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Double Puck
Prologue
Darcy
Not once have I ever regretted being right before.
But less than an hour ago, I walked into the Beachside Bears' locker room, invading the biggest win in our franchise history, and recommended trading one of the three brothers holding this team together.
Now I'm standing in the middle of their victory party…
And everyone hates me.
I should be in my convertible by now, driving home with the roof down, filling my lungs with cold ocean air to erase the look on every person's face in that locker room tonight.
Instead, Bears GM Colin Holden cornered me as I tried to sneak out, insisting we discuss tomorrow’s emergency roster meeting before I leave. Of course, he disappeared into a pack of sponsors shortly after, and I haven't seen him since.
Maybe that's just the life you get when you're the daughter of the NHL's longest serving board member.
Yes, as Charles Madden's kid, I should be immune to rooms full of people silently wishing I was gone. You'd think I'd have built up a tolerance by now, like a really expensive, really unpleasant vaccine.
Instead, I find myself stranded at Breakers Bar & Grill with five hundred celebrating hockey fans and absolutely nowhere to hide.
The bar is packed beyond capacity tonight, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder beneath hundreds of glowing string lights. The garage doors are thrown open to the beach, and the whole place smells like grilled shrimp tacos and spilled beer.
It's a victory celebration like Beachside has never seen before.
A sold-out game. A last-gasp winner.
For a brand-new franchise that has spent most of its first season staring at empty seats, this is exactly what hope looks like.
Loud. Drunk. And probably violating the fire code.
I take a breath and look around, trying to shake the weight off my shoulders.
A fan near the small stage has hijacked the microphone and started a chant, as Finn MacAllister, the Bears' Irish import, drinks beer out of an actual skate. It looks like someone stole from the equipment room. It's disgusting.
Travis Campbell, the team Canadian, is standing on a chair filming it until Coach Pearson's voice cuts through the pounding music.
"Campbell! Chairs are for sitting! You want to elevate something, elevate your penalty kill!"
It's wild. Absolute chaos.
But I stay exactly where I am. With my phone gripped in one hand, my other resting near a gin and tonic I haven't so much as sipped, despite Mack—the bar's owner—insisting it was on the house because I was "brave for showing up."
Fuck.
Is he serious?
Brave implies fear. Emotion. The possibility that I knew exactly how badly this would hurt the Bears franchise, but did it anyway.
My father would call that kind of thinking sentimental. Charles Madden has spent my entire life teaching me that difficult decisions should be made cleanly, defended calmly, and never softened because someone dislikes the outcome.
I've built a career on believing him.
So I lower my eyes to my phone and scroll through tomorrow’s emergency meeting agenda for the fourth time.
I already know every line by heart.
Beck Morrison's conversion rates. His defensive liabilities. The salary structure that makes him undeniably the most logical trade asset on this roster.
The numbers are clean.
Whether the team likes them or not.
Across the bar, Mack begins arranging three shot glasses along the weathered timber like a man laying out surgical instruments. A huddle of overgrown hockey players notices and immediately changes direction.
"Alright, everyone! Listen up," Mack calls out across the bar. "These are my Morrison specials. Been perfecting them all season, and what better night to debut them than tonight?!"
A loud roar echoes through the bar and more fists pump in the air.
"Introducing… 'The Declan'. It's straight bourbon, because we all know smiling would kill him.
And so will this shot." Mack slides a heavy glass of dark amber into position and gets to work on the next.
"'The Mason' is my best tequila, because even Mason Morrison would send it back if the lime was crooked.
" There's a chuckle around the bar as Mack slides a perfect wedge on the rim of the glass, and sprinkles a line of salt in front of it. "And last but not least, 'The Beck'."
The third shot he lines up is electric blue, aggressively sweet-smelling, and topped with a float of rum that could probably power a small boat.
“This one is loud, reckless, and almost certainly going to give me legal trouble." Mack grins. "Much like the man himself.”
The room erupts in laughter as none other than Beck Morrison, the man I've recommended we trade, steps into the gap between his brothers.
Damn.
To be fair, he's good-looking. Easily the most good-looking man I've ever wanted to strangle.
He has dark hair that's sun-lightened at the tips, and he wears it like he's never once considered a hat a necessary purchase. It falls messily across his forehead in the kind of careless way that probably takes longer to achieve than my entire morning routine.
He's lean where his brothers are built like brick walls, an athlete’s body tailored for quick lines and explosive bursts of energy. That stupid Bears t-shirt does absolutely nothing to hide the shoulders underneath it, though. And his eyes are that ridiculous, sun-bright Morrison blue.
The worst part about this man isn't that he's gorgeous.
It's that he clearly already knows it.
"Thanks, Mack." Beck looks down at the drink, and studies it with theatrical concern. “Hmmm. But I think it’s missing something.”
Mack’s eyes narrow. “No. Beck, I'm warning you—”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You have a lighter in your hand.”
Beck glances at it like he’s surprised to find it there. “Huh. So I do.”
Then his gaze lifts. It crosses the bar, cuts through the crowd, and lands directly on me.
My thumb stops against my phone screen as heat pebbles up my arm.
The grin stays stretched across Beck’s face. But the warmth behind it shuts off so completely that the distance between us suddenly feels much smaller than the crowded bar separating us.
“Might as well set it on fire,” he says with a bite. “Apparently that’s what we’re doing with the roster tonight, anyway.”
He rolls the lighter between his fingers, still staring at me.
The laughter fractures and I notice the flush in Beck's cheeks.
How much has he had to drink?
A few players chuckle from instinct, but Declan’s face hardens beside him. Mason glances at Beck, then across the bar at me, his easy smile disappearing.
Beck doesn’t look at either of them.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Last time I looked at him, his eyes weren't this dark. It's like I've reached into his ribs and yanked out his heart, now with his career on the line, there's nothing left of his soul.
You're being traded.
Both of his brothers are now watching him carefully.
Mack points a thick finger at him. "Don't you fucking dare."
“Relax, man.” Beck flicks the lighter. A small orange flame jumps to life between us. “I’m just improving the presentation.”
Beck grins and lowers the flame, not looking away from me once as he touches the flame to the liquid. Blue fire ripples across the rum and the surrounding players start cheering.
Beck lifts the burning glass in my direction.
“To knowing exactly when you’re disposable,” he calls for a toast.
Declan finally reaches for the glass. “Beck. Come on…”
But Beck moves faster. He blows out the flame, throws the shot back, and slams the empty glass onto the bar.
The crowd cheers. Because that's what crowds do around Beck Morrison.
They follow his lead.
They laugh when he laughs. They drink when he drinks. They turn a reckless stunt into a celebration because Beck-fucking-Morrison stands at the center of it.
Goddammit. The man is a walking liability.
And somehow, I’m the asshole for recommending the team trade him before his chaos helps drag this entire franchise under?
Mack looks at me from across the bar as if I personally handed Beck the lighter.
Here's what nobody at this party understands: I don't enjoy this.
I don't enjoy being the woman everyone watches when the laughter goes awkward. I don't enjoy the fact that Beck Morrison, the man who just helped win the biggest game in franchise history, had to hear his professional obituary tonight.
But enjoying a decision has never been the same as making the correct one.
Yes, Beck Morrison is talented. He's popular, and highly marketable.
He is also statistically the weakest of the three brothers on this roster.
Both things can be true.
They have to be. Because I can't afford to be wrong about this.
I return to my phone and start drafting a follow-up note for tomorrow's meeting, because that's what I do when things get uncomfortable. I get back to work.
A cold glass presses against my forearm.
“Here. Drink this,” Josie says, shoving a cocktail into my hand. “Not because I forgive you for ruining the best night of my life.”
“I submitted a roster recommendation.”
“Yeah. And I'm temporarily choosing romance because Declan told me he loves me tonight, and I refuse to let your statistics ruin what I just spent three months working for.” She lifts her drink toward mine, eyes steady. “So this is a temporary ceasefire.”
“How generous.”
Josie settles onto the stool beside me. "Well, you just dropped the biggest bombshell of the night. The whole room felt that."
"Second biggest," I correct, because as my mother would tell you, I can't help but be right. "Declan's total declaration of love for you was the headliner, for sure. My trade recommendation is barely intermission entertainment."
Josie smiles, and I catch her glancing toward the bar where Declan is being aggressively hugged by Finn while Sawyer tries to pour beer over his head. She watches him like he's the only person in the room.
"Can I ask you something?" Josie tilts her head, studying me.
"I guess."
She leans closer, lowering her voice. "Did you have to do it tonight? Announce the trade, I mean."