1 – Faith
Saint on Thin Ice
The first thing I see when I step into the arena is Gabriel Saint’s face.
Gigantic. Smirking. Frozen in high definition on the Jumbotron while “JINGLE BELLS” blares over the speakers and the crowd screams like the second coming, just laced up skates.
I hate him a little on sight.
Not because he’s hot. He is, obviously. The man looks like sin sculpted in ice and then left under a heat lamp. Dark hair, stubble, that obnoxious green-eyed stare like he’s daring the world to love him and then punishing it when it does.
No, I hate him because three years ago, that face nearly set my career on fire.
“Faith Langley!”
I jerk back as someone grabs my elbow and steers me out of traffic. A camera operator rolls past with a rig the size of a small car. My director, Karen, releases me with a long-suffering sigh.
“Eyes up, sweetheart. If you get flattened before puck drop, I’m filing for hazard pay.”
“I was not about to get flattened,” I mutter, clutching my notes to my chest. “I was surveying. There’s a difference.”
“You were staring at Saint’s cheekbones like they owed you money.”
“They do,” I snap. “In emotional damages.”
Karen gives me a look like she doesn’t have time for my shit, which, fair. She’s juggling three camera crews, a full holiday broadcast, and a network that thinks more tinsel equals more viewers.
The concourse around us is chaos. Red and green jerseys everywhere, kids holding foam candy cane sticks, a guy in a full elf costume carrying a beer the size of a goldfish bowl. And Christmas lights that zigzag over the entryway like the arena got tangled in its own string and gave up.
Banners hang from the rafters: HOLIDAY CLASSIC WEEK in glittering letters. Underneath, the home team warms up on the ice, cutting lines through the fresh surface like sharks in a very festive ocean.
Gabriel Saint—number 9, alternate captain and professional show-off—rips down the wing and snaps a shot top shelf that rattles the net and makes the crowd roar. He circles back, taps his stick to a kid pressed against the glass, and gives him a wink that sends the kid into a meltdown.
Naturally, the man is a human highlight reel with an ego to match.
“Okay,” Karen says, thrusting a small stack of revised cards into my hands. “Here’s the rundown. Pregame hit by the glass, then your feature about the team’s charity toy drive, then—”
“Then, Saint,” I say flatly.
“Then Saint.” She smirks. “You two have history, right?”
I stare at her.
She stares back, innocent as a snake.
“That would imply something,” I say. “We do not have something. I wrote an honest article, and he threw a tantrum on social media and called me a ‘buzzkill in lip gloss.’ That’s not history, that’s Tuesday on the internet.”
“Uh-huh.” Karen waves a hand. “Whatever it is, the network loved the tension on your audition tape. Viewers eat that shit up.”
I grind my teeth. “Right. Tension. I’ll just casually ‘lean in’ to the one guy in the league who still pretends I assassinated his character.”
“Faith.” Her voice softens. “You earned this. You’re here because you’re good. Not because of him. So go ask your hard questions and make him sweat on live TV, okay?”
My heart squeezes.
Right. This. This is what I’ve fought for since that first article blew up and branded me as “the girl who hates fun.” Years of local sports segments, midnight bus rides, and editing my own pieces on a laptop stuck together with tape. Months of begging for this shot.
And now I’m here. At center ice, underneath a ceiling full of banners and Christmas lights, about to debut as the newest face of national hockey coverage.
No pressure.
I inhale deeply. The arena smells like popcorn, stale beer, cold air, and a faint trace of Zamboni fumes. My happy place. My personal chapel.
I’m fine. I’m ready. I have notes, a good blazer, and the world’s fiercest red lipstick.
I’m not scared of Gabriel Saint.
“Faith, thirty seconds to pregame hit,” a voice crackles in my earpiece. “You’re live by the glass. Let’s see that Christmas magic.”
God, I hate that phrase.
I weave through the maze of cables and equipment, sidestepping a mascot dressed as a reindeer who high-fives me with a foam hoof. My heels clack on the concrete as I reach the rinkside opening and step onto the rubber mat, the cold air slapping me in the face like a wake-up call.
The ice is right there, white and gleaming, boards humming with impact from players warming up. Pucks ping off the glass like little black bullets.
I paste on my professional smile and take my position next to the glass. The camera swings toward me. Karen counts down on her fingers.
Five. Four. Three. Two.
The red light blinks on.
“Good evening and Merry Puck-Mas, everyone,” I say, voice smooth, eyes locked on the lens. “I’m Faith Langley, and we’re live from Frost Bank Arena for the kickoff of Holiday Classic Week. The lights are up, the crowd is loud, and the home team is looking to stuff the stat sheet tonight.”
The sound swells, as if the crowd hears itself and gets louder out of spite.
“Down on the ice, warmups are underway,” I continue. “And all eyes are on number nine, Gabriel Saint, who’s been on an absolute tear this month. Nine goals in his last six games, two game-winners, and enough chirping to power the scoreboard by sheer ego alone.”
Karen snorts in my ear. The camera guy hides a grin.
On the ice, Saint glances our way. Just for a second. Like he heard me through the glass. His mouth curls into a smirk.
“We’ll see if Saint can keep the hot streak going,” I say calmly, even as my pulse kicks. “And later tonight, we’ll have him right here for a postgame chat. For now, we’ll send it back upstairs to the booth for the call of the game.”
“Annnd… we’re clear,” Karen says. “Beautiful. You’re a natural. Okay, go breathe for a few minutes, then get ready for the first intermission. Halftime feature, toy drive, then last segment we tease the Saint interview again.”
“Can we not call it the Saint interview?” I mutter.
“What would you prefer, the Sinner showdown?” she asks sweetly.
I flip her off just below frame height. She laughs.
I step back from the glass as the last pucks are collected, the players funneling off the ice in a blur of pads and jerseys. Saint is last in line, as usual, milking every second. He glides to a stop by the blue line, tips his mask up with the butt of his stick, and stares at the stands like he’s soaking in the worship.
He doesn’t look my way again.
Good. I prefer my enemies unaware and overconfident.
***
The game is chaos. Loud, fast, physical, with more checks than a payroll office. I do my segments, hit my marks, and only almost trip over a cable once.
By the time the final horn blares, the home team has lost by one.
The arena groans like a wounded animal. Fans boo the refs, the other team celebrates, and the players skate off looking pissed and exhausted.
Perfect atmosphere for a chill, low-tension interview.
“Okay,” Karen says in my ear. “We’re getting Saint. He’s on his way. Pregame, he was fine with it. He knows you’re the one asking questions. You ready?”
I swallow.
My mic is in my hand. My notes are in the other. I’m standing just outside the locker room hallway, cameras set, light blazing down on me like an interrogation.
“Ready,” I say. My voice sounds steady enough.
Minutes drag. A trainer hurries by, then a backup goalie, then the team’s equipment guy.
Then he appears.
Gabriel Saint is still damp from the ice, hair wet and shoved back, jersey peeled off, leaving him in a tight compression shirt that clings to every inch of muscle. Shoulder pads half undone. Red flush high on his cheekbones from exertion and anger. He looks huge this close, all wide chest and long legs and coiled energy.
And pissed. Very, very pissed.
His gaze lands on me. That smirk is nowhere to be found. His jaw flexes.
“Oh, good,” he says. “My night wasn’t painful enough.”
“Saint,” Karen warns in his earpiece from somewhere behind the cameras. “Network. Behave.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
He steps into place beside me, towering, the heat of him radiating like he skate-bladed straight out of a furnace. A crew member slaps a mic pack into his hand; he clips the transmitter to his waistband and tugs the tiny mic up his collar.
I stare fixedly at my cards. For a second, my fingers shake.
He notices.
“Relax, Langley,” he murmurs under his breath, voice low enough the mics won’t catch it. “I’m not going to eat you on live TV.”
“That would require you to have taste,” I murmur back, eyes still on my cards. “Three, two, one,” Karen says.
The red light blinks on again. Show time.
I turn to the camera, smile professional and bright.
“We’re here with number nine, Gabriel Saint,” I say. “Tough loss tonight. What’s your first reaction to how this one got away from you?”
He looks straight into the lens, jaw hard. For a second, I think he’s going to stonewall me and recite some boring cliché.
Instead, he shrugs one big shoulder.
“We played like shit,” he says flatly.
In my earpiece, someone chokes.
“I’m… going to assume you mean there are things to clean up,” I say smoothly. I don’t flinch. I’m an ice queen. I’m Elsa with better hair. “Turnovers? Defensive breakdowns?”
“Sure,” he says. “If you watched the same game, you tell me.”
Okay. So we’re doing this.
Behind the camera, Karen flaps a hand like she’s not sure whether to cut or keep rolling.
I keep my smile, but I let it sharpen. “Well, from my angle, I saw sloppy backchecking, forwards cheating for offense, and one very frustrated alternate captain spending more time arguing with the refs than leading by example.”
His head snaps toward me.
“Wow,” he says, slow and incredulous. “We’re just going straight for the throat, huh, Langley?”
“You did say I should tell you,” I answer. “I’m just playing the puck you sent up the ice.”
The corners of his mouth twitch. I can’t tell if it’s humor or fury.
“So you think I’m the reason we lost?” he says. “Good to know the narrative’s already written.”
There it is. The old wound, rising up from under the ice.
The comment section of my brain lights up: Buckle up, folks, it’s the College Article Rematch.
“That’s not what I said,” I reply. “I said I saw a leader more focused on chirping than leading. There’s a difference between passion and distraction.”
He laughs. It’s not a nice sound.
“And you’re a leadership expert now, yeah?” he says. “From the bench with your notecards and your little earpiece?”
Ouch.
The jab hits harder than it should. My pulse spikes, but I keep my voice cool.
“I’m an expert on asking questions, Gabriel. That’s literally my job. Yours is to put pucks in the net, not in the penalty box. Are you happy with how you did either of those tonight?”
His eyes flare. For one heartbeat, the air between us goes electric.
He steps slightly closer. Just enough for the camera to still frame both of us, but I can feel the heat of him and smell the mix of sweat, cologne, and cold air.
“I scored,” he says, voice low. “I also took a shitty penalty. You want me to hold up a sign and apologize? Or you want something dramatic, you can spin into another hit piece?”
My throat tightens.
There it is, the ghost between us, finally saying hello.
“Are you suggesting I can’t be objective?” I ask, lower now, the edges of my professionalism fraying.
“I’m suggesting you don’t know the first thing about the room,” he says. “You know numbers. You know drama. You don’t know us.”
“I know what I see,” I snap, unable to stop now. “I see a player who spends as much energy protecting his brand as he does protecting the puck.”
There’s a collective, almost-audible “…oh shit” from the crew.
His jaw clenches. His eyes flash.
“And I see a reporter who got attention once by burying a kid’s draft stock and never let go of the shovel,” he says softly.
The words land like a punch.
My heart stutters. I feel my face go cold, then hot.
“Wow,” I say. My laugh is sharp. “Still hanging onto that? It was one article, Saint. A long time ago. You’ve done pretty well for someone so tragically victimized.”
He huffs out a humorless breath. “Yeah. I clawed my way out. Despite you, not because of you.”
The red light is still on. The camera is still rolling. Somewhere in the truck, producers are probably having a collective coronary.
I know I should pull this back. I should pivot to a bland question, tack on a “We’ll see you next time,” and throw it back to the booth.
Instead, I say, “Then maybe act like it.”
His brows slam together. “What?”
“If you’re so far past that,” I say, voice ice-slick, “act like it. Lead. Don’t just talk shit. Fans aren’t tuning in for your grudge.”
His nostrils flare.
“You sure about that?” he murmurs. “Because the way those numbers pop every time my name shows up next to yours—feels like the grudge is the show.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush.
For a second, it’s just us, locked there, heat and history and a battle no one understands except the two idiots still swinging.
“Faith, wrap,” Karen hisses in my ear.
I straighten. My smile snaps back into place, sharp as broken glass.
“Well,” I say, turning slightly toward the camera while keeping him in my peripheral vision, “whatever you think of the narrative, one thing’s clear: the Holiday Classic just got a lot more interesting.”
He smirks then, finally, that infuriating angle of mouth that launched a thousand thirst tweets.
“Trust me, Langley,” he says, voice dipping low. “Things are just getting warmed up.”
The way he says warmed does things to my internal organs that should probably be illegal.
“We’ll see,” I reply, cool as I can manage. “Gabriel Saint, everyone. Back to you.”
The red light blinks off.
Silence slams down like a dropped puck.
For a moment, no one moves. Then Karen’s voice bursts in my ear, half horrified, half-giddy.
“Faith. What. The. Hell.”
I drag my gaze away from Saint and look at her.
“What?” I say, dazed. “We got honest answers.”
She turns her tablet toward me. My stomach dips.
#SaintVsLangley is already trending.
Oh, shit.
Beside me, Gabriel laughs under his breath.
“Congrats,” he says quietly, leaning in just enough that only I can hear. “You wanted to make a splash? You just dove headfirst.”
“I didn’t do this for you,” I shot back.
His eyes flick over my face, lingering on my mouth for one loaded second.
“Baby, nothing about that felt like it was for me,” he says. “But you know what? I’m suddenly really looking forward to Christmas.”
He steps away, unclips his mic, and disappears down the hallway in a swirl of sweat, steam, and attitude.
I watch him go, blood buzzing, chest heaving, the crowd roaring faintly out in the arena as the broadcast cuts to commercial.
I tell myself the hot, shaky feeling under my skin is rage.
I know I’m lying.
Christmas, I think grimly, clutching my mic.
This holiday just became a full-contact sport.
