Page 53 of Puck, Marry, Thrill

“Ooooh that’s gotta hurt, bro!” Jett called out to the goalie, grinning like a devil and holding his stick high like a war banner. The guy had a doctorate in talking smack, and it showed.

Kenneth skated over, his breath puffing in the cold air, and met Jett’s eyes. The look they shared wasn’t loud or flashy—but it wasreal.

“I owe you two, brother,” Kenneth said.

Jett’s grin widened, real pride shining through. “Yeah, you do—now pay up!”

“On it…”

And hedid.

Kenneth’s skates sliced across the ice with deadly precision, his breath misting in the frigid air as he locked eyes on the puck. The world blurred around him—roaring fans, flashing lights, the shriek of metal on ice—none of it mattered except for the feel of the stick in his hands and the laser focus in his chest.

One shot.

The puck sang as it collided with the back of the net.

Then another.

Smooth. Clean. Lethal.

Like clockwork.

The horn blared, and the arena erupted. The crowd was a thunderstorm—shouting, stamping, throwing hats, waving signs with his name and number scribbled in frantic marker. The scoreboard blazed overhead like a spotlight sent from heaven itself.

6 to 2. Victory.

They’d done it. They’d buried the other team.

Kenneth skated toward the bench, his heart thundering in his chest like a drumline. High-fives met him. Slaps on the back. The clatter of sticks against the boards. He nodded, grinned, and even let out a whoop as he bumped helmets with his linemate. His lungs burned, sweat dripped from his brow, and for a fleeting moment, the adrenaline masked everything else. The rush of triumph. The physical high of winning.

But as his blades left the ice and his skates hit the rubber matting in the tunnel, the celebration started to fade—like fog being peeled away by something colder underneath.

He glanced back once. The team. The lights. The noise.

And then, deeper than all of it, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, came that thought again.

A quiet ache. A truth he didn’t want to name.

They’d won the game.

But Jett?

Kenneth exhaled slowly through his nose, jaw tight as he pulled off his gloves. That man—his teammate, his friend, hisbrother on the ice—wasn’t just skating through a streak. He was unraveling. Slipping. Coming apart at the edges. Kenneth had seen it—the way Jett lingered a second too long in the locker room, how he stared at his phone like it might punch him in the gut, how his jokes had gotten quieter, his eyes duller.

Something was happening. Something bigger than a missed goal or a bad shift. And it scared Kenneth more than any puck to the ribs ever could. One man’s attitude could infect the team and the atmosphere, and it couldn’t happen. If he had something going on at home, he couldn’t bring it into the locker room or the ice.

He didn’t know how to fix what was breaking inside Jett. He didn’t know if hecould.

Kenneth wiped a hand across his face, sweat mixing with the sting of unshed frustration. He was used to action. To strategy. To stepping up anddoingsomething. But this? This silent kind of suffering? It made him feel helpless and reminded him of his own past, and that was a feeling he hated more than losing a game.

But hesawit. And now that he did, he couldn’t unsee it.

He couldn’t just pretend that everything was fine because the scoreboard said they were winners tonight. Not when someone he cared about, a teammate, was quietly losing a different kind of battle.

But he’d bedarnedif he didn’t try.

And Kenneth?

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