Jett took the guards off his blades and handed them to a frowning staff member, ignoring the warmth of irritation spreading through him. His eyes were set on Harrison in the middle of the rink, his broad back on display as he yelled at Cote for not watching his right side.
Some of the guys caught sight of him and slid to a stop, watching him skate onto the ice. Jett grinned and waved, keeping his chin held high as he headed for center ice.
“Coach, put me on Cote’s line and I’ll play through the strategy with him,” Jett said, coming to a stop beside Harrison.
Harrison barely reacted when he saw him. There was a crinkle of grumpiness around his eyes, and his lips were pressed into a thin line, but that was it.
Everyone had stopped skating now, and all eyes were on him. Jett glanced at Wolf, taking in the sight of the scowl on his handsome features. Ryan was stiff as a board, eyes darting to Harrison like he was waiting for the argument to start.
With the same cool confidence he always had, Harrison jerked his head at Hellström. “Line switch. Fraser takes right wing for now. We need to do better on our power plays for Monday because you know who we’re up against.”
The Florida Barracudas. A hard-hitting team with a surplus of penalty minutes and a defence like a stone wall. They were experts at shutting teams down, so taking advantage of the power play was essential.
The guys on the ice said nothing as they skated into position. Not even Jason, whose mouth usually ran nonstop, said a word. The quiet was too sharp to be comfortable—too tense to be ignored. They were all on edge, every one of them wound tight like a spring, but Jett didn’t let it throw him. He rolled his shoulders, exhaled through his nose, and took his position for the face-off.
This was his zone. He knew how to push everything else out.
The puck hit the ice with a sharpclack, and Jett exploded into motion. He didn’t need to look—he knew Bracken would win the drop. The rhythm between them was built on instinct by now, and came as easily as drawing in oxygen.
As expected, Bracken wrangled the puck cleanly and sent it skating toward him.
His teammates came for him immediately—closing in like wolves—but Jett was already reading the ice. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cote slip into the seam, perfectly positioned where they’d drilled over and over again.
Jett faked left, pulling into a sudden stop with a sharp hiss of blades against ice. Snow sprayed, catching Wolf directly in the chest. The defenseman cursed and stumbled, caught flat-footed by the abrupt maneuver.
That was all Jett needed.
The millisecond of space he created was a gift, and he used it. Twisting his body, Jett shifted his weight and brought his stick down in a controlled slap. The puck shot across the rink like a bullet, slicing clean through the defenders. It was a good pass, but he was off by an inch.
He was already skating again, his mind locked in, and his heart racing with the thrill of control.
Cote caught the puck when it bounced off the boards, his skates cutting a tight arc as he pivoted to look for Jett.
Jett didn’t slow down. He pushed himself to the net, reading the shift in Cote’s posture.
The pass came quick and sharp, a low zinger that sliced between skates and sticks. Jett caught it on the heel of his blade, barely breaking stride as he adjusted. The defence was too slow, too late to catch him.
In a heartbeat, he pulled his stick back and snapped it forward with a crisp, practiced flick of his wrist.
The puck soared, rising just enough to clear Jason’s shoulder, thenslammedinto the mesh behind him with a resoundingthwack.
Cheers echoed through the arena from both sides on the ice, and Jett pumped his fist into the air.
That felt good—reallygood.
A hand snagged the back of his shirt and drew him away from the others, sliding him to where Wolf and Coach Adams were standing.
“You look good, little ferret,” Wolf drawled in his thick accent, eyeing Bracken as he let go of Jett’s sweater. “Scrawny, but you were always on the scrawny side.”
“Was not,” said Jett. Wolf just couldn’t comprehend how height didn’t equal muscle.
“A warning would have been appreciated,” Coach Adams said in a clipped tone. “Killinger informed me that you weren’t leaving the bedroom, let alone skating, so we weren’t expecting you to come to practice.”
Any other time, Jett would have felt bad for messing with his coach’s routine because he knew how important it was to him, but he wasn’t in the mood.
“Is there a problem with me showing up?”
They were separated from the rest of the guys who were getting ready for another play, but that didn’t stop Ryan from placing a hand on his shoulder and shushing him.
