Pucking Around and Falling First (The Santa Rosa Ravens #2)

1. BAILEY

Chapter one

BAILEY

There are three kinds of women at a hockey home opener.

The ones who understand the rules, the rituals, and the sacred importance of wearing the right jersey.

The ones who think it’s adorable to ask whether icing has anything to do with cake.

And the puck bunnies who aren’t here for hockey so much as hockey players.

My friends and I are firmly not the third kind.

We have standards, jobs, and at least two women in this row who can discuss the game without rating the players like a dessert menu.

Priya leans closer as the Santa Rosa Ravens skate onto the ice and the crowd starts losing its collective mind. “I recognize the players, the jerseys, and the general concept of hockey. The yelling is still a mystery.”

“You’ll be fine,” I say. “If everyone around you starts yelling, assume the refs missed something.”

Beside her, Jade lifts her plastic cup of overpriced arena beer. “That feels like something I can get behind.”

Emerson gives her a look over her soda. “Please don’t start yelling at officials before you understand the rules.”

“No promises,” Jade says.

I laugh, settling deeper into my seat as the arena lights sweep over the crowd.

The whole rink hums with opening-night energy, loud and electric and just a little unhinged.

October hockey has a specific kind of magic to it.

Fresh ice. Fresh season. Fresh excuses for grown men to slam each other into plexiglass while thousands of people scream like it’s perfectly normal behavior.

Honestly, it kind of is.

At least around here.

The Santa Rosa Ravens have that effect on people. They turn regular Friday nights into something bigger. Louder. Messier. The kind of night where the air smells like popcorn, beer, cold metal, and testosterone wrapped in team colors.

I love it.

After twelve hours at the hospital, with my hair shoved into a messy ponytail and my feet killing me, this should not be my idea of relaxation.

I spend my workdays listening to monitors beep, families panic, and doctors ask for things they absolutely know they can find themselves.

I should be at home in sweatpants with takeout and a heating pad.

Instead, I’m in the friends-and-family section with five of my favorite women, wearing a Ravens hoodie, holding a foam raven someone shoved into my hand at the entrance, and feeling more awake than I have all week.

This place does that to me.

The lights dim lower, and the crowd surges to its feet as the players start their lap around the ice.

Emerson stands beside me, clapping like she’s trying to be normal about the fact that Knox Keller is currently gliding past the boards in full hockey gear, looking grim and focused and disgustingly handsome.

She fails badly.

Her eyes follow him like she’s pretending they don’t, and I lean in close. “You’re drooling.”

“I am not.”

Maren laughs from Emerson’s other side. “Give her a break. Nico still looks hot in his gear, and I’ve been with him for years. Seeing our men in hockey gear is part of the experience.”

Sienna Dawson nods with the calm authority of a woman married to a professional athlete and mother to two children, which means she has seen both glamour and bodily fluids before breakfast. “It’s the shoulders.”

“It’s absolutely the shoulders,” Jade says.

Priya squints toward the ice as the players loop around for warmups. “Okay, I know them when they’re standing still and not wearing helmets. I’m going to need numbers.”

“Knox is twenty-four,” Emerson says, nodding toward the ice with the kind of casualness that fools absolutely no one.

“Nico is seventeen, near the boards,” I say. “Beck is eight. Gavin is in the net, obviously.”

“Goalie. Big pads. Doesn’t talk much. Got it,” Jade says.

Maren laughs. “That’s Gavin.”

Priya studies the players again. “Okay, then, who’s nineteen? Because he looks like trouble.”

My gaze follows hers.

Finn O’Malley glides past the boards wearing number nineteen and a grin that should probably come with a warning label.

He comes around the curve behind Ty Walker, all loose confidence and easy charm. His dark hair sticks out from under his helmet, his stick in one gloved hand, his body moving with that easy, loose-limbed confidence that makes everything about him look effortless.

Finn tips his chin toward a cluster of kids pressed against the glass. One little boy loses his mind, pounding both hands against the barrier. Finn skates by, then loops back like he forgot something, taps the glass with his glove, and gives the kid a wink.

The kids scream.

Priya grabs my sleeve. “Who is that?”

I look away from Finn before anyone notices.

“That’s Finn.”

Jade hums. “Oh, he knows he’s pretty.”

“He knows everyone knows he’s pretty,” Emerson says.

“He’s also a menace,” Maren adds, but there’s affection in it.

“Menace how?” Priya asks.

“Golden retriever with a hockey stick,” I say. “Very charming. Very exhausting. Natural player.”

And that is exactly the problem with Finn O’Malley.

He makes people laugh before they decide whether they should. He flirts like breathing, smiles like a dare, and has spent every group event I’ve ever seen him at making women feel like they are the only person in the room for exactly as long as he’s talking to them.

Fun, yes.

Serious, no.

Boyfriend material, absolutely not.

As if summoned by my judgment, Finn glides past our section, turns his head, and finds us.

Not us.

Me.

For one stupid second, his grin sharpens.

My stomach gives a traitorous little flip.

Absolutely not.

I lift my foam raven in a lazy salute.

Finn’s grin widens, then he’s gone, skating back toward center ice while the announcer’s voice booms through the arena and the crowd roars around us.

Jade leans close to my ear. “Interesting.”

“No.”

“I only said one word.”

“And it was the wrong one.”

Emerson glances between me and the ice, smiling like she knows exactly what she’s seeing.

I hate that about best friends. They see everything.

I sink back into my seat and force my attention onto the rink, where it belongs. Opening night, friends, hockey, noise. That’s all this is supposed to be.

Finn O’Malley is just the funny one. The flirty one. The guy who makes everyone laugh.

I know that.

I absolutely know that.

The puck drops, and the arena changes.

Warmups are noise and lights and anticipation, but the actual game sharpens everything. The second that the black disk hits the ice, skates carve harder. Sticks slap. Bodies angle for space. The crowd leans forward at the same time, like one huge restless animal waiting to be fed.

Priya grips the edge of her seat. “Okay. That was fast.”

“That was the polite part,” I tell her.

Jade points toward the ice with her beer. “Why is everyone moving at once? I can’t tell where I’m supposed to look.”

“Watch where the puck is going, not where it is,” I tell her. “By the time you track it, the play has already moved.”

Priya leans forward. “That actually helps.”

“It takes a few minutes,” Emerson says. “Then your eyes adjust.”

On the ice, the Ravens settle into the first few shifts.

It takes a minute for the chaos to make sense if you aren’t used to it.

At first, hockey looks like speed and violence with occasional property damage.

But after a while, patterns appear. Pressure.

Space. Passing lanes. Players reading each other before anything actually happens.

I love that part.

The way the whole game looks wild until you know where to watch.

A Stockton player bumps Nico harder than necessary along the boards, and the crowd reacts before Priya can ask why. Nico absorbs it, pins the puck with his skate, and kicks it loose to Ty, who takes off up the ice.

Ty cuts across center ice with a burst of speed, then sends a clean pass ahead.

Straight to Finn.

He receives the puck like he expected it before anyone else even knew it was coming. One second, he’s gliding near the blue line, loose and almost casual. The next, his body shifts. His knees bend. His shoulders lower. The grin is gone.

That’s the part people miss with Finn.

They see the charm first. The jokes. The easy smile. The way he turns every room into a place where people want to stay and laugh. But on the ice, when the play opens in front of him, the funny drops away.

He’s quick.

Not just fast. Quick in his head.

He sees the gap before it’s there, slips between two defenders, and pulls the puck with him like it’s tied to his stick. The crowd lifts, a sound rolling through the arena before anything has happened.

Jade’s voice lowers. “Oh.”

I keep my eyes on the ice. “Yeah.”

Finn cuts left, draws the defender with him, then sends the puck across to Beck near the slot.

Beck shoots.

The goalie blocks it, and the rebound kicks loose. Finn is already there, fighting for position before half the arena realizes the play is still alive. A Stockton defenseman ties up his stick at the last second, and the puck skitters behind the net.

The whole building groans.

Priya exhales. “I have no idea what almost happened, but I am invested now.”

“That’s how this game gets you,” I say.

She points toward Finn as he loops behind the net. “So, nineteen is Finn.”

“Yes.”

“The one who looked at you earlier?”

“He looks at everyone,” I say.

Emerson coughs into her soda.

Down on the ice, Finn comes out of the corner with the puck still on his stick and a Stockton player leaning hard into his side. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t rush. He braces, takes the pressure, and somehow nudges a pass backward to Roman Sokolov.

Roman catches it cleanly and sends a low shot toward the net.

The puck disappears into traffic, bodies shifting in front of the goalie. For half a second, nobody around us knows whether to scream, swear, or stand.

Then the whistle blows.

No goal.

Priya sits back. “I’m exhausted.”

“Hockey will do that to you.”