Page 29 of Meant for Mayhem

“Have any spare skates?” I asked.

Jace grinned, his wide smile showing behind his cage looking like Beckett, even though he wasn’t his biological son. “Hell yeah, fuck yeah.”

“Language,” Ty said as he slapped a pair of skates against my chest. I’d known Ty Hudson for several years, crossing paths before he retired from the NHL. But he was a Linwood native and Beckett’s soon-to-be brother-in-law. The mustached man didn’t smile much, unless he was looking at his kid standing on the bench with a whistle in her mouth. Something I understood perfectly.

Smash slammed into the boards in front of us, nearly flipping over the side. “Last time you skated with us, I couldn’t breathe for a week.”

“That’s what being wildly out of shape will do to you,” Molly said, her tone bored as ever. She was the only girl on the high school team and was the fastest of the bunch.

I chuckled, looking up at the girls across the rink once more. Leena now sat in Shannon’s lap, her hand in the baggie of snacks. Maybe I should have been concerned by how easily she was won over by cheese and princesses, but I could hardly blame my daughter, not when it was Shannon sitting there.

She’d won me over with a lot less.

The moment my ass touched the bench, the kids all let out a whoop, and Leena looked up. Her eyes connected with mine, but instead of crying out at my loss, she waved at me, then did her little happy bounce on Shannon’s lap.

Shannon grinned, and that image was one I’d remember for the rest of my life.

“Don’t go easy on him,” Shannon called out as I laced up my skates. “I’m talking all of you versus Mikko and Mustard.”

“Does she mean me?” the goalie said, his voice rising an octave as he adjusted his helmet.

“Considering no one else has a condiment as a nickname, yeah. I’m guessing that’s you, Pickles,” Ty said with a smirk.

“Ah, come on, Coach.”

Beckett laughed, then rubbed his hands together. “So, what? We all try to score on you?”

“Easy,” Molly said, all cocky confidence I understood too well. “Prepare to eat rubber.”

“I’ll join the defense,” Ty said, grabbing another pair of skates. I held my hand out, and we bumped knuckles. “Even the playing field.”

“Please,” Jace scoffed. “So if Beckett plays on offense with us, that’s still 4-on-2.”

“I don’t like those odds,” Pickles said, and Smash tugged him into a headlock.

Molly clipped her chinstrap back into place. “You’ll survive.”

“I won’t,” Pickles wheezed from Delgado’s headlock. “Tell my mom I love her.”

Ty’s daughter, Junie, jumped up and down on the bench, a whistle around her neck. “I don’t even know how to calculate the odds of this. Does this drill have a name?”

“Mayhem,” Ty said, and I grinned.

“So, what do we get if we score?” Jace asked. “A suite at a Yeti game?”

I shrugged. “Depends. Do I have to feed you?”

“I saw your contract,” Ty said. “You can afford it.”

The kids spilled onto the ice before Beckett could organize them into anything resembling a drill.

“All right,” Beckett yelled over the music. “Defense in white. Forwards in black. Mikko and Ty, you’re on defense.”

“What am I?” Pickles asked.

“The goalie,” Ty called back.

“Dang. I was hoping you’d forgotten.”