Page 19 of The Pucking Wrong Rookie

I shook my head in disgust…and amusement as I turned to my locker and started to get ready.

“So, Rookie, I don’t think we ever finished our texts this morning…how was breakfast?” Ari asked, his voice becoming innocent as he came up beside my locker.

“It was great,” I responded mildly. “Best I’ve ever had.”

Ari looked confused for a minute, before a big grin spread across his face. “Someone else ate one first, didn’t they?” He snorted and then began laughing so hard that he about fell over.

“I could have died,” I said indignantly, all my good intentions of acting cool going completely out the window.

“No one’s died because of a little kitty litter and hot sauce, Rookie,” Ari said, ducking the water bottle I’d just thrown at his head.

“Yeah, Rookie, stop being so dramatic,” drawled Camden.

“That was excellent simpage, Hero. Ten gold stars for you,” Ari said approvingly.

Camden preened, even though I knew he had no idea what the stars even meant. There seemed to be a moving target in this group as we worked to get into the Circle of Trust. Sometimes it was points, sometimes it was stars. Sometimes it was—well, it was a lot of things. This reward system was very confusing.

But it also workedverywell. I was almost at the point where I’d do anything to add to my bank of rewards.

Hence, how I’d ended up posing in my briefs for Camden’s eighty-something-year-old friend Geraldine one night.

“Someone could have died,” I continued…as a terrible thought hit me. “Please tell me that was fresh kitty litter,” I begged, horrified at the alternative. I mean, Asher was still alive and not throwing up as far as I knew—and he’d eaten almost an entire rotisserie chicken after that—but still.

“What do you think I am? A monster?” Ari said, looking affronted.

“Wait…that’s what your inane text was, Rookie? Ari desecrated one of Mrs. Bentley’s burritos?” Walker suddenly asked in a horrified voice.

I waved at him. “Thatwas the proper response. Horror. Dismay. All the things!”

“Something like that could mean Mrs. Bentley cuts off her supply,” Lincoln said as he glanced at his phone, a video of Monroe—his wife—playing on the screen.

Ari stared at him, looking like he’d just been brutally betrayed. “You wouldn’t.”

Lincoln glanced up from his phone, his lips curled in amusement. “I would.”

I saddled up next to Lincoln and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “He would,” I said sternly.

Ari grinned, shaking his head. “Remind me never to include you in a joke, Rookie. Your presence gives it away immediately.”

I growled, but before I could say anything, music began to blare over the speakers.

Fuck, if T-Swift was already playing…I needed to get ready.

Hurrying back to my locker to finish getting my uniform on, the locker room erupted with dance moves that would have been embarrassing in most cases.

But we were the Dallas Fucking Knights.

So that was obviously not the case.

CHAPTER4

LOGAN

There’s a moment when you step out onto the ice, where the world seems to fall into slow motion. I’d never felt that out on the football or baseball fields as a kid, that moment of rightness, where the crisp air seeped into your lungs and you felt like you were at home. It’s how I could tell a good game from a bad game, whether I had that one perfect moment or not.

Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t finding any sort of perfection right now. Which was really bad timing since out of all the games I’d played in my career, this one was the one where I needed to be my best.

I skated along the boards, trying to center myself, trying to find that moment…

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