LOGINBy the time Jamie made it down the hallway to the media room, the arena had settled into a strange, hollow quiet. The kind of quiet that made every footstep echo.He set his camera on the small table with more force than necessary and immediately began rearranging it.Tripod centered. Chairs angled. Audio checked.Checked again.He swallowed hard.Dane.He was going to have to sit alone in here with Dane soon. In an almost empty rink. At night. After watching him square up to another player.Oh God.Maybe he should’ve asked Beck to stay.Maybe he should’ve asked Larsson.Maybe he should’ve pretended the audio equipment wasn’t working and postponed the whole thing until morning.His pulse kicked back up.He imagined Dane in this small room, broad shoulders filling the chair, irritation still simmering, answering questions in clipped, unimpressed sentences.Jamie exhaled slowly through his nose.It was just an interview. Just ten minutes.A knock landed against the door.Jamie nearly ju
Northbridge pushed hard after the goal, the energy on the ice sharpening into something almost frantic, but the Direwolves held their ground. Dane returned for the final stretch, steady and composed, and when the buzzer finally sounded with the scoreboard reading 5–3, the arena erupted all over again.They’d won.And Max had scored a goalie goal in his first appearance of the season.The tunnel area dissolved into noise as players streamed off the ice. Jamie packed up on autopilot, coiling cords, sliding spare batteries into their pouch, forcing his breathing to level out.This was his job.He had to switch gears.By the time he reached the locker room corridor, it was already chaos. Reporters clustered near the entrance. Teammates were half-dressed, shouting over one another, replaying the shot in exaggerated pantomime.“Did you see his face?”“From his own end, man!”“Goalie goal! That’s insane!”Larsson stood a little apart from the commotion, beaming in a way Jamie had never seen
A student assistant met Jamie outside the corridor and waved him toward the lower bowl.“Media section’s over there,” she said, pointing toward a cluster of folding chairs just off the glass near the blue line. “You can’t cross behind the bench once warm‑ups start. Just stay clear of the tunnel.”Jamie nodded, clutching his camera a little tighter than necessary.He made his way down the steps carefully, the arena already louder than it had been during the exhibition. Music thumped through the speakers. The scoreboard glowed overhead, cycling through player stats and hype videos. Fans filtered into their seats in jerseys and face paint, the air buzzing with anticipation that felt entirely different from the quiet rehearsal energy of pre‑season.This was his first real hockey game.It was nothing like practice.Practice had been controlled. Predictable. A handful of players, coaches shouting, the scrape of skates echoing in a mostly empty rink.This was alive.Jamie reached the media r
Jamie had managed to avoid Max for two whole weeks.He’d arranged it that way.The day after the party, he’d emailed Larsson claiming he wanted to “observe remotely” for a few days, citing coursework and editing deadlines. Larsson had responded with a single line: As long as you don’t miss the exhibition.Jamie had learned quickly that an ‘exhibition’, as Larsson called it, was essentially a pre‑season scrimmage dressed up for optics. It didn’t count toward standings. It didn’t matter on paper. It was a chance to test new lines, shake out rookies, try systems against an outside opponent without consequence. A rehearsal before the real curtain lifted.He attended the exhibition because he had to. One week after the party at the Wolf Den, he sat high in the stands with his camera, filmed every shift, every line change, every awkward fumble and promising connection. He took meticulous notes. He asked Zach questions afterward in the corridor about defensive adjustments and ice time distri
Max hadn’t meant for it to turn into this.At some point, the world had narrowed to the space between them. Just heat and breath and the steady slide of mouths that kept deepening instead of easing off. He lost any sense of how long they’d been at it. Time blurred into the rhythm of Jamie learning him and Max responding in kind.Jamie was exactly as soft as he’d looked.His skin was warm beneath Max’s hands, smooth where his fingers slipped beneath the edge of his jacket and traced over the cotton of his T‑shirt. He tasted faintly of soda and something sweet, something unmistakably Jamie. It was addictive in a way Max hadn’t been prepared for.“That’s it,” Max whispered, brushing his mouth back over Jamie’s. “Just like that.”Jamie shivered at the praise, the reaction immediate and unfiltered, and it went straight through Max.At first Jamie had followed carefully, adjusting when Max adjusted, opening when Max pressed a little deeper. But now he was responding on instinct. Tilting hi
If humans came with a self-destruct button, Jamie would have pressed his right then.“Oh my god,” he blurted before he could stop himself. “Was it that bad?”Max snorted. “No,” he said, amused. “No. It wasn’t bad. You just seemed a little… nervous.”Jamie’s laugh came out thin and brittle. “Yeah. I guess I could, uh. Use a little practice.”He meant it as self-deprecating deflection. A joke.Max went quiet.Jamie risked a glance at him.Max was watching him like he was considering something. Head tilted, green eyes steady and assessing in a way that made Jamie feel slightly dismantled.“Alright,” Max said finally. “Sure.”Jamie blinked. “What do you mean?”“You can practice on me.”Jamie’s brain lagged.“I—” He barked out a disbelieving laugh. “Obviously I was joking.”Max raised a brow, slow and deliberate, the corner of his mouth lifting just enough to suggest he knew exactly what he was doing. The confidence in it was infuriatingly attractive.Jamie stared at him. “Sorry. Can you







