No Contest (Storm Warning #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Hog

The Drop smelled like three things: grease from whatever they called chicken wings, spilled beer mopped up with bleach, and the faint burn of Christmas lights past their prime.

The karaoke machine wheezed out some tragic version of "Auld Lang Syne" while a guy in a Leafs jersey— a Leafs jersey in friggin' Thunder Bay—warbled into the mic like he was calling moose.

Perfect—the kind of gorgeous chaos I lived for.

I shouldered through the door hard enough to make it bang against the wall. "Ladies, gentlemen, and Jake Riley—your night just got better!"

The familiar chorus of groans and cheers hit me before the door even swung shut. Jake's voice cut through first, naturally: "Hog! You magnificent, late bastard!"

I yanked off my knit hat—midnight blue with tiny white Storm logos I'd stitched myself. It got stuffed into my coat pocket next to the small knitted pig I'd finished during the cab ride over. Stress-knitting. Sue me.

"Traffic was murder," I announced, spreading my arms wide. "Had to stop and help an old lady change her tire."

"In a snowstorm," Evan called from the corner booth, not looking up from whatever he was writing in that damn notebook of his. "On New Year's Eve."

"She was very grateful."

"She doesn't exist."

Jake cackled from his spot at the bar, already at least three beers in. "Nah, Hog was probably knitting Christmas presents for his yarn store lady. What's her name? Margie?"

"Margaret. And she's seventy-three and makes the best butter tarts in Ontario, so watch your mouth." I grabbed him in a headlock that was half-hug, half-warning.

"You're something," Coach Rusk muttered from his throne—the corner stool where he'd been nursing the same Molson Canadian since probably October.

His backward ball cap was askew, and his scowl had that exceptional holiday warmth.

"Hawkins, you're loud enough to wake the dead.

Sit before you scare off the paying customers. "

I looked around The Drop's collection of regulars: three guys in oil-stained Carhartt jackets playing cribbage, a woman with pink hair doing shots, and Pickle bouncing in his seat like someone had fed him an espresso cocktail.

The tension I'd carried since I left my apartment started to loosen. I was in my element: noisy people who knew precisely what they were getting with Connor "Hog" Hawkins. No surprises and no complications. Only me, too loud and too big.

Except I kept glancing at the door.

"Alright, listen up, you beautiful disasters," Jake announced, climbing onto his chair. His newly bleached hair caught the droopy Christmas lights, making him look like a discount angel cut from the nativity for bad behavior. "It's resolution time."

Evan failed to glance up from his notebook. "This should be good."

"I, Jacob Anthony Riley, do solemnly swear—"

"Anthony?" Pickle's voice cracked. "Your middle name is Anthony?"

"—to chirp less this year. To be a supportive, encouraging teammate who builds people up instead of tearing them down with my razor-sharp wit and devastating good looks."

The silence that followed was so profound I heard the ancient radiator wheezing in the corner.

Evan flipped a page in his notebook and said, without missing a beat, "You've chirped me six times since we got here an hour ago. That's one every ten minutes."

"That's not that bad!"

"Including calling my sweater aggressively beige and my posture like a librarian who lifts."

Jake's mouth fell open. "You were counting?"

"I count everything." Evan pursed his lips into a brittle smile. "It's been four months. I'm starting to see patterns."

"That's—that's actually really mean, Spreadsheet."

"Thank you."

I laughed so hard my ribs hurt, which reminded me that they already hurt from the hit I'd taken two games ago. Old body, same chaos. Some things never changed.

"My turn!" Pickle bounced up like he'd been launched from a catapult. "I resolve to be brave!"

"You dropped gloves with a guy who had forty pounds on you last week," I pointed out. "How much braver do you need to be?"

"Not that kind of brave." The tips of Pickle's ears flushed red. "Like... other brave. Feelings brave."

Before any of us could unpack that particular emotional landmine, he bolted toward the karaoke machine.

"Oh, hell," Coach Rusk muttered. "Someone stop him."

Too late. The opening chords of "I Want to Know What Love Is" started pumping through the speakers, and Pickle throttled the mic.

"I want to know what love is..." His voice cracked in the middle, but he powered through. "I want you to show me..."

"Fuck," Jake whispered. "He's really going for it."

Pickle wasn't merely singing—he was performing. Arms spread wide and eyes closed, he put his entire twenty-one-year-old heart into every overwrought note. The guy in the Leafs jersey stared, and the pink-haired woman looked up from her phone.

"Kid's got balls," Coach said.

"Kid's got something," Evan agreed.

I cheered louder than anyone else. Watching Pickle throw himself at that song like it might save his life, I couldn't help but admire him.

"Drinking game!" Jake announced. "Every time Pickle hits a note that doesn't exist in nature, we drink!"

"We'll be dead by the second chorus," Evan pointed out.

"What a way to go."

We clinked bottles as Pickle wailed his way through the bridge.

"I want to know what love is..." he belted out.

I took another drink to shut up the voice in my head that whispered: Yeah, kid. Me, too.

Pickle finished his song to deafening applause. He took a bow that nearly sent him toppling off the tiny stage, then bounced back to our table like nothing had happened.

"That," Jake said, "was either the bravest or the stupidest thing I've ever seen."

"Why not both?" Pickle beamed, still riding his adrenaline high.

"Speaking of brave and stupid," Jake continued, "What's the story with flannel guy, Hog?"

My beer suddenly tasted sour. "What flannel guy?"

"The one who had you tongue-tied three weeks ago. The one you've not been talking about ever since."

"I don't know who you mean." The lie came out too loud and too fast. My ears were already starting to burn.

Evan glanced up from his notebook. His analytical brain kicked into gear. Shit.

"Oh my god," Pickle gasped, eyes going wide as dinner plates. "There's a flannel guy? Did you kiss him? Did he smell like campfires? Does he chop wood shirtless?"

"Damn, Pickle, what is this, a romance novel?"

Pickle leaned in. "So? Did he?"

"He smelled like… normal people," I lied.

Truth was, cedar and cold air had clung to him, while I smelled like bar grease and Molson. I'd been close enough for him to touch my wrist, close enough that I'd forgotten how to form complete sentences for about thirty seconds.

"Aha!" Jake pointed his beer bottle at me like a weapon. "You do know what he smells like. Which means you were close enough to find out."

"He bought me a drink, and we talked about wood stain colors. We talked. End of story."

"You're quieter than usual when he comes up," Evan observed. "For someone who's never met anyone he couldn't out-talk, you get pretty selective with words around this topic."

Damn Evan and his spreadsheet brain.

"Maybe I just don't have anything interesting to say about some random guy I met once."

"Random guys don't usually make you forget how to speak," Jake said. "I saw you, Hog. You looked like someone pulled the plug on your brain."

Jake wasn't entirely wrong. I'd been hanging out when this guy had walked up to the bar. Tall, steady, wearing a flannel shirt. He had weathered hands and an easy smile, the kind of guy who belonged in Thunder Bay.

Most people, when they wanted to talk to the big, scary hockey player, either wanted autographs or started fights. But this guy—Rhett, I'd learned later—had just ordered a beer and made some casual comment about the game.

Then he'd stuck around, asking real questions about hockey—strategy, teamwork—the kind that made me lean in, drumming my fingers against the bottle like I couldn't stop.

When he'd leaned close enough that our shoulders touched, I froze. Then, I nodded like an idiot, probably smiling a weird, nervous smile that wasn't my usual grin.

I'd been replaying that moment—the shoulder touch and how he'd looked at me when I'd actually shut up long enough to listen—for three weeks straight.

"Earth to Hog," Jake said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. "You're doing that thing where you disappear inside your head."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're blushing," Pickle announced helpfully.

"I don't blush."

"Your ears are red."

"That's the beer."

"You've had half a bottle."

Coach Rusk snorted from his corner stool. "Big guy's got it bad for someone. Look at him squirm."

"I'm not squirming!"

I was. They all knew it.

The bartender derailed our conversation, handing out plastic champagne flutes like you bought at the dollar store. The countdown clock on the ancient TV behind the bar showed fifteen minutes to midnight.

I threw myself into full entertainer mode. I made jokes about Pickle's song choice, started an arm-wrestling tournament with some construction workers at the next table, and told increasingly ridiculous stories about my grandmother's knitting circle until Jake was crying with laughter.

Loud was easy. Loud meant nobody noticed when I was too much—or not enough.

"And then," I gestured wildly with my beer, "Edith Murillo looks me dead in the eye and says, 'Connor, that stitch is looser than my late husband's morals.'"

"Your grandmother's friends are terrifying," Evan observed.

"Were her friends. She's gone, but Mrs. Murillo is still around. She once made me a sweater with 'PUCK OFF' across the chest because she said regular swear words were beneath her."

"Do you still have it?" Pickle asked.

"Are you kidding? I wear it to practice sometimes. Coach loves it."

"I hate it," Coach Rusk corrected. "Makes you look like a walking billboard for bad decisions."