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“No. I said she’d blow me every day for a month. Took at least eight weeks just to get the take-off right,” he clarified.

Koffee scoffed. “Bullshit. Looked easy as fuck. Watch this.”

He took three aggressive strides, threw his two-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame into the air and attempted to spin, managing maybe a quarter of a rotation before he hit the ice with a loud thud and a string of curses that would make any sailor proud.

Petrov doubled over, resting his hands on his knees as he wheezed with laughter, while Morrison glided over to nudge Koffee with his stick. “Textbook form,” he deadpanned. “Zero out of ten from the judges.”

“Fuck off,” Koffee groaned, rolling onto his back with a wince.

“I’m gonna try,” Corbs said next, but before he could even get airborne, his blade caught in a divot, sending him face-first into the ice.

The next thing I knew, half the team was taking turns recklessly hurling themselves into the air, turning the ice into an absolute circus.

I stood near the face off circle, my hands stacked on the knob of my stick, watching their antics. Normally, I’d be annoyed by the lack of discipline, grinding my molars down to small nubs and obsessing over the wasted time, but today, I couldn’t find it in me to care.

It turned out being secretly engaged to the love of your life made all of that judgmental perfectionism my dad had drilled into me over the years just disappear.

“Callahan, stop your daydreaming!” Petras barked at me from across the ice, though there was no real bite to his words. The man was practically glowing from our winning streak.

“Yes, Coach!” I called out, turning to see my group’s set of drills had resumed while I was in my head.

Thirty minutes later, exhausted and sweaty, the guys flooded back into the locker room. Almost immediately, terrible, twangy country music blasted from Crawford’s portable Bluetooth speaker.

I peeled my jersey off over my head, stripped off my upper base layer, then dropped onto the bench and folded over to unlace my skates. Just as I’d turned to stow them at the bottom of my stall for the equipment guy to retrieve later, a jet of freezing water hit me on the back of my neck and flowed down my spine.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I yelped, leaping up and spinning around to find Mikey standing a few feet away, stripped down to his moisture-wicking compression pants, holding my squeeze bottle pointed directly at my chest, a wicked grin plastered on his face.

“You looked too hot, Callahan,” he said with a wink. “Thought you needed to cool down a bit.”

“You’re a dead man, Porter,” I growled, lunging forward and using my longer reach to hook my arm around his neck to trap him in a headlock.

Mikey let out a dramatic gasp when I pulled him against me. I gripped him tighter, and he flailed his arms wildly about in an exaggerated attempt to break free. I rubbed my knuckles into the short, soft curls on the top of his head, and he slapped his palm against my thigh like he was tapping out in an MMA fight.

“I give up!” he wheezed through his laughter.

“I won,” I gloated, shoving him away with a laugh of my own.

I turned back toward my stall, only to have a towel snap against my ass with a loud crack.

“Fuck!” I hollered, my butt cheek stinging.

I spun around as Mikey scrambled backward, howling with glee, and snagged my towel off its hook, dodging around a pile of discarded gear to chase after him.

Petrov and Kovalev chucked sweaty, rolled-up balls of socks at us as we darted past. I smacked a pair away with my forearm, and it caught Nielson in the mouth.

“Gross! What the fuck, man!” he sputtered, spitting onto the floor before picking up the damp bundle and chucking it back at me, missing by at least two feet—a sadly accurate reflection of his shooting percentage this season.

I snapped my towel at Mikey, but he dodged my attack, spinning Dawes into my path as a human shield. I pulled up short to keep from running him over, and Mikey used the moment to slip past Morrison, who was shaking his head as unwound tape from his wrists.

“Would you two just kiss already?” Koffee called out. “Jesus, it’s like watchin’ some weird fucking mating ritual.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, my towel slipping out of my fingers. I looked slowly from Koffee to Mikey, whose arms were frozen in a defensive position, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then he shook his head, and a mischievous grin slipped across his face.

“You hear that, Callahan? Koffee wants us to kiss,” he cooed, puckering his lips and making loud mwah-mwah-mwah sounds while he advanced on me. “Come here and gimme those sweet, sweet lips, baby.”

“Get the fuck away!” I laughed, hoisting one of Hale’s discarded leg pads up to use as a shield.

The guys around us erupted into a chorus of whistles and catcalls as Mikey chased me in circles around the bench.