A towel whipped through the air. Hook ducked it with a lazy grin.
Jones caught it without missing a beat. “You’re all just bitter these arms don’t belong to you.” He turned to me, that cocky spark lighting up his pretty-boy face like a flare. “Right, Hades? Tell ‘em I’m the best-looking bastard on the ice.”
I leaned against my locker, crossing my arms. Took a long, dramatic pause just to watch him squirm.
Then I deadpanned, “Jones, if vanity were a sport, you’d be MVP, league record holder, and probably suspended for excessive celebration.”
The room erupted.
Laughter bounced off the walls like shrapnel. Jafar smirked. Gang Lu didn’t even look up—just sharpened his stick like he was planning someone’s execution. Scar muttered something snide under his breath. Hook gave me a slow clap like a man thoroughly entertained by someone else’s misfortune.
I smiled. Not wide. Just enough to let the flames flicker under my skin.
Because here was the truth:
They were cocky.
They were violent.
They were gods of war on skates.
And they were mine.
I didn’t need order.
I needed fire.
And this locker room?
It was a powder keg.
Just waiting for the spark.
“You see that girl in the third row last game?” Jones puffed, teeth flashing like he’d just scored a hat trick with his ego. “Begged me to autograph her bra.” He paused, milking the moment, eyes gleaming with unearned pride. “I signed both.”
His grin was wider than a goalpost and twice as obnoxious.
Scar leaned back in his stall, arms crossed, his face carved from cool disdain. “You’re such a peacock.”
“And yet,” Jones replied, striking a flex like he was posing for a centerfold, “I’m still prettier than you.”
God give me strength.
I watched them with a curl of amusement, head tilted like I was watching toddlers slap-fight over a toy firetruck. Scar wasn’t wrong—Jones could out-preen a runway model. He didn’t just want to win the game; he wanted the spotlight, the stage, the standing ovation. The guy could charm the venom off a snake and still convince it to buy season tickets.
Across the room, Jafar was locked onto the whiteboard like he was about to reinvent quantum physics with a slap shot. Brows drawn, jaw tight. Always calculating, always ten steps ahead.
“We’re not running zone fast enough,” he said, not even looking up. “If the flank drifts again, we’re leaving the crease wide open for the kill shot.”
Scar snorted, under his breath but not nearly quiet enough. “Yeah, well, if we had forwards who weren’t allergic to passing…”
Jafar flicked him a slow, lethal glance.
Meanwhile, Gang Lu—or as I like to call him, casual violence in human form—was in his corner, dragging a blade sharpener across his stick like he was preparing for something that definitely wasn’t regulation-approved. The guy didn’t need to speak. His silence made most men sweat through their gear.
And then, as if on cue, Hook chimed in. Of course he did.
Leaning against the wall, one foot crossed over the other, twirling his stick like it was a rapier and we were all extras in his twisted little opera.
