The Secret History sits on the ground floor of the Sinclair, the luxury condo building where most of the Havoc players live. The team owns the building and subsidizes rent, which explains why a bunch of twenty-somethings who get paid to hit people with sticks can afford waterfront real estate.
The bar is all dark wood and mood lighting, the kind of place that smells like expensive whiskey and poor decisions. Music plays low. Conversations hum. I slip inside and head straight for the back room reserved for team personnel.
Juliet handles player relations, which means she puts outfires before the whole organization burns down. PR crises, player meltdowns, media scandals. When a Havoc player screws up, Juliet makes sure it doesn't end up on ESPN. She's part of the Coven, Jessa's nickname for our little group of women who actually keep this team functional.
The women have claimed a corner booth. Juliet sits on one side looking like she's about to negotiate a hostile takeover in her navy bodycon dress. Jessa wiggles in her seat wearing a cardigan with tiny embroidered cherries and grinning. Ivy Prescott, the teams’s crisis communications director, nurses a martini with the expression of someone who deals with hockey player drama for a living. Mollie Tate gestures wildly while explaining something, probably another viral TikTok idea. She’s the Havoc’s newest hire and her bouncy Gen Z energy is nearly irresistible.
I slide into the booth next to Jessa, and she immediately wraps an arm around my shoulders.
"You came!" she says, beaming.
"You guilt tripped me," I reply, but I'm smiling.
“Someone had to. Tell me you weren’t going to spend another night mooning around, sighing and petting your houseplants.”
“They get lonely!” I protest, giggling.
The Havoc players are scattered throughout the room like very large, very expensive lawn ornaments. Hunter Huxley leans against the bar with a scowl that could curdle milk. His brother Jett argues with the bar owner Olivier about the playlist. Together with Silas, they make up what the press calls the Brothers Grimm. Big, muscly hockey players with bad attitudes and even worse tempers.
Currently the Brothers Grimm are down one grim brother, but Hunter and Jett are doing their best to radiatedon't talk to usenergy.
Grayson Reed sits alone in a booth looking like he's hoping to become invisible through sheer force of will. I relate. Beck Tate, the team captain, talks quietly with a rookie near the pool table.
No sign of Silas. Shocking. He treats team gatherings the way vampires treat sunlight. And yes, I'm embarrassed that I noticed his absence. He's just... intriguing. He’s like a really grumpy puzzle I want to solve.
Ivy Prescott runs crisis communications. She's seen every stupid thing a hockey player can do and has a PR strategy for all of it. Right now she's drinking a martini like water and looking exactly like someone who spent the day convincing a twenty-three-year-old not to post shirtless gym selfies with questionable captions.
The women talk and laugh. Jessa slides me a glass and the pitcher of something that looks like lemonade. Margaritas, my nose informs me. Juliet shares a story about a disastrous press conference. Mollie shows us a TikTok of the players attempting a dance challenge with all the grace of newborn giraffes. Ivy rolls her eyes but she's smiling.
“You’re mopey.” Jessa nudges me. “Are you okay? You’re usually sunny all the time.”
I paste on a smile, not telling her that most of my sunniness is fake.Fake it ‘til you make it.
“It’s been a really long day. Tomorrow will be better.”
“Hm. You know what? We need to make a list. A sexy list.”
“Of what? Like… positions I’ve done it in?” I cringe. I’ve only ever been with one guy, my ex. And he mostly liked sex to be vanilla, missionary, and less than five minutes.
"A list of everything you're going to do this year. I don’t mean goals, I mean all the naughty, selfish things you want to do for yourself." She pulls a pen from her hair like it's beenwaiting there for exactly this moment. She drags a napkin across the table. "This is the post-Enzo Scout list. The… umm… the Naughty Girl Scout List."
"Jessa," I protest. “What do I need a list for?”
But she's already writing.
"Kiss a stranger," she says, scribbling it down. "Wear red lipstick every day for a week. Dance on a table. Have morning sex before coffee."
"You're ridiculous," I say. But her words bring a smile to my lips.
"Ridiculousness can save your life," Juliet replies, leaning in. "Come on. What do you want to do? Seriously, let's drink more margaritas and come up with a really dirty list."
I purse my lips then shrug. "Okay. Let's drink a little more first."
Jessa's eyes dance. "That's my girl."
Twenty minutes later, we have a list scrawled on the back of a blank sheet of paper borrowed from Juliet's attaché case.
The Naughty Girl Scout List
