Top Shelf (Storm Warning #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Pickle

Iburst into The Drop like a human confetti cannon with a loose fuse—my own metaphor, and I was already laughing at it before the door finished swinging shut behind me.

Thunder Bay's hockey faithful packed the bar.

We were just a week into the new season.

Storm jerseys everywhere, scarves knotted around necks, beer pitchers sweating on every surface.

Half the booster club claimed the back corner, and Biscuit—Hog's ridiculous rescue mutt, who looked like someone had assembled a dog from spare parts—threaded between ankles.

"Pickle's here!" someone shouted, unnecessary since I'd already vaulted onto the nearest barstool and nearly tipped backward into oblivion.

Evan caught my hoodie. Yanked me upright.

"Insurance liability," he muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Love you too, spreadsheet daddy."

His eye twitched. I lived for that.

The TV above the bar froze on the Shark Tank logo, and the entire room vibrated with the energy of people pretending to be chill while losing their minds. Rhett was about to be on national television. Our Rhett.

He was the guy who'd spent the last year quietly building easy-to-use packaging that could be unlocked with a swipe of a payment card. He worked on it in his workshop while also building a life with our team's enforcer, Hog.

He sat in a corner booth with his knitting out. That was how we all knew it was serious.

I cupped my hands around my mouth. "HOG AND RHETT! HOG AND RHETT!"

The bar picked up my chant. Stomping feet, clinking glasses, and someone's voice cracking on the high notes. The chant rattled the windows and probably pissed off the Thai place next door. I fed on it like it was oxygen.

This. This was everything.

These people, this noise, and the team that had somehow decided I was worth keeping around even when I showed up late to practice because I'd gotten my hand stuck in a Pringles can. Again.

I loved every single one of them. Even the ones who rolled their eyes at me, which was most of them.

The countdown to airtime gave me approximately seven minutes to generate chaos, which was five more than I usually needed.

First casualty: the beer pitcher.

I'd grabbed it from the bar with every intention of delivering it safely to the back table where Desrosiers and a couple of the D-men were setting up camp.

Simple task. Toddler-level difficulty. I'd been walking since I was eleven months old—Mom had the video evidence and zero shame about showing it.

But then Jake called my name from across the room, and I turned without slowing down, and Evan's skull interrupted the pitcher's trajectory.

He ducked. Years of defensive instincts were finally paying off in a civilian context.

Beer sloshed across the floor. A little got on his sleeve. It was his good flannel, the shirt Jake had bought him that he pretended not to care about but also washed on the delicate cycle.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry—"

Jake was cackling so hard he had to brace himself on a table.

Evan closed his eyes for a long moment. Centering himself. Finding his calm. Probably mentally updating some internal spreadsheet titled Reasons Pickle Should Be Traded to the North Pole.

"I'll get napkins," I said.

"You'll sit down," Evan said.

"But—"

"Sit."

I sat. For approximately ninety seconds.

Then Biscuit wandered past, tail wagging at nothing in particular, and I had a vision.

It was a beautiful, fully formed vision of the dog perched on a barstool, front paws on the counter, watching his dad's big TV debut like the distinguished gentleman he clearly was beneath all that chaotic mutt energy.

"Come here, buddy. C'mere. Biscuit. Biscuit!"

He looked at me with the resigned expression of a creature who had seen too much.

I scooped him up anyway.

He didn't appreciate it. He whined so loud that three people covered their ears, and one guy spilled his drink.

"What the fuck are you doing to my dog?"

Hog stepped up beside me like a flannel-wrapped mountain, knitting needles in hand, trailing yarn like evidence from a very specific crime scene.

"Giving him the experience he deserves," I said, trying to boost Biscuit higher. Biscuit's legs pinwheeled. "He should see this. He should witness—"

"He's a dog. He doesn't know what television is."

"You don't know that. You don't know his inner life."

Hog plucked Biscuit from my arms with one hand like the dog weighed nothing, like gravity was just a suggestion when you were six-three and built like a refrigerator. He gently set the dog on the floor.

"Stay away from my dog," Hog said, but his hand landed on top of my head for a second—a brief, heavy pat, like I was a slightly less well-behaved version of Biscuit.

"I was trying to enrich his—"

"Away."

I held up both hands in surrender.

Across the room, Juno set up a camera rig on a tripod, her blue hair catching the light from the bar's ancient fixtures. She was livestreaming the watch party for her podcast audience, which meant she was also livestreaming me.

I waved at the camera.

She ignored me.

I waved bigger. Both arms. Full windmill.

"Pickle, I swear to God—"

"The people need to see me, Juno. They crave my content."

"The people will see my elbow in your throat if you don't—" She broke off, adjusting the frame. "I will delete your entire existence in the podcast. I have the technology."

"You wouldn't."

"I've already done it twice this month."

That tracked. I'd noticed some suspicious gaps in her recent episode.

She caught my eye over the viewfinder and winked—quick, barely there—before shooing me away with one hand.

I backed away from the camera, hands still raised, and sat at the bar. Right in front of the napkin holders.

One of them was crooked.

Not by much. Maybe half an inch off from its neighbors. Barely noticeable. I straightened it without thinking.

Better.

Except now the one next to it looked wrong. Had it always been that far from the edge?

I moved my hands. Adjusting. Aligning. Three holders now, perfectly parallel to the bar's edge, perfectly spaced—

The countdown on the TV hit one minute. Someone started another chant, and I abandoned the napkin project, spinning toward the noise.

"Ten! Nine! Eight!"

The whole bar counted down like it was New Year's Eve, and the ball was about to drop. I climbed onto the brass footrail beneath the TV, one hand braced against the wall for balance.

"Seven! Six! Five!"

Jake had his arm around Evan's shoulders. Juno was filming the room, panning slowly across the crowd. Coach Rusk stood near the back, arms crossed, jaw set.

"Four! Three! Two!"

The Shark Tank theme music blasted from the speakers, and the room erupted—then immediately shushed itself, a wave of "shut up, shut up, it's starting" rippling from the TV outward until the only sounds were the clink of someone setting down a glass and Biscuit's claws clicking on the hardwood as he circled once and settled.

I held my breath.

The camera panned across the Tank set—all those dramatic lights and that long walkway and the sharks sitting in their chairs like gods deciding the fate of mortals—and then there he was.

Rhett.

Walking toward the cameras with his shoulders back and his chin up. He looked good. Polished. The kind of confidence that made you believe whatever he was about to sell you.

And behind him, carrying the prototype like it was as fragile as a Faberge egg, was Hog.

The bar collectively gasped because Hog on television was exactly what you'd expect.

He was wearing his "I cannot believe I agreed to be on television" shirt, a plain navy button-down, but his face said everything the fabric couldn't. Wide eyes.

Rigid posture. The energy of a man who would rather fight three guys at once than speak into a camera.

"Oh, buddy," Jake murmured. "Oh no."

"He's going to be fine," Evan said, but he gripped Jake's hand hard enough to whiten his knuckles.

On screen, Rhett started his pitch. His voice was steady, warm, exactly the right mix of passion and professionalism.

He talked about how difficult packaging could be for older adults.

About shards of plastic that could mangle a hand.

About the utility of existing technology that could change everything.

The bar was silent—completely.

Rhett mentioned Hog. The camera cut to him—standing there, holding the prototype, looking like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole—and Rhett's voice softened.

"My partner," he said, "in every sense of the word."

Somewhere in the bar, someone whispered, "Fuck," in the exact tone of voice that meant they were about to cry.

I glanced at Coach.

He dabbed his eye with the heel of his hand. Subtle about it. Professional. A quick swipe, like he was handling a minor irritation and not having an emotional breakdown over his enforcer's nationally televised love story.

I elbowed Desrosiers, who was standing next to me. Nodded toward Coach.

He looked and then looked back at me.

"Let him pretend allergies," he whispered.

"What allergies? We're inside."

"Dust. There's dust."

"There's definitely dust," I agreed. "Very dusty bar. Known dust hazard."

On screen, one of the sharks leaned forward, asking a question about profit margins. Rhett answered without hesitating. Hog stood there, radiating supportive boyfriend energy so hard it was almost visible.

I watched my team watching them.

Jake, with his head tilted against Evan's shoulder. Juno wiping her eyes while still somehow keeping the camera steady. The booster club contingent clutching each other's arms. Coach pretending he wasn't crying while very obviously crying.

And Hog's knitting, abandoned on the corner booth table—a half-finished something in Storm blue and white, needles still stuck through the yarn like he'd dropped it mid-stitch when the countdown started.

This is my family.

The thought landed without warning, heavy and warm.

Messy. Loud. Ridiculous and real.