Rocket

Rylan Maddox

I don’t go out looking for fights.

But I never skate away from one, either.

Especially not when some beer-league Bruin chucks a pint glass at my head.

I’m posted up in this dive a few blocks from TD Garden—hood up, whiskey neat, body still humming from the game. The Vipers took Boston in overtime. Barely. And yeah, maybe I put their golden boy Jensen on a stretcher with an open-ice hit that’ll be living rent-free in highlight reels for weeks.

Clean. Brutal. Textbook.

If he wanted to walk out of that barn, he should’ve kept his head up.

Now the press is frothing. Twitter’s on fire. And my phone’s full of missed calls from PR like I’m about to be sent to boarding school for boys who punch too hard.

I’m three fingers into my second whiskey when the idiot decides to grow a set.

Guy across the bar. Bruins jersey. Beer gut. Neck tat of something that used to be a skull but now just looks like a bruised thumb. He’s already squinting like he’s debating if I’m worth the dental bill.

“You Maddox?” he slurs.

I don’t look up.

“You think that hit on Jensen was fair?”

I toss back the last of my drink. “I think Jensen should’ve tried figure skating if he didn’t want contact.”

He tosses his pint.

It sails wide.

Rookie move.

I’m out of my chair before the glass hits the ground. He lunges. Swings like a kid at his first stick-and-puck. I feed him a right cross to the jaw, then a left to the ribs just for fun.

Two more guys jump in. One clips my shoulder. The other tries to grab my hoodie.

I spin, plant, and throw him into a high-top so hard the table folds like origami.

Now it’s a full-line brawl.

Barstools flying. Shouts. Someone’s girlfriend screaming. A body hits the jukebox. The music cuts out, but I don’t. I’m in it—shoulders tight, blood pumping, fists flying like I’m back in juniors with scouts watching.

And I’m smiling.

Because this?

This is home.

My phone’s already vibrating when I wake up.

Correction—I don’t wake up. I regain consciousness. There’s a difference.

Head pounding. Jaw stiff. Blood crusted on my knuckle. And the stench of whiskey and bad decisions baked into hotel sheets that definitely aren’t mine.

I roll over. The girl’s gone. Good.

I vaguely remember lip filler, a fake laugh, and her trying to record me snoring for TikTok. I tossed her phone across the suite and told her to leave.

Phone buzzes again. I grab it off the floor.

43 missed calls.

17 voicemails.

TMZ link from Dobrik.

Jesus.

I click the link. Video loads. Sideways. Grainy. Probably recorded by some frat bro with barbecue sauce on his fingers. The headline?

“Rylan Maddox Loses It in Boston Bar—Fists Fly, Cops Show, Chaos Ensues.”

There I am. Center frame. Hoodie off. Fist mid-swing. Shirt torn, blood on my lip. Some Bruins fan curled on the floor like a dropped sack of meat.

The comments are worse than the video.

This guy’s a psycho.

Suspend him for the season.

No wonder Lexi left.

And there it is.

The ex.

Lexi fucking Devereaux.

Model-slash-pop-star-slash-manic-pixie-nightmare. A literal 10 with a 1 personality.

She made crazy look couture.

We dated for six months. Which, in her world, is basically a common-law marriage. Six months of tabloid headlines, screaming matches in hotel hallways, and three separate incidents that involved some form of arson. I wish I was exaggerating.

She keyed “CHEATER” into the hood of my Lambo after I liked a photo of my cousin on Instagram. She threw my PlayStation in a pool because I skipped one of her concerts for a team dinner. And she once—swear to God—hired a psychic to “cleanse our aura” and then tried to have me banned from my own apartment when I kicked the guy out.

I should’ve ended it the first time she said “Mercury in retrograde” with a straight face.

But she was hot. Wild. And for a minute, I thought maybe crazy was better than alone.

Spoiler: it’s not.

When we finally crashed and burned, she took a match to the whole damn thing. Posted screenshots of our texts with dramatic music. Claimed I was “emotionally abusive” because I told her no once. Went live crying in a hotel robe, said I “needed therapy and Jesus.”

Now every time my name trends, she chimes in like clockwork. Right on cue, her verified comment’s at the top of the TMZ thread:

“Told y’all. 🧘‍♀️💅”

I chuck my phone onto the floor and drag myself to the shower. Water scalding. Steam rising like it’s trying to burn the memory of her off my skin.

Let them all think I’m the problem.

Let Lexi sing her sad little breakup ballads and cry on late night about “surviving Rylan Maddox.”

I know who I am.

Dobrik’s waiting for me. Our head coach. Old-school as they come. Doesn’t care if I fight—but he hates when it ends up on TMZ.

“You want the good news or the bad?” he asks, arms crossed like I’m thirteen and caught sneaking beers again.

“Hit me.”

“Good news: Only a five-game suspension.”

“And the bad?”

He tosses a file down on the desk. “League’s assigning you a rep. Full tour. Image rehab. Starts this week.”

I groan. “You gotta be kidding. A babysitter?”

“Behavioral Image Liaison.”

I snort. “So... a glorified PR cop with a stick up her ass.”

“She’s the best they’ve got.”

I flip open the file.

Ava Sinclair.

Harvard. League certified. Specializes in “reputation-damaged, high-risk athletes.”

Translation: she thinks she can fix me.

Spoiler alert: she can’t.

I toss the file back on the desk and grin. “Alright. Let’s see what she’s got.”

“Rylan,” Dobrik warns, rubbing a hand down his face, “I’m serious. One more fuck-up—just one—and they’ll bury you.”

I nod. Pretend to care.

But all I’m thinking about is how fast this Ava chick’ll crack once she realizes she’s not dealing with a broken boy who needs a pep talk.

She’s dealing with a goddamn freight train on skates.

They say hockey saves lives.

But they don’t talk about the ones it wrecks along the way.

I’ve been in this league eight years. Drafted young, traded twice, fined more times than I can count. I’ve made enemies on every team from Calgary to Carolina. Burned through more linemates than relationships—and trust me, that list is short and ugly.

Used to be, I thought the rink was the only place I made sense.

But lately? Even the ice feels slippery.

You think the hits are brutal? Try waking up next to a girl whose name you don’t remember, in a penthouse you can’t afford unless you win a bonus, with a voicemail from your agent warning you that your last bar tab made it into the Post.

Try losing twenty grand at a poker table in Vegas after a shutout loss in Arizona.

Try seeing your own fuckin’ face on a TMZ chyron: “Vipers’ Enforcer or NHL’s Problem Child?”

It wasn’t always like this.

I used to skate because it felt like flying. Because I was good at it. Because when the world felt too damn loud, hockey shut it all out.

But that was before the endorsements. Before the women who wanted bruises on their hips and selfies for clout. Before I had to smile for interviews and bury the part of me that still wanted to fight everything—especially the parts I couldn’t name.

Now?

I don’t know if I play to win or just to feel something.

The league calls it a suspension.

I call it a warning shot.

Because the truth is, they don’t know what to do with a guy like me. Too valuable to cut, too wild to tame. A walking PR disaster with a cannon for a shot and fists that don’t quit.

And now they’re sending Ava Sinclair to babysit me?

Let her try.

Let her see what’s behind the fights and the fines and the bullshit highlight reels.

Let her get close enough to find out what happens when you poke the bear too long.

Spoiler alert?

I don’t break.

I explode.