"And the Archer brothers! Fuck me running, are we trying to obliterate the commoners in a week flat?"
Rowan grins, absorbing the reception with the warm, extroverted energy that makes him the social battery of their duo. Ronan nods beside him, his cooler presence providing the counterbalance, his amber eyes scanning the crowd with the quiet assessment of a man who is cataloguing faces and filing them for future reference.
The team is electric. The energy radiating from the cluster at center ice carries the specific, volatile excitement of men who recognize that their roster has just acquired three players whose history precedes them and whose talent has been verified through channels that carry more weight than a coaching announcement.
They had history.
Real history. The kind that earns headlock reunions and stick-banging celebrations from players who have not seen them in years but remember what they were capable of. Whatever Archie, Rowan, and Ronan built on the ice together during their junior days was significant enough to leave an impression that survived the gap between then and now.
They were respected.
And the respect did not die when Archie left. It waited. Stored in the collective memory of a hockey community that remembers its best players the way musicians remember their best performances: as evidence that excellence is possible and worth celebrating when it returns.
Coach Mercer glides onto the ice with the specific authority of a man whose whistle ends all conversations regardless of their momentum.
"Alright, alright, break it up!" His gruff voice carries across the rink with the trained projection of thirty years of commanding attention in acoustically hostile environments. "We've got an announcement. Settle down."
He looks my way.
Two seconds. A glance that carries the specific, directed instruction of a coach cueing a player:your turn, Holloway. Get over here.
I skate toward the group.
Quietly. My strides minimal, my approach angled to minimize the visual disruption of a new body entering an established cluster. The twins are tall. Rowan at six-one, Ronan matching him, their combined height producing a wall of Alpha that I position myself behind with the strategic instinct of a defensive player using her linemates as a screen.
Perfect. Stand behind the tall ones. Blend into the formation. Let Coach make the announcement without the visual revealpreceding the verbal one, because the moment this team sees a woman in their midst the reaction is going to be either curiosity or hostility and I would prefer to know which before my face is the thing they are reacting to.
I reach my position behind the twins just as Ronan tilts his head sideways, his amber eyes finding mine with the specific, amused satisfaction of a man who has been waiting for this moment and intends to maximize its impact.
"Welp." His voice is pitched for the three of us, low enough to avoid the wider audience, warm enough to carry genuine delight. "Guess I won the bet. So you're taking Sage out on a date."
What bet?
What DATE?
I pout, the expression automatic, my brain processing the implications of a wager I was not consulted on that apparently involves me and a dinner reservation.
Rowan catches my look from Ronan's other side and delivers a smirking wink that communicates approximately seventeen things I do not have time to decode because Archie, standing in front of both twins, huffs audibly enough that I can hear the compressed frustration from my hidden position.
"You're an asshole. But whatever." He rolls his shoulders, the gesture carrying the physical effort of a man converting resentment into acceptance through sheer muscular exertion. "I can man up."
"Man up," I mutter from behind the twin wall, my voice arriving at his ears before my face arrives in his visual field, "but couldn't take a puck to the balls."
He looks over his shoulder.
And the look that travels from my helmet to my skates carries a thoroughness that makes the arena's sub-zero temperature feel tropical. His green eyes, unobstructed by the wire-rimmed frames he abandoned for contacts, perform a completeinventory of the jersey with HOLLOWAY on the back, the oversized fit, the number 55, and the woman inside all of it, and the assessment that crosses his features is not the neutral evaluation of a captain reviewing his roster but the specific, undisguised appreciation of a man seeing the woman he has been kissing in his kitchen wearing his team's colors for the first time.
"You look fucking good in uniform." The words arrive with the flat, declarative certainty that characterizes every honest statement he produces. Then the mask resettles. "But admit that again and I'm totally making you do drills."
"I swear you're not the captain of me, so fuck off."
He laughs. The sound brief but genuine, carrying the specific warmth that surfaces when I challenge his authority and his competitive instinct converts the challenge into entertainment rather than confrontation.
He turns fully. Facing me. The height difference registering at this proximity, his six-two frame looking down at my five-eight with the specific angle that places his chin above my helmet and his green eyes at a trajectory that requires me to tilt my head upward to meet them.
"I can one hundred percent order you around." His voice drops into the lower register. The one that makes my hindbrain produce responses my conscious mind has not authorized. "And you'd have no choice but to follow. Because you couldn't even get a score on me."
"I want a rematch."
