Chapter 1
Declan Storm
The Hurricanes lost late, and the Blades went on to the Cup Finals. Then they won the whole thing.
I told myself I was happy for them.That was bullshit. I was jealous.
Game twelve was the night everything went sideways. The night I hit Knox Callahan and left him with a concussion bad enough to send him to the hospital.
Clean hit or not, it still sits in my gut like a stone.
Everybody said the same thing. Clean. Legal. Part of the game. Didn’t matter. Because I knew I had another gear I didn’t need to hit, and I hit it anyway.
I skated harder. Drove through him harder. Wanted to make a statement. And I did. Just not the kind I could live with.
I went to the hospital afterward feeling like absolute shit. Knox didn’t blame me. Didn’t look at me with anger. If anything, he let me off easier than I deserved.
That made it worse. A whole lot worse.
A few nights later, me and some of the guys went out to let loose, drink a little, forget the season, forget the loss, forget everything.
It didn’t work.Because no matter how loud the bar got, no matter how many drinks hit the table, I still saw that hit every time I blinked.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again—Knox hitting the boards, his body going down wrong, the way the ice seemed too loud and too quiet all at once.
So I took an Uber. Didn’t think. Didn’t plan. Just ended up at some bar about five miles from the Blades’ arena. The kind of place packed with their fans—jerseys, loud voices, people still riding the high of a win I couldn’t stomach.
Probably the worst place I could’ve gone. Or maybe exactly where I deserved to be.
I pushed inside anyway, the noise hitting me like a wall. Ordered something strong. Then another. Tried to drown it out—the image, the guilt, the way my chest felt too tight for my own lungs.
Didn’t work. Nothing was touching it.Until her. I didn’t see her walk in, she might have been there this whole time, I was unaware. Did not even care.
I just felt her—like a shift in the room, something sharper cutting through the haze in my head.
Leggy blonde. Not soft. Not sweet. There was something off about her in the best and worst way—like she was holding herself together by sheer will and attitude alone.
Broken. Same as me. Our eyes met across the bar for half a second, and it wasn’t anything soft or slow.
It was instant. Heavy. Like we both knew exactly what the other was there for.
No names. No questions. Just an unspoken agreement.
She tipped her chin toward the hallway like she was daring me to follow. I did. No hesitation.
Because for the first time since the hit, my head went quiet.
The bathroom door barely had time to shut before the tension snapped. No softness, no buildup—just heat and frustration and two people trying to outrun whatever was chasing them.
It wasn’t about her. Wasn’t about me. It was about not feeling anything else for a few minutes.
And for that short stretch of time… It worked. It ended just as fast as it started. No softness. No lingering.
Just two people catching their breath in a space that suddenly felt too small again.
She stepped back first. Of course she did.
Ran a hand through her hair, already putting distance between us like whatever just happened didn’t get to follow her out that door.
I leaned against the sink, chest still rising too fast, watching her like I was trying to memorize something I had no right to keep.
She caught me looking again.
This time her lips twitched—just barely. Not a smile. Not even close.
“Don’t make it something it’s not,” she said, voice rough but steady.
I huffed out a quiet breath, dragging a hand down my jaw. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.” She moved past me, shoulder brushing mine just enough to feel it. Just enough to make it stick.
I should’ve asked her name.
That thought hit harder than it should’ve.
But something about her—about the way she held herself together with sharp edges and zero patience—told me she wouldn’t give it anyway.
Or worse… she would, and it’d mean something.
And neither of us were here for that. So I didn’t ask. And she didn’t offer.
The door swung shut behind her, and just like that, the quiet was gone. Replaced by the noise of the bar, the music, the voices—everything rushing back in like nothing had happened.
But it had.
I pushed off the sink a second later, splashed cold water on my face, and stared at myself in the mirror.
Same guy. Same guilt sitting heavy in my chest.
Just… temporarily buried under something else. I left not long after that. Didn’t look for her. Didn’t need to.
Because I already knew the kind of girl she was.
The kind you don’t find twice.
I left that bar without looking back. Didn’t need to.
Some things are better when they stay exactly where they happened—no names, no attachments, no chance of running into them again. Just a moment you can bury under everything else and pretend it didn’t mean a damn thing.
That’s what I told myself anyway.
Didn’t stop me from thinking about her.
Not in some soft, romantic way. Nothing like that. It was the edge of her. The way she looked at me like she’d already decided what I was worth—and it wasn’t much. The way she carried something heavy without letting it slow her down.
It felt… familiar. Too familiar.
I’d spent most of my career playing like I had something to prove. Every shift, every hit, every damn game. Like if I didn’t go harder than the next guy, I’d lose my spot. Lose my edge. Lose everything I’d fought to get.
That night? I proved it. Just not the way I wanted.
The league moved on quick. They always do. New games, new headlines, new players making names for themselves. Knox healed. Got back on the ice. Hell, he went on to win the Cup.
Meanwhile, I was still stuck on that hit. Still replaying it. Still wondering if I could’ve pulled back, if I should’ve.
But that’s the thing about this game—hesitation gets you benched. Regret doesn’t change the outcome. You either live with what you did, or you don’t last.
So I buried it. Showed up to training. Kept my head down. Played my game. Took the hits, gave them right back. Did everything I was supposed to do.
Didn’t make it any easier. Because no matter how many games passed, no matter how much time put distance between me and that night, it never really left.
It just… settled. Sat under my skin, quiet but constant.
And every now and then, something would drag it back up.
A highlight clip. A comment from a teammate. Or worse—my own thoughts when things got too quiet.
That’s when she’d slip in there too.
Blonde hair. Sharp mouth. That look in her eyes like she didn’t trust the world and didn’t care who knew it.
I never got her name. Never saw her again. Just one night. One moment. And somehow, she stuck.
Maybe because she showed up right when everything else was falling apart.
Or maybe because she looked just as wrecked as I felt.
Didn’t matter. She was gone. And I had bigger things to deal with.
Like the fact that the Hurricanes were starting to look at me different.
I could feel it before anyone said a word.
Less ice time. More tension in the locker room. Coaches talking around me instead of to me. I wasn’t stupid.
This league doesn’t wait around for you to figure your shit out.
You either produce, or you become expendable.
And I was starting to look real expendable.
The call came a few weeks into the offseason.
Didn’t take long. Didn’t come with much explanation either.
Just a short conversation with management, a few words about “direction” and “team needs,” and then—
That was it. I was traded. To the Blades. Of all the teams in the league… it had to be them. Knox Callahan’s team.
The same locker room. The same ice. The same place where I’d already made a name for myself in the worst way possible.
I sat there after the call ended, phone still in my hand, letting it sink in.
A fresh start, they called it. A chance to prove myself somewhere new. Yeah. Didn’t feel like a fresh start.
Felt like walking straight back into the one place I couldn’t outrun.
Back to the hit. Back to the guilt. Back to everything I thought I’d managed to bury.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling, jaw tight.
“Alright,” I muttered to the empty room.
If this was how it was gonna go…
Then I’d deal with it the only way I knew how.
Head down. No hesitation.
No looking back. What I didn’t know— What I couldn’t have known—
Was that walking into that locker room wouldn’t just bring me face-to-face with Knox again… It was going to bring me face-to-face with her.
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