Page 42 of Dirty As Puck
“Winters. Didn’t expect to see you at practice today.”
“Off the record,” I promise, flashing him my recorder anyway. “Quick question about Morrison’s leadership and teamwork. How’s he been with the team this season?”
Jake leans on his stick, thinking and eyeing me with caution. He’s very loyal to Morrison, but he’s also obligated to give me a response. “Kai? He’s intense. He holds us accountable, but he’s not a tyrant. First one on the ice, last one off. Even the rookies respect him.” He takes a swig from his bottle, shrugs. “Why? Are you looking for dirt on him?”
A dry smile tugs at my lips. “That depends. Am I guaranteed to find dirt?” I’m going for straightforward today.
He laughs and pushes off, leaving me with nothing but a half-page of glowing remarks. No temper, no whispers of favoritism, not even a hint of scandal.
I move on to the next player that’s available for a quick interview.
Knox Thompson, a fresh-faced rookie, is lacing up near the boards. Perfect target for a slip of honesty, since he’s too new for rigid loyalty to Kai.
“Knox,” I crouch slightly to meet his gaze, softening my tone. “How’s it been, adjusting to Morrison’s style? Any… challenges?”
He blinks, then shakes his head with a boyish grin. “Captain’s tough, but fair. He pulled me aside after my first bad game and told me to shake it off. Said he’d rather have me make mistakes than play scared.” Thompson chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Honestly, he’s one of the reasons I haven’t lost it since I joined.”
Great. Another gold star for Morrison. Just exactly what I need to impress my boss.
I jot down the quote anyway, my jaw tight. Marcus Webb wanted scandal. Headlines. The kind of rot you could build a front page around. All I’m getting is a saint in skates, despite his popular reputation.
Movement flickers at the corner of my vision. Kai. He’s leaning against the far boards, helmet off, hair damp with sweat, and eyes locked on me like he’s challenging me. He doesn’t move, and doesn’t speak, he just watches. The air feels thinner suddenly, my throat drier. It’s the same look he gave me last night in the hallway, right before everything got complicated.
I tear my gaze away, force my pen to scratch across the page.Focus, Rochelle. You’re not here to remember the taste of his mouth.
Practice ends with the usual clatter of sticks and the scraping of skates leaving the ice. Players file past, tossing me polite nods. No whispers or hint of juicy information. Just respect, the kind that doesn’t make for a scandal.
I linger at the edge of the rink, fingers curled tight around my notebook. Frustration prickles under my skin. The harder I dig, the cleaner it looks beneath the surface. And the more I fail to find anything, the louder Marcus’s voice echoes in my head,Find me something in the crack, Winters.
Across the room, Kai smirks faintly, his towel slung over his shoulders, as if he can taste my frustration from here. As if he knows exactly how little I have, and how much that bothers me.
And damn it, if he does, then I hate to admit that he’s right.
The cursor blinks against the glow of my laptop screen, like an impatient timer keeping track of the time with the steady hum of my fraying nerves. My coffee has gone cold beside my hand, the mug forgotten hours ago. Tabs clutter my browser with headlines screaming about a bar fight, witness statements half-remembered, police reports buried under other deflecting headlines.
This was supposed to be simple. Find the cracks in Kai Morrison’s polished backstory, expose the chaos beneath, and deliver Marcus Webb his scandalous article on a silver platter. But the deeper I dig, the more the narrative feels rather flimsy and inconsistent.
I scroll through the first article again. “Sources claim Morrison threw the first punch.” Then another, “Witness alleges Morrison incited the altercation.” But the timestamps don’t line up. One report says the fight started at midnight, another states that it started two hours past midnight. Witness A claims there were three men. Witness B says five. The more I read, the less it holds together, like trying to stitch a story out of smoke.
Sighing, I pull up the official police summary, my eyes scanning for clarity. “Altercation involving professional hockey player Kai Morrison… no charges filed… mutual disagreement, de-escalated by staff.”
That’s it? That’s what Marcus expects to spin into a headline that would keep people talking for weeks?
Frustration burns hot in my chest. I was sent here to write the truth, but Marcus never said truth, did he? He wants dirt, whether it existed or not. And right now, all I have is a mess of contradictions.
I lean back, rubbing my temples, when a buried link in an old blog post catches my eye, a mention of nearby security cameras, footage that “never saw daylight.” My pulse kicks up. I follow the breadcrumb. A grainy still image hosted on a fan forum, a hint of a broader clip archived on a local server.
Minutes turn into an hour of dead links and login gates before I finally get it, a low-resolution video file buried in the corner of an old city watch database. My heart thuds as I press play.
The footage is shaky and monochrome. A dimly lit alley behind the bar. A cluster of men, voices raised, but no audio, yet the body language is clear. I can tell by watching that someone’s angry. And then, through the blur, I see Kai. Broad-shouldered, jaw clenched, standing between a young woman and the chaos brewing at the door.
She looks terrified and her hair is messy, while her hands are shaking as one man reaches for her arm. Kai steps in, blocking the man from grabbing her, his body a barrier. Then the shoving starts. Another man lunges. The clip freezes mid-motion, but it’s enough to tell me what I need to know.
He wasn’t starting the fight. He was stopping it.
The ground shifts beneath me like ice cracking. Every quote I’ve taken, every accusation I’ve been nudged to frame, it all wobbles on this pivot. The man Marcus wanted me to paint as a violent star athlete off the rails… was protecting someone who clearly needed it.
I hit replay, just to be sure. His hands never strike first. He absorbs the blows, maneuvers the girl away, gestures sharply toward the staff as the attackers scatter.
