Epilogue - Hog
The box said YARN (DO NOT CRUSH) in Rhett's careful block letters, which was rich considering he'd stacked it under two boxes of hockey gear.
I hefted it out of the truck bed, testing the weight.
Still intact. The cardboard gave slightly where my thumbs pressed—soft contents, nothing broken.
Inside were three months of projects: half-finished scarves, a family of knitted pigs Margaret kept threatening to sell at the shop, and Gram's project bag.
"Pretty sure that's half your personality in there," Rhett called from the porch. He had sawdust in his hair from the morning's work—final trim on the upstairs closet.
"You say that like it's not the good half."
He grinned, stepping aside so I could shoulder through the door. The house smelled like coffee grounds, wood shavings, and the mustiness of old houses in September when you opened all the windows to let summer drain out before winter sealed you in.
Home. Our home.
I set the box down in what we called the living room, though it was just the space where we'd shoved the couch between stacks of unpacked boxes.
A Storm banner hung crooked above the fireplace.
I'd gotten one corner up before Rhett insisted we needed to find the level.
Three hours later, it was still sitting on the mantel, buried under takeout menus and a roll of packing tape.
Rhett's order met my chaos, head-on, in real time.
"You gonna stand there all day?" Rhett asked, hip-checking me as he passed with his own box. "Or help me figure out where the hell we're supposed to put seventeen coffee mugs?"
"Seventeen's not that many."
"You own four. I own four. That's eight." He set the box on the kitchen counter with a thunk. "The other nine are a mystery I'm not equipped to solve before noon."
"Bedroom closet's done," he said, pulling mugs from the box and lining them up on the counter. "Left you the big one."
I stopped. "The walk-in?"
"You've got more clothes than I do. And the yarn." He didn't look up, busy arranging mugs by size. "Figured you'd need the space."
It was a vast, quiet gesture. He'd taken the smaller closet—the one that barely fit his work clothes—and given me the one with built-in shelves and room to spread out.
Rhett had measured twice and updated a home where I didn't have to make myself smaller.
"You didn't have to—"
"I know. Wanted to."
"Thanks," I managed.
"You're welcome." He handed me a mug—the one with the cartoon bear that had been in my apartment since juniors. "Now make yourself useful and help me figure out the coffee situation before I lose my mind."
We worked through the afternoon. I unpacked books while Rhett assembled our bed frame, both calling out discoveries.
"Found your sock collection," I yelled. "Why do you own eight pairs of the same gray socks?"
"They're different grays!"
"They're identical!"
"You're wrong, and I can prove it!"
By evening, we'd made enough progress that the house looked almost intentional. The couch faced the TV. The kitchen had dishes. The bedroom had a bed—even if we'd buried it under four bags of linens we hadn't sorted yet.
We ate Thai food on the living room floor, backs against the couch, boxes forming walls around us like a cardboard fort.
Rhett's shoulder pressed against mine. He'd showered again after assembling furniture, and his hair stuck up in the back where he'd missed a spot with the towel. I resisted the urge to smooth it down.
"Feels like the start of something," he said quietly.
I thought about all the times I'd moved before—St. Louis to juniors, juniors to the Storm, apartment to apartment, always temporary, always ready to pack up when the next contract came through or didn't. Always waiting for permission to stay.
This was different. We'd signed the mortgage papers together, hands cramping from the number of places we had to initial.
Rhett had measured the kitchen three times to make sure my KitchenAid would fit on the counter.
We'd argued about paint colors for the office—he'd won with "accessible beige," which I maintained was the saddest name for a color in human history.
We'd chosen this. Together.
"Yeah," I said, setting down my container of pad thai. "And for once, I don't need to shout about it."
He turned his head, and we were close enough that I saw the small scar above his eyebrow—the one from when he'd face-planted on his bike at eight and needed three stitches. Sloane had told me the story last month over dinner, while Rhett protested that it made him sound uncoordinated.
I knew the scar now. Knew the sound of his breathing when he fell asleep first. Knew he always checked the locks twice before bed, and that he saved his receipts in the truck console until they fossilized.
I knew him.
And he knew me—the fights and the knitting, the spirals and the banana bread, and the parts I'd spent thirty years convinced were too much or not enough.
He'd built me a closet.
"You good?" Rhett asked, thumb brushing my wrist.
"Yeah." I laced our fingers together. "Just thinking about how I used to fill every silence. Like if I stopped talking, people would forget I was there."
We sat there while the sun dropped lower, turning the living room amber. One of the boxes nearby was labeled LOCKER ROOM STUFF in my handwriting.
I nudged it with my foot. "Pretty sure I packed Pickle by mistake."
Rhett laughed—the real one, not the polite contractor version he used with demanding clients. "Is that what's been making that noise?"
"Thought it was the furnace."
"The furnace doesn't yell about sock tricks."
We finished our food and then tackled the bedroom. By the time we'd cleared enough space to use the bed, it was past midnight, and my shoulder complained about the day's lifting. We climbed in together.
"Tomorrow's the team's first skate," I said.
"I know."
"Pickle's probably already spiraling."
"Definitely spiraling."
"Gonna be a long season."
"Good thing you like chaos." Rhett rolled onto his side, propping himself on one elbow to look at me. "And good thing you've got somewhere to come home to when it gets loud."
I reached up and finally smoothed down that piece of hair sticking up in the back. "Yeah. Good thing."
He kissed me, tasting like pad thai.
When he pulled back, his eyes were dark and soft. "Welcome home, Hog."
"Welcome home," I echoed.
***
I stood at the boards, stretching my hamstrings, shoulder taped but functional, watching the Zamboni make its final pass. First skate of the new season.
My stomach had that familiar pre-game flutter. Coach Rusk stood at the bench, clipboard in hand. He caught my eye and jerked his chin toward the ice.
I was halfway through my second lap when the locker room door banged open hard enough to rattle the hinges. Pickle exploded onto the rink.
One shin guard was on backward. His jersey was inside-out. He'd forgotten his helmet entirely, and he was skating in slides instead of skates, arms windmilling as he hit the ice and immediately started sliding toward the boards in a slow-motion disaster.
"SORRY, COACH!" His voice cracked with panic and adrenaline in equal measure. "My alarm clock's a liar, and my phone died, and I couldn't find my other skate, and—"
A whistle blast cut him off.
"Piatkowski," Coach said, his voice flat. "You planning to skate in those, or should I grab you some stilts?"
Pickle looked down at his slides like he'd just noticed them. "Oh. Shit. I—hold on—"
He turned and shuffle-ran back toward the locker room, nearly wiping out on the rubber matting.
Jake appeared beside me, already laughing. "And so it begins."
Evan glided up on my other side, shaking his head. "Just a babe. Still can't dress himself."
"Kid's got heart," I said, grinning despite myself.
"Kid's got chaos," Evan corrected. "Heart implies organization."
Pickle returned five minutes later—this time in actual skates, jersey right-side-out, and shin guards facing the correct direction. His helmet sat crooked on his head, but at least it was there.
I skated over before he could get himself into more trouble. "You planning to survive the season like that?"
He looked up at me, eyes bright despite the obvious panic still clinging to him. "Survival's for boring people."
"Good thing I like chaos."
"See?" He gestured at me, then at Jake and Evan. "Hog gets it. Hog understands my creative process."
"Your creative process looks like a tornado had a baby with a yard sale," Jake called from center ice.
"THAT'S STILL A PROCESS!"
I grabbed Pickle's shoulder and steered him toward the bench. "Sit. Let me fix whatever's happening with your gear before Coach has an aneurysm."
He sat, and I crouched down to check his skate laces. Too loose. I tightened them, double-knotted, then moved to his shin guards. The left one was fine. The right one was—
"How did you get this on upside-down?"
"Talent."
I fixed it, secured the tape, and stood. "Better. Now try not to fall on your face in the first drill."
"No promises." He flashed that gap-toothed grin that made it impossible to stay annoyed at him. "Thanks, Hog. You're like—" He paused, searching for words. "You're like the team's dad, but cooler. Team's uncle? Team's—"
"Stop talking and start skating."
We ran through warm-ups—nothing fancy. My shoulder held up fine through stick-handling drills. The tape job was solid, and the range of motion was better than it had been in May.
Pickle, predictably, was a beautiful disaster.
He missed three passes in a row, got tangled in his own stick during a simple pivot, and at one point just... fell.
Jake skated over and poked him with his stick. "You alive down there?"
"Thriving," Pickle wheezed.
Next, Coach set up a shooting drill, and everything changed.
Pickle took the pass at the blue line, cut hard to his forehand, and ripped a shot that went bar-down so fast the goalie barely twitched. The sound of it—puck hitting metal, then ice—echoed through the empty arena.
We all stopped.
"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" Coach bellowed, actually smiling. "DO IT AGAIN!"
Pickle did it again. And again. Three shots, three goals, each one cleaner than the last.
I watched him reset for the next rep, and something clicked.
Last year, he'd been a rookie trying to prove he belonged—all nerves and chaos and desperate energy that went in nine directions at once.
Now? The chaos was still there, but underneath it was something sharper. Focused. Like a fire that had finally figured out which direction to burn.
He was going to be good. Maybe great, if he could keep himself together long enough to let it develop.
The thought hit with surprising force: I wouldn't be here to see all of it.
Not because I was leaving—I wasn't. Thunder Bay was home now, the shop, Rhett, and the team I'd helped build, but my body had limits. They were approaching faster than I wanted to admit. Maybe this season or the next. The clock was running.
Pickle would still be here when I was gone. Jake and Evan, too, probably. The Storm would keep going, keep fighting, and keep being Thunder Bay's impossible underdog story.
And that was okay.
Better than okay.
Coach blew the whistle for a water break. The team drifted toward the bench in a loose cluster, helmets coming off, gloves tucked under arms.
I glanced up at the stands.
Rhett sat three rows back, travel mug in both hands. Our eyes met through the plexiglass. He raised his mug in a small salute.
I tapped my stick against the ice twice—our signal.
"Alright, men!" Coach's voice cut through the chatter. "Bring it in! Mid-ice!"
We skated over and formed a loose circle, sticks resting on our knees. Coach stood at the center, looking at us.
"New season," he said. "Same expectations. Play smart. Play hard. Take care of each other." His eyes swept the group, landing on each of us in turn. "Storm on three. One, two—"
"STORM!" we roared, sticks banging against the ice.
New season, same chaos.
And if Pickle was the future of the Storm—messy, brilliant, impossible to ignore—then Thunder Bay was in for one hell of a ride.
I took one last look at the ice before heading to the locker room. Fresh. Clean. Waiting for us to carve it up again.
Somewhere between the noise and the quiet, I'd found home.
That was the real win.
***
Thank you for reading No Contest. It is the second book in the Storm Warning series.
Coming November 12, 2025 – Beyond Protection, a Christmas romance, and the fifth book in the First In Line series.