Chapter 2
Chapter two
No wonder she thinks fireworks don’t exist
Logan
Sundays mean brunch.
Doesn’t matter if it’s hockey season or not, this crew always finds a way.
Usually, it’s at Jake and Charlie’s, with their kids running wild while pancakes burn in the background.
Sometimes Zoe cons Reid into hosting with the promise of muffins he didn’t ask for.
Today it’s Eli and Tamara’s turn, two blocks from mine.
I cut across the neighborhood with Dusty at my side, leash slack, his paws clicking happily against the pavement.
He likes the walk, and I tell myself this counts as cardio.
By the time we reach the driveway, the scents of bacon and cinnamon are in the air, and the low roar of chaos leaks through the windows.
Dusty’s tail wags. Mine doesn’t.
I didn’t have this growing up—houses you could just walk into with family meals loud enough to shake the walls, and someone saving you a chair.
My parents preferred quiet. Control. Order and schedules.
But brunch here is nothing but disorder, and it took me longer than I’ll admit to stop feeling like an intruder.
Still not sure I have, but I keep showing up.
With the guys, it’s easy. Locker room chirps and ice-level banter; I know that language. But here, in a family home with kids and casseroles and framed photos on the walls of people who actually know how to belong to each other? I don’t fit. The rink, I understand. This, I’m still getting used to.
The second I open the front door, I know I’m in trouble. Brunch with this crew isn’t food, it’s a contact sport with carbs.
Noah comes flying down the hallway in socks, drowning in his youth pads, a mini stick dragging in his wake. His five-year-old sister, Meadow, barrels after him with a tiara slipping down her head.
“Hi, Logan!” He launches at me, and I catch him before he brains himself on the tile and set him back down gently.
“Morning, champ.”
He beams and bolts for the backyard, while Dusty pads in behind me, gives one dignified shake, and stretches out on the entry rug. Good boy.
I give him a quick scritch behind his soft ears, then step forward—only to be stopped by a tiny dark blur near my feet.
Miso.
The schnauzer freezes mid-strut, beard twitching, eyes narrowing the way a bouncer looks at a fake ID. She makes a sound that’s not quite a bark and not quite a growl, but more like a gremlin gargling gravel. When her head tips, I see what’s dangling from her mouth.
My head.
Rubber, to be precise—the chew-toy version.
Tamara had the bright idea last Christmas to get “Custom Family Chew Buddies”—a full set of squeaky Storm players in tiny jerseys, plus accessories.
The dog toy bin under the window looks like an Etsy fever dream of rubber pucks, mini hockey sticks, and our entire crew immortalized in chewable form.
Lulu’s mini-Lulu lost her ponytail in twenty minutes.
But my mini-me is Miso’s favorite victim to systematically dismantle.
“Miso, baby!” Tamara sings from the kitchen, voice sweet enough to rot teeth. She crooks two fingers. “Come to Mommy, gorgeous girl. Is the big, scary hockey man here to ruin your morning?”
Miso prances over in a perfect little show pony trot, tail vibrating. Up close, I get the full horror of mini-Logan—one arm chewed to a tragic nub.
“Good girl,” Tamara coos, kissing Miso’s angry little eyebrows. “You tell him what you think.”
I roll my eyes and step out of my shoes. The open-plan kitchen is already at capacity. Dusty trails me in, and the moment Miso spots him, the demon transforms into a debutante. She wriggles free, trots to Dusty with her chewed trophy, and places my rubber head reverently between his paws.
Dusty blinks, gives an aristocratic sigh, and lowers his chin beside it.
Miso does a proud little circle and taps his nose with hers. Kiss. Then, just so there’s no confusion, she kicks the head with one dainty paw until it bumps against my foot.
“Message received,” I tell her.
She bares her teeth in something that isn’t a smile.
“Mi-soooo,” Tamara warns in a voice spun from sugar. “We don’t threaten Mommy’s friends before pancakes.”
Miso snatches the head, then trots back over and allows herself to be scooped up as if she’s forgiving us all for existing. Dusty shifts to a sun patch and sighs again.
I shoulder into the room, the air thick with coffee and cinnamon and whatever butter spell Tamara puts on pancakes. Reid Hutchison—Hutchy—lifts his mug in silent greeting, while Chase Walton points a fork at my chest.
“You’re late,” he says, mouth full. “Meadow’s on a schedule.”
“Lucky me,” I mutter, drifting to the kitchen island to hover next to Eli as he plates enough bacon to feed fifty.
Charlie Andrews shouts something over the roar of a blender, green sludge spinning in turbo-mode. The sight makes me wince, flashing back to the goo Lulu dumped down my front five days ago.
“Sorry, two more minutes,” she calls, bouncing baby Theo on her hip.
Jake Brooks, the Storm’s star number twenty-seven, is at the stove flipping pancakes with one hand, the other blocking eight-year-old Noah’s attempt to sneak chocolate chips into the batter.
Barefoot, relaxed, his grin cheeky enough to flash a dimple, which keeps dragging Charlie’s gaze back to him.
Guy’s already captain of the Dad Hall of Fame, and he’s not even trying.
“Noah,” Jake warns, sliding the bowl out of reach.
“They’d taste better,” Noah argues.
“They’d taste like a dental bill.” Jake flips a pancake, looks up at me, and lifts his chin. “Hey, Pooks.”
I smirk. “You ever think you’d end up so domesticated, Brooks?”
He shakes his head, smile still tugging. “With the right person, it doesn’t feel domesticated. Just feels like home.”
Charlie kisses his shoulder as she passes, Theo grabbing wildly for the spatula that Jake easily lifts out of reach with a chuckle.
For a couple who spent twelve years apart, battled through her ex’s custody drama, and still came out on top, they make domestic look easy.
Wedding coming up, baby on one hip, two awesome kids underfoot.
It’s a long way from the Jake Brooks I met as a rookie.
I sidestep as Meadow marches past, glittery marker clutched in her fist. I’ve learned to avoid her line of sight—last season, she was obsessed with marrying me off to Lulu at every brunch, until she got bored and redirected her wedding games to Zoe and Chase.
I’m not taking any chances now she’s armed with stationery.
“No one touch the chairs, I’m doing a seating chart!” she declares.
There’s a spare seat next to Hutchy, which I make a beeline for. He’s our veteran goalie and my unofficial mentor since day one, though he’d never admit it. Quiet, watchful, dry as hell. Exactly why I spend half my time trying to rile him up, and the other half losing.
I drop into the seat beside him. “This taken?”
“Only by people who don’t annoy me,” he mutters.
“Perfect,” I say, swiping his mug.
Across from us, Zoe Carlson’s curled sideways in Chase’s lap, sipping coffee while he tries to steal it.
“Get your own,” she says without looking at him.
“Yours always tastes better,” he says, grinning in a way that’s about to get him in trouble.
“You’re dangerously close to losing what I call my goodwill, Walton.”
“Mmm, I call that foreplay, ” he says, leaning in until she pushes him away with one manicured finger to his forehead.
They’ve been like this since they fake-dated their way into something real last season—well, since she fake-dated and he just finally got what he’d wanted from day one.
Even with what happened to her at the end of the season—which was scary as hell—they came out the other side closer.
Which mostly means Chase is now even more protective and disgustingly obsessed.
The blender finally cuts off, and I sigh dramatically. “It’s exhausting watching Chaz be this… Chazzy.”
“We are not called Chaz,” Zoe says flatly.
“Pretty sure you are.” I grin, remembering the very lengthy locker room debate last season where every couple ended up with some deranged couple name. So far we’ve got Chaz, Jarlie, and E.T. I’m secretly counting down the day I get to name Hutchy and his plus one.
“I can’t wait until we get to decide a couple name for you and some poor, unsuspecting woman, Pookie,” Zoe fires back.
Tamara settles into a seat and nods as she pours a coffee. “Oh yeah, you’re gonna rue the day you decided E.T. was a good idea.”
“That was Reid!” I gesture wildly to my side.
He snorts. “You’ve made your bed, Miller.”
I’m ready to argue the point further, but blonde hair catches sunlight at the far end of the table.
Lulu.
Bare shoulders shaking, her laugh spilling out warm enough to thaw the room. Charlie murmurs something as she sets a green smoothie in front of her, and Lulu beams that huge smile of hers.
She’s all gold and glitter and easy joy, like she wandered in from a happier universe. Flour dust streaks her knuckles—gluten free, no doubt—and there’s a pale blue bow clipped high on her ponytail, defiant and ridiculous and somehow perfect. For someone else.
She looks up as if she felt me sit down, and our eyes catch. Her pink lips do that soft, surprised curve I’m not supposed to notice.
I look away first, because it’s none of my business.
Miso saunters toward Tamara and fishes under the table for her toy. She emerges with the decapitated Logan figurine, braces the stump of the arm between her paws, and goes to town with a grim, delighted purpose, the squeaker wheezing like distant sirens.
“Is there a reason your dog is reenacting a mob hit with my likeness?”
“She only destroys the ones she loves,” Tamara says sweetly. “And criminals.”
Jake snorts and Zoe’s mouth tilts. Reid doesn’t look up, but his shoulders shake.
“Eat,” Eli orders, sliding the bacon platter down. “And this time, we’re doing civilized conversation like normal people.”
“Define normal,” Zoe says.