Page 103 of Hockey Halloween
Copyright © 2025 Katie Kenyhercz
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage, A.I. programs and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Trope: Boss/Employee
Costume: Barbie/Ken
Teddy Walker is theitgirl of follows, likes, and clicks, but when she gets a chance at establishing herself in a real way as the social media manager for the Las Vegas Sinners NHL team, she’s all in. When the first player she meets has zero internet presence and no motivation to get one? She’s got her work cut out for her. Especially because his shy nature clashes wildly with his Ken Doll looks. Dragging him into the limelight won’t be easy, but guarding her heart from the sensitive center might be harder. Archer Reid is bound to prove himself in the NHL after being drafted and immediately injured in training camp before his debut season. Now two years later, called up from Carson City, he’s finally getting his chance, but integrating is tough as in introvert, so he makes a deal with the devil. Teddy will help him assimilate if he’ll jump into social media. What could go wrong?
Archer
Monday, October 27
I have a bad feeling about this. Archer Reid stared out the window of his Uber inching along in Vegas Monday evening traffic and shifted uncomfortably with his hockey bag stretched across the backseat and over his lap. His stick was angled from the opposite foot well so that the butt end rested on his shoulder. He wasn’t exactly a small guy. It was a less-than-ideal way to get to his debut game as a Sinner, and he was going to belate. What a way to make a first impression. Well, second, technically. The first had been worse.
The engine of the aging sedan, which had been making curious sounds since his hotel pick-up, mewled and grinded, and the car jerked. Jerked again. Stopped. The driver slapped the dashboard. “Come on! Not again.”
Archer’s anxiety spiked along with his heartrate.Shit. It wasn’t like he could call an Uber from an Uber. There wasn’t time. He was only two blocks from the arena. He’d be gassed by the time he got there, but what choice did he have? “Hey, I’m just gonna walk from here.”
The driver muttered an apology, still mostly focused on his own misfortune, and Archer climbed out in an awkward shuffle of bag,stick, long limbs, and a bulky body in an awkward, struggling wiggle that could have slayed onAmerica’s Funniest Home Videos. Horns honked all around him as he navigated to the sidewalk into a sea of tourists all headed in different directions.
He made it about twenty feet, feeling like a salmon swimming upstream, fighting all the way, when another horn honked. Then honked twice. It was the final performance of “Shave and a Haircut” ending withbeep beepthat finally made him look. A woman had pulled up to the curb in an iridescent purple car and waved at him. He stopped in his tracks for a second because she wasn’t just a woman. She looked like a Victoria’s Secret model. And she was wearing angel wings. Literally. Then again, it was almost Halloween. And Las Vegas.
She rolled the passenger window down. “Get in!”
“Oh. I can’t?—”
“Yes, you can. Get in! I’m going to the game too. Swear I’m not a stalker.” She lifted a Las Vegas Sinners Staff badge on a lanyard hanging from her neck.
Relief flooded him, and he made his way to her, tossing his stuff in the back of her car before dropping into the passenger seat. She pulled back into traffic, using her mirrors to full effect to pull off an impressive maneuver that got them in the left lane and moving steadily toward the arena.
“You saved me. Thought I was going to be late to my first game here. I’m Archer Reid. New call-up.”
“Teddy Walker. I’m new to the organization myself. But you probably recognize me.” There was no ego in her tone. It was matter of fact, like everyone knew her and she was used to it.
Except he didn’t. “Oh. Yeah.” He tried to be nonchalant, but she must have caught something in his voice or the surely less-than-convincing expression on his face.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and a wide smile curled her full lips. “You really don’t. Wow. That’s nothing bad on you, just new for me. I have a…pretty big following on TikTok.”
“Oh, I’m not on social media.”
Her perfectly manicured brows pinched in confusion as if he’dslipped into speaking Greek. “Well, not everyone’s on TikTok. You probably stick with Insta.”
“Nope.”
“Snapchat?”
“Sorry.”
Her small, freckled nose wrinkled slightly as if it pained her to even say it. “Facebook?”
“I can save you some time. I have an email address. That’s it.” He’d never been self-conscious about it before, but some heat crept up his neck and into his face.
“Oh.” She looked gobsmacked like it never occurred to her that a human could exist off socials.
