1. OCTOBER
MASON REEDS
I pulled up half an hour late and immediately knew I’d made a mistake.
Bass thudded so hard it rattled my steering column. Lights pulsed in the windows like a rave, and a girl in a jersey dress was puking into the hedge like it personally offended her. One heel off. One eye closed. Full dedication.
Nice.
The Wolves had won their first regular-season game today — home opener. Clean, brutal, dominant. We should’ve been celebrating with Gatorade and humble team pride.
Instead, someone rented a party mansion with three kegs, six tubs of neon jungle juice, and enough puck bunnies to stage a mating ritual on the lawn.
I justified my arrival to myself while grabbing the six-pack from my passenger seat.
I’m not a monk. I’m just — more conscious of optics. Cam’s already buried in spin control, and if she sees this shit-show on social media before I do damage control, she’ll disown me. Hell, Dad might bench me out of sheer shame-by-association.
Still, I walked in.
And instantly regretted it.
It was shoulder-to-shoulder, all bodies and bass. The air reeked of stale beer, Axe body spray, sweat, and regret. A sensory cocktail of “bad decisions incoming.”
I barely made it past the entryway when I spotted him.
Theo Beckett.
The Beast.
Half shirtless, entire torso glistening like he’d poured the keg on himself. He was straddling a keg — yes, straddling — and pumping a foam finger at his crotch like it owed him rent while Dean and Logan chanted his name. Someone was upside-down doing a keg stand, and Beast was goading them like a drill sergeant in a frat house.
Girls were screaming. Phones were recording. Snapchat ghosts were haunting the room.
I took a slow breath through my nose and exhaled the words silently:
“Fuck me sideways.”
I’m not a prude. I’ve been to parties. Hell, I’ve puked in a bush once or twice myself.
But this?
This was an Olympic-level performance in public scandal. Theo didn’t party. He mainlined chaos, chased it with sex appeal, and ditched self-preservation at the door. His reputation as the Beast wasn’t exaggerated — it was the most accurate branding since Kleenex.
And I could already hear Cam’s voice in my head:
“Get him under control before he takes the whole team down with him.”
Except no one controlled Theo Beckett. Especially not when he was three beers past coherent and freshly inflated from a win.
I squeezed the six-pack in my hand like I could strangle responsibility into it.
This was going to be a disaster.
And we weren’t even an hour into it.
I ditched the six-pack in the kitchen like it was radioactive and popped one for myself, because there was no way I was surviving this night sober. Not with the smell of jungle juice and testosterone clogging the vents.
I cracked the tab and took a long pull, letting the aluminum bite cool me down before I waded deeper into the chaos.
The living room was worse.
Bodies packed in, music blaring like the subwoofer was fighting for its life, and Theo — Jesus Christ, Theo — was already abandoned his keg and now was sprawled on the couch like it was his throne.
Some girl was straddling him, riding his lap like they were doing it for the camera that was definitely pointed in their direction. She was grinding like her rent depended on it, and his hand?
Gone.
Straight up under her dress.
Nobody said anything. A few noticed — how could they not — but this kind of shit had become background noise when it came to Beckett. Like weather. Or traffic. Or war.
I was halfway through turning away, already queasy at the thought of what Cam would do when she saw the tagged stories, when Theo froze.
I saw it. Subtle, but real.
He pulled back slightly, eyes narrowing, like a switch flipped in his head.
Then came the question — loud enough to cut through the bass:
“Aren’t you Harker’s girl?”
The grinding slowed. The girl blinked, hesitated. Then she did the dumbest thing possible.
She shrugged.
That’s when Theo snapped.
“Get the fuck off me,” he barked, pushing her off his lap like she’d suddenly grown scales. “I don’t fuck cheaters. Get off before I puke. Tell Harker next time he should pick someone who doesn’t try to ride my fingers in public.”
She stumbled, landing hard against the couch arm, hair askew, dress rumpled, ego bruised. There was a beat of silence — one long, awkward pause — then the whispers started. A few laughs. Some phones dropped. A couple bros winced.
Even drunk, even half-dressed, Theo had a line.
And apparently, cheating skanks were on the wrong side of it.
I watched him drag his hand down his face, pissed and not trying to hide it. He grabbed a nearby bottle — someone else's— and chugged like he was rinsing the taste of her out of his mouth.
Honestly?
I was impressed.
For the first time all night, I felt something other than secondhand shame watching him.
Cam was still going to murder him for the optics. At least he wasn’t a total bastard.
Just a mostly chaotic, morally messy, dangerously hot one.
Which somehow made him even more of a PR nightmare.
Lucky fucking me — because goalies always were somehow responsible for entire’s team shit.
I moved through the main level, beer can sweating in my hand, trying to look casual while doing PR triage with my eyes.
Dean was already three drinks past reasonable. Sloppy smile, slicked-back hair a mess, eyes following every ass in motion like he was tracking pucks. His shirt was unbuttoned to mid-chest like he thought he was a yacht daddy. He gave me a finger gun when he saw me. I returned it with a beer sip and a middle finger.
Owen was in the kitchen, lying flat across the island like some sacrificial offering while a girl in a pink tube top dripped tequila between her tits and dared him to get it all without spilling. He failed. On purpose.
The frat bros surrounding them howled like it was the goddamn Fourth of July.
I turned before I could absorb more.
Luca and Dempsey were dragging a bean bag chair into the center of the dining room, halfway through constructing what looked like a beer can throne. They had helmets on. Full cage visors. No one knew why. No one asked. There was duct tape. I made a mental note to pretend I’d never seen it.
And then, like fate kicking me in the teeth, I passed the front room again and saw him.
Harker.
Not a teammate, but definitely a known quantity. Pre-law, frat-adjacent, part-time asshole. The kind of guy who’d rat out a freshman for smoking weed and then cheat on a psych exam the same week.
He was arguing with the girl Theo had just dumped.
I recognized her hair. And the dress. Mostly because it was still riding way too high on her thigh.
Harker’s face was red, mouth tight, and his arms were stiff at his sides like he was trying real hard not to make a scene.
Too late.
She was crying now — well, fake crying. The kind with no tears and high-pitched gasps. And judging by the furious whisper-yelling, he’d figured out exactly whose lap she’d been riding.
Jesus.
I turned away, bile rising.
Cam’s face flashed behind my eyes. Her mouth pinched. That death glare she practiced on me since around middle-school and perfected somewhere between freshman year and the first time she had to spin one of Theo’s locker room disasters into something digestible for the donors.
How the hell was she supposed to PR-fix this?
This wasn’t a scandal. It was a fucking parade.
I swigged the rest of my beer and headed for the stairs, the urge to pee only slightly stronger than the urge to disappear into the drywall and reemerge after graduation.
And still — deep down — I knew this was barely the worst of it.
Dad was going to lose his goddamn mind.
The stairs creaked like they were trying to warn me off. Bladder screaming, brain fried, I made it halfway up before I clocked how dark it was up here. Like someone had blown the bulbs for “ambience,” but it just made the hallway feel like a bad decision waiting to happen.
Music still thumped through the walls, muffled now, pulsing like a heartbeat made of bass. I passed one door cracked open — some couple going at it on a beanbag chair, girl moaning like a goddamn siren. I kept walking. I didn’t want details. I just wanted to piss without stepping in bodily fluids.
Then I hit the bathroom door.
Closed.
Occupied.
No big deal, I thought. I’d wait. I leaned a shoulder to the wall and—
Sloppy, wet gagging.
I froze.
Another gag. Thicker this time. Choked.
Then a low, mean growl bled through the door. Words, unmistakable.
“That’s it. Take it. Fucking take all of it like the little cockdrunk slut you are.”
Jesus Christ.
My spine went stiff. Not out of shock, but because I knew that voice.
Theo — fuck, how he can be everywhere in the same time? Just how?
Grunting now. Rhythmic. Rough.
“Yeah, that’s it. Don’t even think about tapping out now, sweetheart. You wanted the Beast. You fucking got him.”
Another gag. Muffled, desperate. Then the unmistakable sound of someone gasping around something they couldn’t breathe past.
My face heated like I’d stuck it in a microwave.
I didn’t need visuals. I didn’t want them.
That voice alone was a full scene in IMAX.
I pivoted so fast I nearly tripped over my own feet, muttering, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope,” like a prayer and a curse all at once. I barely avoided a couple making out against the wall and headed straight for the stairs like I could outrun the mental image now permanently burned into my brain.
I was gonna need bleach. For my soul.
And therapy. Possibly exorcism.
I hit the bottom stair like I was fleeing a war zone. My bladder had officially given up. My soul had evacuated through my ears. And I was two seconds from calling a damn Uber just to escape whatever sex demon Theo had summoned in that upstairs bathroom.
But before I could make it to the door, I had to dodge two girls parked halfway down the staircase like gossip gargoyles.
Both puck bunnies. Obviously.
The younger one had bubblegum-pink lips and a wide-eyed freshman vibe that screamed, I just discovered vodka this semester. She was picking at her phone, lip gloss wand tucked between her fingers. The older one—brunette, bored, definitely been around the rink a few seasons—sipped from a red Solo like it was champagne.
I tried to slip past, eyes on the exit.
But then I heard it.
“God,” Bubblegum muttered, “how long does it take to wipe off some mascara?”
Solo Cup didn’t even blink. “Babe, it’s not the mascara she’s cleaning. Trust me.”
I paused mid-step.
Bubblegum leaned in. “So… she really went in there with him?”
Solo Cup smirked, teeth flashing like a predator. “Uh, yeah. That’s why we’re not going in there. Not until the air clears.”
Bubblegum laughed, a nervous little hiccup of sound. “I mean… he’s hot, but like, scary-hot. Like don’t-fuck-with-me hot.”
“Exactly,” the older one said, deadly serious. “That’s the point.”
She glanced at me like she didn’t give a single shit I was standing there, then leaned closer to her friend.
“Every girl here wants to try the Beast. Just once.”
She let the pause sit. Dragged it out like a drumroll.
“Key word? Once.”
Bubblegum blinked. “Why just once?”
Solo Cup let out a low, throaty laugh. “Because nobody wants round two. And he never goes for seconds anyway.”
“Why not?”
“One night with him and you’re either wrecked, ruined, or rethinking your entire fucking life.” She tilted her head toward the bathroom. “That girl? She’s gonna need new lashes, new dignity, and probably a neck brace.”
Bubblegum gasped. “Wait, so she—?”
Solo Cup cut her off. “—just got face-fucked by campus legend? Yep. And if she’s lucky, she’ll remember it between sobs tomorrow.”
I just stood there.
Absolutely frozen.
My brain—my poor, suffering brain—couldn’t decide what to process first: the casual hell these girls were describing, or the fact they sounded jealous.
What the actual fuck is wrong with these people?
I blinked. Took one giant step down. Didn’t say a word. Just kept walking. Out. Into the night. Into the relative sanity of my car and my rapidly diminishing will to live.
I thought about my uncles — every single one of them an Fairfax University hockey alum. NHL vets. Even Carter, the one with rage issues and a suspension record longer than my birth certificate, had never described college like this.
Why didn’t anyone warn me?
Why didn’t anyone say, “Hey Mason, by the way, the hockey team might be cursed and the captain might be Satan’s dick incarnate, so maybe pack holy water instead of a six-pack”?
I slid into the driver’s seat and dropped my forehead to the steering wheel.
I needed a nap.
And a new school.
Or at the very least, a new goalie mask I could wear twenty-four seven. Preferably one with blackout tint and built-in emotional buffering.
Because this?
This wasn’t some freshman shock moment. I’d seen my share of chaos. Lived through last season’s disasters.
But this year?
It was already starting like the last one ended — on fire and headed for a cliff.
And I had the sinking feeling we hadn’t even begun the real freefall yet.
I sat in my car for a full minute, just breathing. Trying to flush the image of what I’d heard upstairs out of my head like it was a corrupted file. But it wouldn’t delete. Every time I blinked, there it was again: Theo’s voice, that choked gag, the gleeful horror show narrated by Solo Cup on the stairs like it was some campus-wide rite of passage.
Jesus.
I needed a new major. A new team. A new fucking timeline.
I threw the gear into drive and rolled toward the curb, the bass from inside still rattling my windows like the party was physically trying to follow me out.
And as I passed the porch—windows fogged, front door wide open like it’d given up on privacy altogether — I heard it.
A roar.
Theo again. Beast-mode activated. Some new chaos exploding behind me.
Followed by a cheer loud enough to shake the trees.
I didn’t even flinch this time. Just muttered under my breath, voice flat and hollow like a man prepping his last will and testament:
“Cam’s gonna murder him. Dad’s gonna bury the body.”
And then I drove away.
Straight into the night.
Straight into whatever nightmare the rest of this season was about to be.
