Page 9 of Much Ado About Hockey

Sure enough, Jett put his car into drive and made the exhaust rumble as the engine roared behind her car as if to enunciate his comment regarding her Kia Soul versus his Porsche.

“There’s nothing wrong with my Kia,” Karen muttered, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel as she trailed behind the gleaming red sports car darting through the late afternoon traffic. Her compact car groaned a little as she pushed it to keep up, but she refused to let herself fall behind—not now. Not when everything inside her felt like it was unraveling.

The city stretched around her in gray monotony, concrete buildings hunched along the roadside like tired giants, every light change and honk of a horn reminding her of how endless and exhausting it all was. They were all part of it, weren’t they? The same faceless rush. The same repetitive grind. A world that spun forward without feeling or pause, chewing people up and spitting them out like it was nothing. If someone lost their place in line, the machine barely noticed. Another cog always stepped up. And now, somehow, she realized she was one of those cogs too—swept up in something relentless and uncaring.

She blinked, her thoughts crashing back to the present just in time to see Jett swerve smoothly into another lane, the tail end of his car a brief flicker of beauty in the gloom of the city. Even from here, even in traffic, his car turned heads. It didn’t belong among the used sedans and aging minivans. It roared with confidence, sleek and fast, a vivid slash of rebellion against the dullness surrounding it, just like Jett.

Her gaze lingered on his car as she followed, a tightness forming in her chest. He was like that too—bold, loud, the kind of man who seemed to suck the air out of every room and fill it with his own rhythm. He didn’t hide or compromise. He existed in full color. It was almost arrogant, the way he lived so unapologetically.

And she? She had never imagined ending up with someone like him. She had pictured a quieter life. Stability. Someone who made space for her, not someone who took up all the space and left her standing somewhere in the shadow of his spotlight. She hadn’t signed up for a life where she had to race just to keep up. This wasn’t what a partnership looked like—not the kind she had hoped for.

The weight of it all settled deep in her stomach as she kept her foot on the gas. A friendship. A relationship. A marriage.What were they building here, really? Or were they just hurtling toward something neither of them was ready for? And for what?

What was really going on?

Changing lanes, she had a lot of questions to ask – and he was going to answer them.

Or else.

Karen sat in her car for a moment after she parked, the engine ticking softly as it cooled. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as she took a deep breath, staring up at the modest condo building with a silent kind of dread pooling in her stomach. Twenty minutes hadn’t been long enough to prepare for this—not really. She hadn’t come for a fight, exactly, but she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t turn into one. Her heart was a mess of nerves and something else she didn’t want to name just yet.

She climbed out of her little silver Kia, the door groaning slightly as it swung shut behind her. The familiar weight of her fabric satchel slid onto her shoulder like armor. It was old, fraying in places, but it carried her comfort: a couple of pens she liked the feel of, a few worn notepads, and the novel she was re-reading because its characters felt like friends. These were her tools—her way of grounding herself when things got uncertain. She needed them now more than ever.

What was she even expecting?

Something flashy, over-the-top. Something that screamedlook at methe same way he always seemed to. A modernist loft, probably, with a giant, abstract painting bleeding color down one wall. She imagined a sterile white leather couchand a ridiculous faux fur rug, maybe polar bear style, stretched out in front of a gas fireplace with flickering neon blue flames meant to impress more than warm. Jett seemed to lean toward the dramatic. Theatric. Excessive. A little ridiculous.

And then the front door opened, and her mental image dissolved.

Jett stood there, one hand on the handle, the other gesturing with a ridiculous, over-the-top wave like he was welcoming her into a royal palace instead of a condo. She blinked at him, part exasperation, part reluctant amusement.

Stepping past him and into the space, she stopped short. Her eyebrows furrowed as she scanned the living room.

“Wherearewe?” she asked, the words slipping out before she could stop them. Her tone was half-suspicious, half-incredulous.

It was… normal. Weirdly normal. Not at all what she'd expected from Jett. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the interior with hesitant curiosity. The place had marble floors, sure—but they felt more like a remnant of a model home than a design choice. And then there was the couch.

Oh, the couch.

It was brown.Fabric.With massive padded arms trimmed in wood, the kind of couch that looked like it had been carried through at least two generations of furniture fashion and had survived purely on the grounds of being impossible to kill. Three odd, dark grooves ran down each armrest like racing stripes for your elbows. Was that… tweed?

Whoboughttweed anymore?

Beside it sat a recliner that looked like it had been someone’s favorite chair for at least fifteen years—worn, slightly lumpy, and clearly loyal. Across from it stood a wooden sofa table with glass panels arranged in a checkerboard layout, the panes tinted so dark they were nearly opaque. On top of it, perched in triumphant absurdity, was a glass pear. Iridescent, oversized,sitting on a crocheted doily of all things. The pear was stuffed with Hershey’s kisses, like some kind of old-fashioned candy bowl you'd expect at a holiday party in 1998.

Karen tilted her head, baffled.

“Is this your grandma’s house?”

Karen hesitated just inside the door, her heart thudding with an awkward rhythm that echoed louder than she wanted to admit. The scent of something faintly citrus—maybe a cleaning product or his cologne—lingered in the air. It didn’t match him. Then again, nothing really seemed to match him.

The door clicked softly behind her as Jett nudged it shut with his foot, then leaned down to kick off his sneakers. The casual motion drew her attention, and she blinked at the sight of his socks—one red-toed, the other with a giant black “L” stitched into the fabric like something from a child’s drawer.

She nearly slapped her forehead.

Of course. It figured.

“No?” Jett said, pulling his head back like she’d just insulted his dog. “Why would you ask that?”

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