Page 21 of Much Ado About Hockey

Karen swung her legs over the edge of the bed with a groan, the sheets pooling around her waist as the early morning light filtered through the curtains, casting faint stripes across the hardwood floor. She blinked against the heaviness behind hereyes, the kind that came from a restless night filled with far too much overthinking and too little sleep. She was determined to be productive today—to shake off the fog and get her life in order. The imaginary clock ticking in her head had gotten louder overnight, counting down toward… something. She didn’t even know what. But it was there, insistent and impossible to ignore.

Just as her bare feet touched the floor, her phone chimed again.

The sound made her pause, heart skipping slightly as if part of her already knew who it might be. She reached for the device on her nightstand, the screen lighting up with another notification. Her thumb hovered before she unlocked it, and her breath caught as the image filled the screen.

A photo.

And not just any photo—one that stopped her in her tracks and made the morning blur for just a second.

Jett was sitting in a red vinyl booth at some random McDonald’s, grinning down at the camera with an easy, crooked smile that made her chest ache unexpectedly. But it wasn’t just him. Seated beside him was a boy—a miniature version of Jett, yet not entirely. The kid had a mop of dark hair that curled slightly over his forehead and eyes so vividly blue they practically glowed, unlike Jett’s warm brown ones.

The resemblance was still uncanny.

They had matching silver chains resting against their T-shirts, both with a single slashed line through one of their eyebrows—an oddly specific detail that made her blink in surprise. And when she leaned in closer, she noticed the faint spray of freckles across the bridge of the boy’s nose—more than Jett had, but enough to make it impossible to miss the connection.

He was his brother.

There was no doubt about it.

But it wasn’t just the resemblance that tugged at her—it was the tenderness. The boy leaned into Jett as if he belonged there; like that was the safest place in the world for him to be. And Jett didn’t seem to notice the camera or care about it if he did. He looked at the kid like he mattered. Like he wasn’t just an afterthought or a responsibility—but someone hechoseto show up for.

Karen stared at the image longer than she meant to, a warmth seeping through the cracks she was trying to keep closed off. This side of him—this quiet, deeply loyal version—was one she hadn’t expected. Jett carried himself like he didn’t care about much. His eyebrow ring, the occasional earring, the slightly-too-cool smirk, and the air of arrogant indifference he wore like a jacket all screamedtrouble. He gave off the vibe of someone who had built up a wall so high no one could scale it—and for good reason.

People like that had stories.

Scars.

And yet… here was this boy, and here was Jett, softening in his presence.

It was confusing. It was unsettling.

Because every time she peeled back a layer of who he was—every time she thought she’d figured him out—he revealed something else entirely. Something raw. Something honest. And that… that terrified her.

He was a professional hockey player, for heaven’s sake. He lived in a world full of screaming fans and flashing cameras and beautiful women who probably threw themselves at him the second he stepped off the ice. All she had to do was type his name into a search bar—not that she had during her late-night spiral—and there were photos. So many photos. Women in tight dresses hanging off his arm, nightclub snapshots, candidmoments where he looked far too familiar with people who weren’t her.

Which only led her to the inevitable question that had been haunting her since the night before:

Why me?

Why had Jett appeared in her life out of nowhere, spewing out sweet words with such reckless conviction, talking her into this marriage as if it were the most logical thing in the world? Whodoesthat? What kind of man offers to marry a woman just to help him get a job?

No one. No one real.

And yet… he had.

All the pieces didn’t add up, and maybe that was the point. Maybe the math was never meant to make sense. But as she sat on the edge of the bed, holding her phone like it might hold all the answers, one thing became increasingly, uncomfortably clear:

She was in danger.

Not the kind you ran from—but the kind that crept in slowly. The kind that wore a smile and made you laugh and made your heart beat too fast when it shouldn’t. The kind that convinced you tohopeagain when you knew better.

And then her phone rang.

The sound shattered the quiet like a whip crack, jarring her from the storm inside her head.

Perfect timing.

Because just when she was starting to realize how tangled this had all become—how exposed and unsteady she felt—life decided to remind her thatnothingabout this was simple.

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