Perfect Pucking Orc (The Orc Hockey League #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The puck slammed into the back of the net with a satisfying crack, and Tarmek's stick was back in center position before the mesh stopped shaking. Three hundred wrist shots every morning to the same spot—top corner, glove side. The goalie's weakness on seventy-two percent of NHL rosters.

He retrieved the puck, placed it precisely on the hash mark, and fired again.

Crack.

His muscles burned with the familiar ache of discipline, sweat dripping down his temples despite the rink's frigid air.

The Emerald Enforcers' practice facility sat empty at 6:47 AM—exactly how he preferred it.

No distractions. No small talk. Just the echo of rubber on ice and the rhythmic scrape of his skates.

Crack.

Two hundred ninety-eight.

The arena's overhead lights hummed their steady fluorescent drone.

Outside, Greenwood Hollow was probably just waking up—humans shuffling towards coffee shops, the trolls in the industrial district starting their early shifts, the pixie-run bakery on Main Street filling the morning air with the scent of cardamom rolls.

He had already been awake for two hours.

Protein shake at 5:15. Dynamic stretching at 5:35. Ice time at 6:00.

Crack.

Two hundred ninety-nine.

He set up the final shot, exhaling slowly through his nose. The net waited patiently.

Crack.

Three hundred.

He allowed himself one moment of satisfaction before gathering the scattered pucks into the bucket.

His routine demanded efficiency. Morning drills, shower, team breakfast, film review, afternoon practice, recovery session, dinner, sleep.

Every element was calibrated for optimal performance.

Control was the foundation of everything.

He was halfway through collecting pucks when the side door banged open. The sound ricocheted off the empty bleachers like a gunshot, and his jaw tightened.

"There you are."

Sam Watley strode across the rubber flooring towards the rink's edge, tablet tucked under one arm and a travel mug steaming in her other hand.

Her heels clicked an impatient rhythm that seemed personally offended by the early hour.

Her blonde bob was perfectly styled. Her tailored cream trousers and matching cream cashmere sweater were pristine.

She looked like she'd walked straight out of a magazine shoot and into his carefully constructed silence.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," she said.

He raised an eyebrow and skated towards the boards. "I'm here every morning."

"At—" she checked her phone, "—six forty-nine? That's insane, Tarmek."

"It's consistent."

"In your case, it's the same thing." She took a long sip of coffee as if fortifying herself. "Anyway, I need five minutes."

He stepped off the ice and put on the blade guards that were waiting on the bench where he'd placed them exactly forty-seven minutes ago. "I have our team breakfast at seven-thirty."

"Plenty of time." Sam fell into step beside him as he headed for the locker room corridor.

Her heels struggled slightly on the rubber flooring, but she kept pace with determination that would've been admirable if it weren't disrupting his post-drill cooldown window.

"This won't take long. I just wanted to give you a heads up about a new initiative we're launching. "

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Initiative?"

"Community outreach. Well, partly community outreach, partly arena beautification, partly.

.." She waved her free hand vaguely. "Branding exercise?

My father's been on my case about making the team feel more connected to the town.

Apparently owning the only professional orc hockey team in a hundred miles isn't enough civic engagement for him. "

They passed through the double doors into the main corridor. The arena's interior was a maze of concrete hallways and fluorescent panels, functional and utilitarian. He appreciated its straightforwardness.

"Get to the point," he said.

She shot him a look that could have frozen the rink. "I hired a mural artist."

He stopped walking.

"A what?"

"A mural artist." Sam's tone turned defensive.

"You know, someone who paints murals? Large-scale art on walls?

It's going to be gorgeous, Tarmek. She's going to transform the main entrance lobby—something with community imagery, local landmarks, team spirit.

The whole thing will be interactive. Families can take photos in front of it, kids can—"

"You're putting art in the arena."

"I'm investing in our brand experience." She jabbed her tablet towards him. "Look, I've seen her portfolio. She's done incredible work. She's a traveling artist who goes from town to town doing commissions for community projects. Very bohemian. The aesthetic is perfect for what we need."

He resumed walking, his strides longer now, and Sam had to jog slightly to keep up.

"As long as it doesn't interfere with practice schedules."

"It won't."

"Or game days."

"Tarmek—"

"Or team operations in any capacity."

Sam grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. She was a tall woman, but her head barely reached his shoulder. She craned her neck to meet his eyes, her expression caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement.

"This is happening whether you like it or not.

My father approved the budget. The artist is already here.

She started this morning, actually. I just wanted you to know because you're..." She gestured at him generally.

"You. And I'd rather you hear it from me than have a meltdown when you see someone touching your precious walls. "

"I don't have meltdowns."

"You once benched Grimshaw for ten minutes because he reorganized the equipment closet without telling you."

His jaw tightened. "The system was working."

"The system required alphabetizing protein powders, Tarmek."

"There was a logic to it."

She patted his arm with exaggerated patience. "Anyway. Mural artist. Lobby. Probably here for a few weeks. Her name is Edie Anderson. Try not to terrorize her."

She peeled away towards the administrative offices before he could respond, her heels resuming their rhythmic click-click-click down the side corridor. He stood alone in the hallway, his fists clenched at his sides.

Art.

In his arena.

Some stranger wandering around with paintbrushes and easels and whatever else artists carried, disrupting the carefully maintained environment he'd worked years to optimize. Strangers meant unpredictability. Unpredictability meant variables. And variables meant things that could go wrong.

He forced himself to exhale.

It's just a mural, he told himself. She'll paint her pictures, leave, and everything will return to normal.

The team didn't need community outreach. They needed wins. They needed discipline. They needed players who showed up early and stayed late and understood that success was built on ten thousand repetitions of the same movement until muscle memory replaced conscious thought.

But arguing with Sam was pointless. She had her father's stubbornness and her own particular brand of relentless optimism that seemed immune to logic. If she wanted a mural, she'd get a mural.

As long as this Edie Anderson stayed out of his way.

He turned towards the main lobby, taking the long route to the locker room. He told himself he was just varying his cooldown walk and stretching his legs. The variation had nothing to do with curiosity.

The Emerald Enforcers Arena had been built in the seventies, back when Greenwood Hollow was still hoping to host a major human hockey league.

That dream had died somewhere around 1987, but the arena remained—a sprawling complex of concrete and determination that had housed everything from hockey games to monster truck rallies to the occasional pixie music festival.

The main entrance lobby was the first thing visitors saw.

A cavernous space with high ceilings and terrazzo floors, the walls had been painted the same shade of institutional beige for longer than he had been alive.

He pushed through the swinging doors into the lobby, and stopped dead.

Papers spread in overlapping fans across the terrazzo—some torn from sketchbooks, others printed on expensive-looking cardstock.

Charcoal drawings. Color studies. Thumbnail compositions.

Paint samples in every conceivable shade were taped to the walls at random heights and random angles, some overlapping, some peeling at the corners, some apparently held in place by nothing but artistic optimism.

Three open tote bags gaped like hungry mouths near the base of a pillar, their contents spilling across the floor—glitter pens in a tangled rainbow nest, charging cables knotted together in defiance of physics, brushes and palette knives and tubes of paint and what appeared to be an entire bag of gummy bears.

And in the center of it all, sitting cross-legged on the cold terrazzo floor, was a woman.

She was bent over a massive sketchpad, charcoal in one hand, phone in the other, earbuds trailing down to disappear into the collar of her paint-splattered overalls.

She was wearing at least a dozen bracelets on one wrist, and her ears had enough piercings that he lost count after the third row.

Short red curls bounced as she nodded along to whatever music consumed her attention.

Her feet were bare—bare, on a floor that hadn't seen a proper cleaning since last season—and her socks had been kicked off somewhere near the pile of paint samples.

His eye twitched.

He counted the violations automatically. Papers on the floor. Paint samples on walls without proper mounting. Personal belongings creating trip hazards. Food in an unauthorized area. No shoes.

No shoes.

"Excuse me."

The woman didn't respond.