Page 8 of The Pucks We Freeze
Before I could knock, the door opened.
He was already standing there, like he’d been waiting.
Kade didn’t say a word. He just looked at me, head to toe, taking in my Black Bear sweater and khakis, the flashlight trembling slightly in my hand, then stepped aside.
The room was dim, illuminated only by the soft glow of the battery-powered lantern the lodge provided ahead of the storm. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, unsure if the chill running down my spine came from the cold or from the way he was watching me.
The lamp on the nightstand flickered once, then steadied. It cast a warmer light across the room and across him.
He walked over to the small chair near the bed, grabbed a purple Rixton U hoodie, and held it out to me.
“You’ll freeze in that,” he said. “There’s a pair of sweats on the dresser too. Clean, I swear.”
I hesitated.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to sleep in your khakis.”
He wasn’t wrong.
When I stepped out, I found him sitting against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of him, wearing only a pair of sweatpants, a smug grin playing on his lips.
“I cranked the heat earlier,” he said casually. “Guess I’m used to freezing my ass off on the ice. It’s too warm in here now.”
He smirked when he caught me looking. “Don’t worry. I can put a shirt on if it helps you focus.”
I rolled my eyes. “You reserved a room with one bed.”
Kade crossed his arms over his bare chest, a slow grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t think I’d need more than that. Whether you stayed or not.”
The tension stretched between us again, thick and charged.
“Nice hoodie,” he added, eyes skating over me. “Looks better on you.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The fabric still held the warmth of his skin, and it smelled like him. Clean, sharp, familiar. Like cedar soap and cold air. It was distracting. Disarming.
Something was unraveling here. Between the storm, the silence, and everything we’d been avoiding. And one of us was going to break first.
I hesitated for a beat before circling to the other side of the bed. My fingers fluffed one of the pillows, more for something to do than any real comfort, and then I climbed in slowly, careful not to brush against him.
I tucked my knees in and curled up, the oversized sweatshirt swallowing me whole. My fingers clutched the hem as I glanced over at him.
“You sure it’s okay I’m here?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.
His eyes flicked toward me, then back to the notebook in his lap. “Safer than you being alone in that cabin tonight.”
I followed the flick of his eyes and caught a glimpse of the pages before he moved.
The name of one of his teammates, Gavin Cruz, was underlined twice. It had been underlined in two different colors, as if it had been added at separate times. Beneath it was a list of timestamps, player numbers, and one note scrawled in the margin that made my pulse hitch: “Off shift too early. Pattern?”
This wasn’t just stats. It was surveillance. A breadcrumb trail.
I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at, but I recognized the feeling of a secret someone didn’t want found.
Kade must’ve noticed the way my eyes narrowed because he shifted quickly, snapping the notebook shut in one smooth motion before carrying it to the dresser like it suddenly weighed too much.
“You always work during a snowstorm?” I asked, trying to keep it light. But the question was loaded. The tension in his jaw told me he knew it, too.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he grabbed the remote from beside him, as if he needed something to do with his hands, and tossed it onto the nightstand with a dull thud. The power kept going in and out, so it wasn’t like it’d be of any use, but maybe that was the point.
