Married As Puck (As Puck #3)

Chapter 1

The cigarette between my fingers burns exactly like the one my father used to brand my cheek with—and I can’t seem to stop lighting them.

Seattle’s rush hour traffic pounds against the evening air twenty stories below, but the noise can’t drown out the headlines screaming in my head.

I take another drag, letting the smoke fill my lungs until they burn, then exhale slowly into the October wind.

The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m literally poisoning myself with his favorite weapon.

My phone buzzes against the balcony railing. Another notification. Another story about Seattle’s fallen hockey star. I don’t need to look to know what they’re saying.

The memory hits without warning. I’m ten years old, crouched under our kitchen table while Dad towers above me, that same sick smile twisting his face. No teeth showing. Just cold satisfaction before his boot connects with my ribs. The air leaves my lungs now the same way it did then.

"Look at me when I’m talking to you." His voice echoes across fifteen years.

I was looking. I was always looking, even when I desperately wanted to close my eyes. Even when he grabbed my hair and yanked me close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath, the cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes.

"If you tell your mother about this, I’ll rip your guts out and feed them to those damn pigeons next door." The cigarette glowed orange in the dim kitchen light. "You understand me?"

I nodded. What else could a ten-year-old do?

"I’m only treating you the way you deserve. Should’ve let her abort you when I had the chance." Then came the slap that made my skin sting, followed by the searing pain of the cigarette butt pressed against my cheek. "Tell her you fell. Tell her you’re fucking clumsy."

The cigarette stub burns my fingers, snapping me back to the present.

I curse and flick it over the railing, watching it spiral down into Seattle’s concrete maze.

My reflection stares back from the glass door—same dark hair, same sharp jaw, same eyes that turn cold when I’m angry. Too much like him.

I light another cigarette immediately. My hands are steadier now, practiced. This habit crept up on me so gradually I didn’t notice until it was too late. Just like his temper, apparently.

Inside, my laptop screen glows accusingly from the desk where I left it. The apartment feels suffocating—all sleek lines and expensive furniture that can’t hide the chaos in my head. I should go back to work, try to salvage what’s left of my reputation, but my feet carry me to the computer anyway.

A new notification blinks in the corner. My stomach drops.

SEATTLE’S GRAY LOSES CONTROL: brUTAL LOCKER ROOM ASSAULT ON TEAMMATE

The photo loads slowly, each pixel a small torture. There I am, gripping Jack Monroe’s jersey, my face twisted with rage. The expression is so familiar it stops my breath because I see him. It’s my father’s face wearing my features.

The video clips are worse. My fist connecting with Jack’s nose. Blood spattering the locker room floor. My teammates’ shocked voices creating a soundtrack of horror. In the footage, I look like a man possessed.

I remember the moment it started. Jack’s voice, low and mocking, "No wonder your old man wanted to get rid of you. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it, Cameron?"

He knew. Somehow, he knew about the scars hidden under my jersey, about the nights I still wake up checking the locks twice. And he used it like a blade.

The slap came before I could think. Then Jack was spitting blood, staring at me with wide eyes, and something in me just snapped.

I slam the laptop shut before I can read the comments. I already know that they’ll say I’m a thug, hothead, loose cannon. They never mention what Jack said. They never mention the months of careful needling, the way he’d smile when he pushed just hard enough to make me flinch.

My phone buzzes. It’s an email from the league office. My vision blurs as I scan the formal language, but two phrases cut through everything else, "pending investigation" and "temporary suspension."

The air leaves my lungs. Five years of grinding through minor leagues, clawing my way to the top, and it’s over. Just like that.

I take my phone off of do not disturb mode, and it floods with voicemails from Coach, texts from my PR manager Sarah about "damage control" and "crisis management."

I laugh, but it’s not fucking funny. Forty-eight hours ago, I was the league’s rising star. Now I’m unemployed. This is shit! I start pacing my living room. Right when we need to make playoffs. Right when everything actually mattered.

The urge to pour a drink hits hard and fast. There’s a bottle of scotch in the kitchen cabinet, aged and expensive.

It would burn just right going down, would quiet the noise in my head for a few blessed hours.

But then I see his face again, smell the whiskey on his breath, feel his hands yanking my hair.

I’ve spent fifteen years running from that man. I won’t become him over this.

Instead, I reach for another cigarette, then stop myself. The pack crinkles in my grip. Even this small rebellion feels like surrender.

A sound at the front door makes me freeze. Not the sharp buzz of the intercom or the mechanical whir of the elevator. This is different—metal scraping against metal, a pause, then a frustrated sigh.

Someone’s trying to get in.

My first thought is paparazzi, but they’d be louder, more aggressive. This sounds almost... polite.

The scraping comes again. I move toward the door, every muscle tensing. After today, I’m not taking chances with anyone.

I yank the door open.

A girl stands in my hallway, suitcase at her feet, key halfway to the lock. Auburn hair falls in waves past her shoulders, held back by a simple bobby pin. Gray eyes blink up at me in surprise, and for a moment, she smiles like she’s genuinely happy to see me.

Then her expression falters. She glances at my face, then at the apartment number on the wall, then back to my face like she’s solving a puzzle.

"Oh," she says softly. "Hi."

I stare at her, trying to process this. She’s small, maybe five-foot-four, wearing jeans and a sweater that’s seen better days.

Her suitcase has travel stickers from places I’ve never been.

She looks nothing like the reporters who’ve been hounding me, nothing like the puck bunnies who usually show up at my door.

"You’re in the wrong place," I say finally.

She shakes her head, digging through a worn tote bag. "No, I’m not. Apartment 18B, right?" She holds up a crumpled paper like proof. "That’s this apartment."

I lean forward to check, expecting to find an error. But there it is, clear as day is my address, written in someone else’s handwriting.

"Who sent you?" The question comes out rude. "If you’re a reporter—"

"I’m not a reporter." She squares her shoulders, and I catch a glimpse of steel beneath the soft exterior. "Are you the old tenant? Oh, no. This is awkward if you are. According to this lease agreement, I live here now."

My jaw clenches. Someone’s playing games, and after the day I’ve had, I’m in no mood. "Listen, I don’t know what kind of scam this is, but you need to leave. Now."

She tilts her head, studying me with those gray eyes. "I’m not going anywhere because you didn’t get out in time!" The defiance in her voice reminds me of myself at ten, standing up to someone three times my size despite knowing it would only make things worse. It throws me off balance.

I step away from the door, pull out my phone and dial my landlord. It goes straight to voicemail. Shit. Nelly Kane, the cheapest property manager in Seattle, probably double-booked the place for extra cash.

While I’m listening to the robotic greeting, the girl steps inside and wheels her suitcase inside.

"Hey!" I spin around, phone still pressed to my ear. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

She doesn’t answer, just continues down my hallway like she owns the place. The casual confidence of it stops me cold. This isn’t some elaborate prank or media stunt. She genuinely believes I’m a tenant that didn’t move out in time, which means someone seriously fucked up.

I follow her, closing the door. "Look, there’s obviously been a mistake—"

"Yeah," she calls back, already in my kitchen. "You didn’t move out."

I count to ten the way Dr. Hendrix taught me, then backwards from ten for good measure. The breathing exercises feel ridiculous, but they work.

"Okay," I say when I reach the kitchen. I took a moment before freaking the fuck out, and now I’m ready to solve the issue. Auburn hair is examining my coffee machine like she’s planning to use it. "Let’s figure this out like adults. You have a lease, I have a lease. Someone made an error."

She turns to face me, and in the better light, I can see she’s younger than I first thought. Mid-twenties, maybe. There’s something unsettled in her eyes, like she’s been running from something too.

"I paid first month, last month, and security deposit," she says quietly. "I’m officially out of my old place." Her voice wavers slightly. "So no, I’m not leaving just because you didn’t move out in time! I don’t have the money to spend on a hotel for the night.”

“And so…you think I should go to a hotel?”

“You reek like an athlete, and I’m assuming by that,” she points past me in the living room at the hockey stick and puck hanging on my wall, “you play hockey, so yeah, you can stay at a hotel while we work this out."

The way she says "hockey" stings more than it should. Like it’s a dirty word.

"Do you know who I am?"

She looks at me, unimpressed and shrugs. "Someone having a worse week than me, apparently."

I stare at her for a long moment. She stares back, unflinching. There’s something familiar about her stubbornness, though I can’t place what.

My phone buzzes. Text from my agent.

Sarah: Crisis meeting tomorrow 8 AM. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t post anything. Don’t leave your apartment.

Too late for that last one.

“I’m not going to a hotel,” I say to the stubborn woman standing in my kitchen. "And I’m not sleeping on my own couch."

“I just said I can’t afford a hotel!” Great, she looks like she’s about to panic. “I’m staying here. I paid rent.”

I glare at her, not inviting her or kicking her out. This isn’t either of our faults, so I do the best that I can and gather my dignity and leave the kitchen.

Despite everything—the suspension, the media circus, the complete implosion of my carefully controlled life—I find myself wondering if having a stranger in my apartment might actually be the least of my problems.