Pucking Around with Fate
They were supposed to be on the same team.
Santos Khyle arrived in Seattle as the Soul Reapers' most anticipated rookie in years, a natural-born scorer with something to prove and a chip on his shoulder the size of a regulation puck. Gunner Jäger had been tearing up the ice as the team's feared enforcer for two seasons, and he had zero interest in sharing his spotlight with some orange-haired twenty-one year old who looked at him like he was a problem to be managed.
From the moment they met, it was war.
On the ice, they were a disaster. Off it, they were worse. Screaming matches in corridors. Fists through locker room walls. A live on-air brawl that made every highlight reel in North America and earned them both a suspension, a lecture from their furious coach, and the undivided attention of the entire hockey world.
Nobody could stand to watch them together.
Nobody could look away either.
Because underneath the fury and the bruises and the months of spectacular mutual destruction, something else was building. Something neither of them had language for yet. Something that felt uncomfortably like the only fight either of them was actually afraid to lose.
The Soul Reapers are one playoff run away from everything. Gunner and Khyle are one honest conversation away from falling apart completely.
Or maybe, just maybe, from finally figuring out what they are to each other.
Pucking Up the Ice is a slow burn MM romance set in the brutal and beautiful world of professional hockey. It contains explicit language, on-ice violence, emotional gut punches, two men who are absolutely terrible at feelings, and a love story that had to break everything before it could build something worth keeping.
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Chapter: Are You Sleeping TogetherPOV: Dual, Khyle and Gunner"I don't do on-the-spot interviews," the bluenet growled firmly.He hadn't particularly snapped at the man, but his voice carried a clear warning that sent the reporter bolting straight to the relative safety of Khyle.The man was clearly hungry for a story of some kind if he was hassling the two of them on their day off. Maybe it was a slow news day. Khyle's mood was actually fairly light today, given his company, so he shrugged his agreement and obliged the eager reporter, willing for now to entertain the man's questions. He wanted to give him some credit, hoping he was just looking for a comment on the recent game they had won, since it had ended their long streak of misery. But somehow he doubted it."Can you tell the people what it is about you two that makes you fight with such passion?"Khyle cringed at the strangely worded question, but he tried his best to answer as neutrally as possible."Well, not really. But we're putting the effort in and just
Last Updated: 2026-05-12
Chapter: We're NewsPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerKhyle was watching with a casual scowl as Gunner sunk his fourth ball in a row, a flicker of light and movement in the entranceway catching his eye as a single patron slipped out, when a small commotion brought both of their heads up.The high-pitched sound of a waitress in distress."Oh no! Seriously? Dammit!" The young lady was standing by one of the tables nearby and looking around, her frantic scanning of the bar turning to a hopeless sound. The back of her hand came up to her mouth as her breath began to hitch. Khyle straightened and frowned, exchanging a glance with the scowling enforcer."Fucker," he grumbled.No doubt about it. It was a standard dine and dash. The girl, obviously new at her job, was nearly sobbing, though to her credit she summoned up some impressive language in between worried tears. Gunner prowled past several tables toward her, and she started for a moment at his intimidating approach."Did you get stiffed?" he growled."Was it a
Last Updated: 2026-05-11
Chapter: Only ChildPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerHe couldn't fathom how the great Santos Khyle, supposed famed high scorer, could possibly be as inept at pool as he seemed to be. People at their caliber, with their sharp reflexes, heightened senses, and natural athleticism, tended to excel at sports in general. But Khyle sucked. In fact, he sucked so spectacularly that Gunner had conceded to let him have a freebie shot every time he missed. As would be expected, Khyle being a man with degrees of pride that Gunner was beginning to get a handle on, it did not go down well. But after one round of the torturous game on even ground, Khyle ate crow and took the deal, and allowed Gunner to rack them up again.They were already on their third game. Khyle would not give up so easily."How did you ever not learn how to play pool?" he queried, brow set in a pose of disgust."I just didn't," the orangette retorted flatly. Khyle was blushing like a scarlet sunset as he bent over to take his shot, a strained expression
Last Updated: 2026-05-11
Chapter: Three Games of PoolPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerThat had been Khyle's fatal mistake, showing Gunner how much he was bugging him. He had been like a kid with a big shiny red button ever since, hitting the damn thing over and over, just to hear it make a big kablooie."No. You gotta slide it through your fingers.""That's what I'm doing!""Not like that, ya dipshit. You're killing me," Gunner groaned. He continued, his voice suddenly a rumble, dripping like wet rusty silk. "You gotta keep it smooth.""I am keeping it smooth," Khyle grated, anything to sound the complete opposite of his ill-bred companion."Bullshit," the bluenet grunted, a grin forming. "You jerk it around any more and your balls are gonna shoot all over the place."Khyle gave him the steeliest stink eye he could manage, and tried several more times to slide the long pole through his fingers smoothly while also keeping it straight. A difficult task, considering the person who was staring at him.Gunner watched, finally giving a disgustingl
Last Updated: 2026-05-10
Chapter: Prima DonnaPOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerGunner had expected to have to work hard to leash his temper, but remarkably it hadn't come to that yet. He knew there would be sparks, their natural impulses inevitably leading to each of them mounting a verbal assault on the other. He just hadn't anticipated enjoying it. Not in the slightest. But without the immediate stress of the game on his back, he was finding Khyle tolerable.Brunch accomplished and both men refueled, they let themselves move with the flow of the city, walking for a while, stopping at stores, making small talk. Nothing deep. Nothing personal. It was like neither of them was ready to go there just yet. After an hour, the breeze picked up suddenly and it started to snow.Khyle checked his phone, searching the weather as they walked."They didn't call for this," he muttered."Pfft. They never get it right," Gunner grunted."If we were that bad, we'd be out of jobs." Gunner looked up and shrugged."We kinda are though, aren't we."Brown
Last Updated: 2026-05-10
Chapter: PoutinePOV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerTwenty minutes later, purchase complete, they were walking through the outdoor market. Khyle had cooled off. There was no traffic around here for Gunner to walk into.They were passing a chip stand when Khyle touched Gunner's arm again."Do you want some? I'll buy.""I'm not hungry.""Well, I'm starving. Are you sure you don't want something?""No.""We just jogged. You should eat soon.""I know that," Gunner retorted, giving Khyle a look that said was I born yesterday, no. "I'm good for now. You go ahead."The smell of fries and burgers wafted over them. And at the smell of food, Gunner's stomach chose that exact moment to growl like he'd lost an exhaust pipe. Khyle quirked an eyebrow."I can see that," he deadpanned. Khyle turned away, heading up to the vendor to order some lunch. If Gunner was going to be stubborn, he could suck it. Khyle wasn't going to change his meal plan for him.Truth was, Gunner didn't want Khyle paying for anything. He didn't want
Last Updated: 2026-05-09
Chapter: Marcus's ManipulationPOV: Vivian AshfordThe IG live runs for twenty-two minutes and generates the kind of coverage that Diana describes, in her ten o'clock call the next morning, as either the most brilliant or most catastrophic unmanaged media moment she has witnessed in her professional career, and she has not yet determined which."The comments are split," she says. "Fifty percent think you're the most honest person in Hollywood. Fifty percent think you're publicly self-destructing.""Both halves are partially right," I say."Vivian," she says, in the tone she uses when she is setting aside professional mode for personal mode. "Are you okay?""I'm functional," I say, which is different and true.She accepts this, which is one of the things I value about Diana.Marcus does not accept this. Marcus calls forty minutes later, after I have had time to see the live's clip circulating and to watch the fifty-percent-honest and fifty-percent-catastrophic split play out in real time, and his voice is in the con
Last Updated: 2026-04-21
Chapter: Tabloid FrenzyPOV: Vivian AshfordI wake at six-fifteen to forty-seven missed notifications, which is the number before I stop counting, and the video has eight million views, which is the number Diana texts me at six-seventeen with the specific tone that even text can carry when someone has been awake since two managing a situation.I watch the video.It is, objectively, extraordinary footage. The lighting is cinematic and the camera is steady and the forty-five seconds of it are the forty-five seconds of two people who have been performing indifference for seven months discovering in real time that the performance was never sustainable. I watch it with the specific quality of someone watching themselves from the outside, which actors learn to do and which is still uncomfortable when the footage is this personal.I put my phone down.I make coffee.I drink the coffee at my kitchen counter in Silver Lake in the January morning and I think about the wall in the underground club and the gold mask on
Last Updated: 2026-04-20
Chapter: The Underground PartyPOV: Vivian Ashford The invitation comes through Marcus, which means I almost don't go, which means the fact that I end up going is entirely attributable to the specific quality of a Saturday night in January when you have been recovering from an accident and a Forbes insult and a tell-all piece and three weeks of carefully managed public composure, and someone offers you a masked party in a basement club in the Meatpacking District and your ribs have healed enough that dancing is theoretically possible and sometimes the theoretical becomes the actual. The club is called nothing, officially. It has a symbol on the invitation, a geometric shape, and an address and a time, and the dress code is formal and masked, which is the kind of instruction that sounds pretentious and is actually just liberating. I wear a black dress and a gold mask that covers my eyes and half my face and I take a car there alone, which Marcus protests and which I do anyway, and I walk into the basement space
Last Updated: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Research BeginsPOV: Sienna RhodesThe New York Public Library's special collections division closes at six on weekdays, which means I have been here since nine this morning and I have been given nine hours to find what I am looking for, which is either enough or not enough depending on whether what I am looking for wants to be found.I am looking for Helena Moreau Sterling.Not the person. The record of the practice.Practitioners leave traces, which is something Helena told me in one of our early conversations, which is something she said with the specific wry awareness of someone describing the professional hazard of their own field. Magic leaves marks on the world the way any significant force leaves marks, not always visible, not always legible, but present, and the marks that Helena Moreau left in the New York occult community of the late nineties and early two-thousands are what I am here to find.The archivist who manages the special collections division is a woman named Dr. Osei who has the
Last Updated: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Dominic's PastPOV: Helena MoreauThe scrying pool is different from the mirror.The mirror shows the present, the living surface of what is happening now, the real-time image of a person or a place. The pool is older and more costly and shows what the mirror cannot, the past, the specific events of times that have ended and which live now only in the particular kind of memory that certain practitioners can access.I have not used the pool in four years.The last time I used it was to watch Dominic's wedding to Constance, which I do not do for pleasure but which I do occasionally when the grief of the curse needs to be reminded of its own origin, when I need to see the specific moment that everything became what it became.Tonight I use it for Chase.He needs to see it.He needs to understand not just what I built but why I built it, and why is not a thing I can explain adequately in language because why is built from feeling and feeling cannot be fully translated.So I will show him.The pool is in
Last Updated: 2026-04-18
Chapter: The Curse RevealsPOV: Chase SterlingHelena's house in Greenwich Village is not what I expected, which is itself something I should have anticipated, because nothing about my mother has ever been what I expected.The outside is a narrow brownstone on a quiet block, the kind of building that exists in this neighborhood in large numbers and which does not announce itself. The inside is a different category of thing entirely. She has been in this rental for three weeks and she has made it into something that resembles, in specific and specific ways, the house in New Orleans where I spent the summers of my childhood, the smell of it the same, the specific combination of dried herbs and candle wax and old wood and something underneath all of that which I have never been able to name and which belongs, I understand now, to the practice.She has a workbench along the north wall. Candles in various stages of use. Jars of things I cannot identify. The grimoire, the large original one rather than the portable v
Last Updated: 2026-04-18
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