it’s not hockey anymore—it’s just two men beating the shit out of each other on ice while refs try to intervene. Atticus is huge, but Koa has a darkness that comes out in this moment.It doesn’t matter that Atticus is bigger and stronger, Koa is unstoppable. Punch after punch after punch.

Revan skates over, and for a second I think he’s going to help Atticus. Instead he drops his gloves too and goes after Koa from the other side.

It’s three players fighting in the corner, teammates trying to pull them apart, and the whole arena is on its feet screaming.

I’m standing too, hood fallen back, watching blood hit the white ice in dark drops.

The refs finally separate them, sending all three to the locker rooms early. Game misconduct. Ejected.

The crowd is still buzzing as the game resumes, but I’m already moving. Pushing through people, muttering apologies, heading for the exit. My heart is hammering, and my skin feels too tight, and I need to see them. I need to know they’re okay. I need to figure out what the fuck we’re doing to each other.

I make it down to the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms just as the final buzzer sounds. Blackridge won, 4-3. The crowd erupts but it sounds distant, muffled.

The door to the visiting team locker room opens and Koa emerges first. His jersey is torn, blood on his face from a cut above his eye, knuckles split open. But he’s grinning—actually grinning—high on adrenaline and violence.

His eyes find me immediately.

He crosses the distance in three strides and grabs me, one hand tangling in my hair, the other on my waist. He kisses me rough, tasting like copper and fury, and I kiss him back just as hard because I need this as much as he does.

Then someone shoves him.