17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Last Year’s Disappointment is Fueling the Renegades: Landon’s Scoring and Breining’s Hitting.
The team’s impressive start is a stark contrast to last season’s disappointing playoff exit.
A key factor in their success is the return to form of star player Shep Landon, who has shed his early season slump and is now back to his dominant self.
He looks like he’s having a good time out there! ~Renegades Rinkside
Merri
When Novak invited me to the water park, I’d pictured a handful of players, a couple of wives and girlfriends, and a smattering of other staff members.
Everyone awkwardly milling around a lake too cold to do much more than look pretty.
Maybe a few tame battles with the water cannons.
Maybe a couple people would dare the chill water to tackle the giant slides.
Instead, Nat and I arrived to find they’d rented the entire park, and transformed it into a sprawling, private playground for a casual friends and family gathering.
No tame park picnics for this crew. They’d even outfitted the place with propane heaters dotted along the decks and walkways and vinyl canopies in the main areas.
“Is this an official team event?” I’d asked Novak before, but seeing the scale of this operation, it seemed important to double-check. I’d dressed for a casual hangout with friends. Or at least, how I would dress when a certain someone would be seeing me.
“Ne,” Novak answered with a chuckle. “No. The Czechs—Zacha, Marek Cerny, and myself—host something every year.”
His wife bumped his shoulder. “That barely tells the real story. They host something every year because they can’t stand to lose.
Zacha, Hammer and Shep wouldn’t leave the cold plunge pool last year until they declared a winner, but they kept changing the rules to keep each other from winning. Their competitive streak is unreal.”
At the mention of his name, my gaze darted to Shep.
He stood at the edge of a wake pool with a small group of people and Clyde, Coach’s mammoth mastiff.
When he shifted, I spotted a teenager beside him—all gangly limbs and chestnut hair.
He had his arm draped casually over her shoulders as she bent to greet the dog, who I’d seen lounging around the practice facility enough to know was a sucker for attention.
Like most of the men here, he wore a graphic hoodie and jeans.
Somehow on him, the hoodie looked custom molded to his broad shoulders, stretching taut over his back like a second skin, tapering to show off his lean waist. He turned, caught me staring, and even across the distance, there was no mistaking the knowing arch of his brow under the brim of his Renegades hat.
When he motioned me over, curiosity had me excusing myself to Novak and his wife, tugging Nat by the wrist to stroll toward Shep’s little group.
Stroll, as though my heart wasn’t pounding out of my chest. As though I hadn’t spent the morning dressing and redressing, inspecting every item of my ensemble 418 times.
Nat spoke low near my ear. “That’s him? He looks so much bigger in real life. Holy hockey pucks.”
Thank god for Nat. She’d come down from her apartment on the third floor after my 52nd phone call this morning.
She’d outfitted me in white denim, an oversized blue and yellow flannel over a strappy white tank that cupped my boobs and dipped way too low for a group of hockey players, and a quilted white jacket.
I’d stared at her offering with fire in my cheeks. “For a work function.”
“You said it’s not a work function. More like a work-friends-gathering function.”
“With my co-workers. Men who need to see me as competent, not window dressing. Some of whom still see women in hockey as novelties.”
“Says the girl who struts around in yellow pin-up dresses like it’s her signature move.”
But the dresses were my signature move—armor disguised as whimsy.
Every print, every hemline chosen to remind them, and myself, that I wasn’t here to blend in.
I wore them to defy expectations. But today?
These figuring-hugging jeans and dipping neckline?
This felt different. Bold. Like stepping into unfamiliar territory without a game plan.
“This isn’t feeling like the right vibe.” I tugged on the strappy tank.
“Then button up the flannel, if you must. But trust me, Mer. Plenty of others will be showing way more than a little cleavage. And you’ve earned your spot on the team. Own it.”
But none of those others were coaches.
My pulse kicked up, a steady beat of doubt and defiance.
The sport may have been warming up to women in hockey, but there were still cracks in the foundation, invisible walls I’d slammed into more times than I could count.
A girl could love the game, know the stats, break down film frame by frame, and still end up frozen on the sidelines, boxed in by unspoken rules.
I breathed deep, caught my reflection in the apartment window—a flicker of floral, soft waves spilling over my shoulders, eyes steady, knowing exactly why I was here. The sea of polos and blazers could swallow me whole if I let it. But I wouldn’t.
Hockey wasn’t about the ice, not for me. It was the strategy, the way numbers told a story no one else could see.
My dresses weren’t about numbers or stats, either. They were about holding my ground. A reminder of exactly who I was—Merri with the flashy heels and the fire to match. A woman who could break down tape with the best of them, looking damn good doing while it.
But who was Merri in denim and flannel?
Stripped down, exposed.
Vulnerable.
As we reached Shep’s group, a wave of nervous energy swept over me.
His gaze dipped to take me in from head to toe.
Not a swishy skirt in sight. The air, despite the autumn chill, felt electric.
Shep tossed me an easy smile, his gaze lingering on my face, a hint of something unreadable in his warm blue eyes.
I smiled at the teen standing near Shep. She had a death grip on the hand of a woman who in turn had her arm looped low around the waist of another man. Tattoos snaked up from the collar of his shirt and his dark eyes seemed to take in more than they revealed.
The woman grinned, dropping her arm from around the man to lean forward and hold her hand out for a shake. “You’re Merri, right? I’ve heard so much about you.”
We shook, but I jerked a surprised look toward Shep.
He held up his palms, fingers wiggling, all innocence. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know where she gets her info. Spies, I assume. Ninjas. Definitely something diabolical.”
The woman slapped the back of her hand against Shep’s chest. “Ignore Shepherd. He’s determined to act the fool most days. As his sister, I’m painfully familiar. I’m Shiloh, but everyone calls me Shy.”
Shep snorted and the teen giggled, her eyes making hearts up at Shiloh. Another sister? Surely too old to be Shy’s daughter.
Shy continued. “And this is my partner, Santiago Rivera.”
My attention shifted with Shy’s to land on the girl.
“This is Hannah, Shep’s daughter. And you already know Boh, of course.
This is his partner, Novy Dalton. And there’s Millsy and Scout.
I’m not telling you their last name ‘cause then you’ll freak out.
And with Scout is the handsomest boy ever, Clyde. ”
The dog’s tail thumped against the deck. I smiled along with the group, but inside, my thoughts detonated.
A daughter. Shep Landon had a daughter.
The words didn’t compute. My brain scrambled, social niceties slipping past my lips on autopilot. Nat stepped in, filling the silence with her usual effortless chatter—something about Boh and Novy, Scout and her mysterious last name.
None of it registered. The gears in my head spun without catching, trying to process a fact that didn’t fit anywhere. A teenager. Which meant years before we’d met. Which meant—nothing. Obviously.
Except… maybe it explained the distraction. The exhaustion etched into his face. The so-called family emergency.
I unfurled my fingers, scrubbing my hands over the denim of my pants, massaging away the nail grooves I’d dug into my palms. Buying myself more time, I knelt down to greet Clyde.
Thank god Nat insisted on the jeans. The dog lay at Scout’s feet, his head angled possessively against her shoe as though to hold her in place.
What kind of last name might she have that Shy thought would make someone freak out?
“Merri is the one who demolished Shep at Ping-Pong her first day on the job,” Zacha said to the group.
“And won the hat I gave him,” added Shiloh.
I gasped, looking up. “Oh, Shy, I can—”
“Nope. Keep it. It’s my inconsiderate brother who gambled it away. Did he tell you I saved for nearly a whole semester just to afford it? I was scrimping every penny. Skipped on a really nice journal and pen set, too, just so I could give him that collector’s edition hat for his birthday.”
“Laying it on a little thick there, Shy.” Shep squirmed as everyone turned to look at him with judgy eyes. “You know all you had to do was ask and I’d—”
“What, pay for your own present? That makes zero sense.”
“No, but you didn’t need to go without.”
“Anyway,” Scout said, drawing the word out. “I call dibs on Merri.”
“Dibs?” My eyebrows shot up. “I think I’m on Novak’s team? What exactly have I got myself into?”
Shep vetoed her. “I have the first pick, Scout. Don’t even try.”
“How can you have first pick? What are the rules?” I sent a desperate look toward Nat, but she just grinned, the fool.
The park had blaster water cannons stationed at intervals along one of the pools.
I’d never played an organized game with them, though.
Typically they were more of a tool to harass the folks in the pool.
Zacha laughed. “No rules, coach. We just wing it.”
“He says that because they change the rules every other minute.” Novy poked him in the ribs.