Page 13 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

“So, tell me something a bit more personal. What keeps you going?”

He cocked his head to the side like a puppy. “What do you mean?”

“Like, when you have a bad day on the ice, and you need that motivation to make it to the end of the period, what’s your ‘why’?”

In an instant, my brother transformed into a shy, pink-cheeked creature that I hadn’t seen since we were prepubescent. He looked down at his hands and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said Violet,” he answered sheepishly, looking up at me again. He was smiling a little, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m in love, sis. Like, batshit crazy in love even after all this time. And I haven’t told anyone else this, so you have to swear secrecy, but…I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

“Oh my God!” I almost shrieked, which earned me a shush. Then, quieter, “When? What’s your plan? I needdetails.”

“At Christmas time, of course. When else?” He laughed at himself, but we both knew it was a perfect idea. “I just…haven’t really made the concrete plan yet. Like, where I’ll take her, if I want it to be a big thing or just us two…What I’m going to say, even.”

“Well, I think you should say what you just said to me. That she’s your ‘why.’ But like…prettier than that, obviously.”

Michael grinned at me. “You’ll help me pick out a ring, I hope?”

I’d love nothing more, and I told him so.

“I’m so relieved,” my twin confessed as we were wrapping up and I was mentally preparing for my next player interview—one of the last ones I’d be doing today. “Like, with you helping with the ring, and Wes helping me out with the proposal, I feel way less stressed out about it.”

I made a face at the mention of Wes, remembering both times we’d interacted since I’d been home. The way he’d loomed over me, tall and broad and utterly climbable, in the ice center parking lot. How I’d been mean to him in part to keep myself from jumping his bones.

“What’s your deal, Rach? I know you weren’t best friends with Wes like I was, but I always thought you kinda liked him back in the day. Like, just on a basic level, not a crush or anything.”

“Yeah, well,” I started, looking down at my fingers as I fidgeted with them against the purple wrist pad I’d bought for my desk. “Back in the day, he wasn’t some arrogant hockey bro.”

“Arrogant? Wes?” Michael let out a laugh that startled me into looking up at him. “You can’t be serious, Rach. I don’t know what gave you the impression that he’s full of himself, but Wes probably has the opposite problem. He’s way too hard on himself. Puts everyone else first—especially his mom. He’s a good guy, really.”

Before I could mull that over or make any attempt at reconciling Michael’s opinion with the bad first impression I’d gotten, there was a knock at my office door.

Speak of the devil.

My brother left the room, but not before giving Wes one of those slapping high-five hugs guys did with their friends. And then Wes Robbins was in my office, sitting in my chair with his spine rigid and his jaw tight, and an awkward silence descended.

Unfortunately, as the person conducting this interview and the current owner of the office we were sitting in, I had to be the one to break it.

“So,” I started, trying my hand at a casual tone. “I just have, uh, a few questions. I’ll be recording the answers on my phone so I can try to get genuine quotes when I write up the social media posts. They’re, uh, pretty basic questions, but you can be as broad or as specific as you want.”

“Alright,” Wes answered gruffly when I expected him to fight back like the other night.Maybe you just caught him on a bad day,I considered for the first time, my brother’s glowing endorsement of his friend still ringing in my ears.

I started with the easy one. “When did you first know you loved hockey?”

I expected Wes, the Wes I’d established in my head after our two near-spats, to roll his eyes at the question. Instead, thosegorgeous sapphire blues focused on the wall as he took a long second to truly consider what I’d asked. He was taking this seriously, at least. Maybe because he was a secret narcissist who was stoked to be talking about himself.

“Honestly, I think it was when my mom took me to my first game,” he said carefully. His hands were sort of wringing themselves, since he didn’t seem to be conscious of the nervous energy he was trying to expel. “She got so into it, dressing up in a jersey and painting my face, and she was so patient as she explained what was happening to me even though I was probably too little to really understand. I owe a lot to Ma—hell, everything, really. I’ll never forget that day.”

Okay, that didn’t sound like a narcissist. It didn’t even sound like a jerk, or a hockey bro. Maybe he’d practiced this answer ahead of time, since I did email all of the guys the full list of questions I might ask.

Or maybe Michael was right, and the real Wes, the one who wasn’t already frustrated by something before I stoked the flames of his annoyance with my attitude, just so happened to be endearing as hell.

I cleared my throat. “That’s…really nice, Wes. Thank you.”

He blinked at me, gave a short nod, then looked back down at his hands in his lap. It was the first time I’d seen him as the same shy boy next door I’d known all those years ago. Had he kept some of that sweetness after all?

One taste, and I could find out,the horny gremlin in my brain tried to say, but I beat it back with a stick.

“Um. Right. So, the next question—” I started back into the interview, thanking past me for picking a less potentially adorable question for the next one.

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