Page 11 of The Pucking Player

Nate chokes on his laughter, and Jessica sputters, “You want me to give you heraddress? Are you insane?”

“Come on, Jess. I’m not going to stalk her. I just want to ask her on a date.”

Jessica sighs again, and I know I’m wearing her down. “She’s studying at Westchester College, in the pre-med program. She stays on campus. That’s all you’re getting from me.”

A grin spreads across my face. “Thanks, Jess. I owe you one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, her tone exasperated. “Just don’t make me regret this, O’Connor.”

Nate ends the call, shaking his head. “Dude, I’ve never seen you work this hard for a girl before.”

I shrug, my mind already racing with plans. “What can I say? She’s one of a kind.”

Nate leans back, smirking. “Well, good luck, man. Something tells me you’re going to need it.”

I just grin, my eyes on the road and my heart set on Sophie Novak.

5

THE STORM BEFORE THE STORM

LIAM

As we pull into the Defenders Training Complex parking lot in Tarrytown, I glance at the clock on the dashboard. Thanks to my lead foot and some creative maneuvering through Manhattan traffic, we’ve made it just in time for practice.

I throw the car into park, grab my gear from the trunk, and fall into step with Nate as we head toward the locker room. The familiar scent of sweat, ice, and adrenaline hits me like a wave the second we step inside, the buzz of pre-practice energy charging the air.

The locker room is alive with the usual chaos—guys in various stages of undress cracking jokes, music pumping low in the background, and the occasional chirp from one side of the room to the other.

“Well, well, well, look who decided to grace us with their presence!” Finn calls out as we walk in, his grin wide and mischievous. “Did you two get lost on the way back from the city?”

I flip him off without missing a beat, tossing my bag in front of my locker. “Nah, we just had some importantbusiness to take care of. You know, the kind that actually makes a difference in people’s lives.”

Finn clutches his chest in mock offense, staggering back a step. “Ouch, O’Connor. That hurts. And here I thought my dashing good looks and sparkling personality were making a difference every day.”

Nate snorts as he pulls his gear out of his bag. “Yeah, a difference in the number of puck bunnies hanging around the arena, maybe.”

The room erupts in laughter, the kind that only comes when you’ve spent countless hours battling it out together on the ice. That’s what I love about this team—how we can tear each other apart one minute and go to war for each other the next.

I start changing into my practice gear, half-listening to the banter bouncing around the room. Aiden’s holding court in the corner, spinning one of his legendary glory-day stories.

“And then, with just seconds left on the clock, I snagged the puck and went coast-to-coast,” he says, his voice rising with dramatic flair. “Weaving through the defenders like they werestanding still. Top shelf, baby! The crowd went wild!”

The rookies hang on his every word, their eyes wide with awe.

Nearby, Caleb is taping up his stick with the kind of intense focus that suggests he’s solving a physics equation, not wrapping layers of tape.

And then there’s Dmitri Sokolov, sitting quietly on the bench, his massive frame hunched over a book as he flips through the delicate pages. Dmitri’s a six-foot-four wall of muscle, our top defenseman and a single dad to an adorable six-year-old girl who’s got him wrapped around her finger.On the ice, Dmitri’s a wrecking ball, a guy who clears the crease with bone-crushing hits and doesn’t flinch when someone’s coming at him full speed. But off the ice? He’s a different story.

Right now, the guy who set a team record for hits last season is carefully reading what looks like Russian poetry, his brow furrowed while he’s dissecting each line.

Curious, I sidle up next to him. “What’s that, Dima? Some light reading before practice?”

He glances up, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “Just a little Pushkin,” he says, his Russian accent thickening with amusement. “You might know this one: ‘I loved you; and perhaps I love you still, the flame, perhaps, is not extinguished; yet…’”

I clap him on the shoulder, grinning. “You’ve got a poet’s soul, Sokolov. Never lose that.”

Dmitri chuckles, closing the book and tucking it carefully into his bag. “Ah, but on the ice, I am a warrior, like the rest of you. Poetry fills my heart, but hockey? Hockey is in my blood.”

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