Page 5 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

Fuck. There was no escaping them. Every time I left one hockey dude, another popped up in his place. Like that monster from Greek myths with the ever-multiplying regenerating heads.

He was holding his phone to his ear like it might bite him. His shoulders hunched, his jaw tense—all of it painted a picture that whoever he was talking to, he wished he wasn’t. Curiosity seemed to fall into my brain like the first droplets of a freak rainstorm. I kind of wanted to know what about this conversation was making him upset. A distraction from my own stupid dramas, maybe.

“I know, Shar. Listen, we can talk—” the person on the other end of the phone interrupted his sentence, and a frustrated breath hissed out of his nose as he listened to her. “I can’t do this right now,” he finally cut it off, his tone sharp. “I’m getting off the phone.Goodbye, Sharon.”

If we still lived in the era of flip phones, he would have slammed his shut. He seemed to feel me looking at him, even though I was a couple of yards away, because he rounded on me in an instant when the call was done.

“Sorry,” I said automatically, “I—I was just getting some air.”

“Whatever,” he scoffed, dismissing my apology with a tone that saidyeah, right.

“Really, I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I doubled down, and he actually rolled his eyes at me. Striking blue and gorgeous as those eyes were, I instantly wanted to stab them out of his stupid handsome face.

“Christ, this hockey star shit really got to you,” I let out in a huff. Apparently, I spoke without thinking when I was angry and tired and begrudgingly back in my hometown. I tried my best not to wince.

He furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”

“This arrogant bullshit. You’re not a big shot because you play on some dinky little minor-league team,” I asserted.

He’d been such a sweet kid. Butthisguy, well-dressed and tall and handsome though he was, seemed to be missing all of the lovely human kindness that, as far as I could tell, was much more valuable than a successful career as a hockey stud. I knew Michael had sort of introduced the two of us, the adults we were now, after the game—or at least he’d referenced that we knew each other years ago—but did Wes really remember me? Would he be so rude if he did?

One thing was for sure. I remembered him, and staring at his stone-cold face right now, I couldn’t stop comparing the Wes of back then to the one in front of me now.

“No one asked you,” he gritted out. It was true, but again, his tone added an extra layer of cruelty. An implied,Why should I care aboutyouropinion?

Maybe it was just the shocking contrast between this Wes and the one way back when, but I suddenly remembered how he followed me around like a hopeless puppy when we were younger. His crush on me was apparent even as he tried to keep it on the down low, tried to deny the jokes Michael and nearly everyone else in our lives made about it. I’d ignored the jokes with as much grace as I could manage; I’d never been interested in him that way. Now, I was extra glad I’d never reciprocated his attention. He may have gotten hot, but he also got rude with age.

“Get off your high horse,” I spit at him again. “Or is it a reindeer?”

With that last shot, it was back to the party I went, annoyance scratching at the inside of my brain hard enough to break its way through my skull.

Today was decidedly not my day, and a party seemed even less appealing after all of this hockey hoopla, but what other choice did I have but to go back inside? It was tempting to hop back in my car and drive until Mistletoe was far behind me, but I couldn’t do that to my family.

If that cocky son of a bitch Roman Jett showed up, though, all bets were off.

My twin found me the second I was back in the rumbling noise inside of the restaurant. I was barely past the door when he appeared at my side, relief coloring his features—always a bit softer than my own sharp ones, which I used to think was unfair. “Rach! There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. Where’d you disappear to?”

I never wanted to betrulymean to my brother. He was the closest thing to a golden retriever guy I’d ever met in real life, and other than occasionally pestering me in true sibling fashion, he’d never done anything to hurt me. But right now, he was just another reminder of the fucking Skatin’ Santas.

I’d feel bad about it later. But for now, I let rage propel me as I gritted out, “Oh, nowhere, really. Just getting jerked around by your asshole teammates. Great taste in friends, bro.”

It wasn’t fair to take this out on him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the stupid sport I’d always tried to avoid was the source of my troubles right now, and Michael was unfortunately in the thick of it. It’d be a real struggle to stay in Mistletoe when I wanted to throttle all of its hockey stars—and that was like a quarter of the population of the town. I swallowed down the desire to scream, half hoping it’d choke me to death and put this night tosomekind of end. It only got worse when I saw how Michael’s face sank and the guilt sunk in too.

“I … I’m sorry, Rach.”

Christ, now so was I. Some fucking welcome home party.

3

ROMAN

“Nice shot, Roman!” our assistant coach called from the sidelines, clapping his hands in that cupped formation that amplified the sound across the rink.

Hell yeah. Applause was my favorite sound—well, besides a woman’s moans of pleasure. I especially liked the way it rang out over the ice, and he was right—it had definitely been a nice shot. A damn good one, in fact. A hard slap of the stick and that puck was sailing into the net, right past Sawyer’s outstretched arms. He grumbled, tried to flip me off despite his huge gloves, but I knew the whole team’s consensus was that this was a good sign for our upcoming season. If I was scoring goals in practice, I’d get into the habit when we started playing for real too.

Goddamn, it was fun. I loved playing wing, scoring goals, taking out some aggression in an offensive role that helped us kick other teams’ asses. And today, I was really on my game.

Wes was playing like a beast today too, though he was a classic defenseman. Always more about taking care of his teammates than scoring, though he was no slouch at making goals either. Together, with Michael as our center and Sawyer in the goal, we were a fucking great team.

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