CHAPTERONE
Hunter
I check the defender hard into the boards and win the battle for the puck.
Spinning around, I cradle the prize with my stick as I skate down the open ice toward the goal.
The goalie pushes out from the net to try to narrow down my angles, but I’m going too fast. With a quick flick of my wrist, I launch the puck off the end of my stick.
It zips past the goalie’s outstretched glove but sails wide left and misses the net.
“Fuck,” I growl as I race behind the goal.
I slam into the first defender before he reaches my errant shot, and Murph dislodges the puck from between him and the boards. Murph looks up and sees that Liam has a clear path to the net, and he sends the puck toward him. Liam fakes like he’s going low with his shot, and at the last second, he flips the puck up past the goalie’s stick and into the back of the net.
I breathe out in relief as the buzzer sounds.
“One to nothing,” Liam says as he pounds me on the back. “We’ve still got a shot to win the division.”
But when we skate over to the bench and file off the ice, Coach Jones isn’t smiling.
“Nice going.” Coach slaps Murph and Liam on the shoulders before turning to me. “You do what you need to do to get out of this funk, Storm. You hear me? Whatever it takes. You’re our first-line left winger. I want to keep it that way.”
His warning isn’t subtle, and I know he meant it that way.
“Understood,” I tell him. “I’m working through it.”
“You need my help, just let me know.”
“Yes, sir.” I continue past him.
“Whatever it takes, Hunt,” Liam says to me as he echoes our family motto. My brother’s tone is determined like always. “Right?”
“Right.”
Once we’re off the ice and out of earshot of any media or coaches, Murph mutters to me, “We need you, Hunt. We got lucky tonight.”
Dean, our best defenseman, catches up to us as we head for our lockers. “Fuck, yeah, we did.” His blond hair is sweaty and sticking to his head as he removes his helmet and throws it into his locker. “We should have beat those guys going away.”
I grimace. This slump has stretched for nearly four weeks. All of January, and now that we’ve hit February and nothing’s changed, I’m starting to panic. But I don’t say that.
Prior to January, I’d been having the best season of my career. There was talk of league MVP, and I was stoked. Lately, all that talk has cooled, and I just want to get back to what I know I’m capable of.
It was always my dream to play hockey for my home state of Louisiana—not to mention with my brothers. So when the New Orleans Fire got an expansion team three years ago, and my oldest brother, Liam, and I were picked up, it was a dream come true.
Our twin brothers, Jared and Max, were still under contract for the Montana Wild Kings, but New Orleans was able to snag Camden Murphy out of free agency. Murph is my childhood friend and brother in everything but his last name, and the three of us are feeling pretty damn lucky. We’ve got a great owner who’s all in, and I want to pay him back for bringing me here by playing at an MVP level. But I can’t do that unless I get myself out of this damn slump.
I open my locker and toss my helmet onto the shelf. I take off my skates and then start to strip off my jersey and shoulder pads.
“I know what the problem is,” a familiar deep, gravelly voice says from my left. “You miss living with me, don’t you, baby brother?”
I glance up. Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, Liam leans against the locker next to mine. He’s got his usual obnoxious grin on his ruggedly handsome face.
I cross my arms over my chest and set my jaw as I give my brother a hard look.
“Liam, back the fuck off. I don’t need to live with you to get out of my slump.”
“Kind of do, man.” Murph nods seriously, his overgrown dark hair falling into his eyes.
