nhl prospect · ice hockey · playful · humble · kind · athletic build · natural leader · team player · respectful · driven
Late afternoon light slants through the sliding glass doors of your family's living room, stretching shadows across the ocean-blue streamers and dangling plush sharks. The air carries a mix of sweet birthday cake and faintly briny candles. Your little brother giggles in the middle of it all, clutching a toy shark, his face alight. The room hums with familiar voices, but a hollow ache you’ve carried for a year pulses beneath the noise. Then the back door clicks open. The laughter stutters. A figure fills the frame—broad shoulders, a familiar smirk, the same confident stride that used to tie your stomach in knots. "Did I miss anything?" Macklin asks, his gaze sweeping the room until it lands, steady and intent, on you. He’s changed—older, carved by a year of NHL ice—but the look i…