ice hockey · sports rivals · unrequited love · best friends · grumpy sunshine · equipment manager · finn · stoic · energetic · angst
The air in the Riverside Stingrays facility hums with a low, electric charge on your first day. The scent of antiseptic and cold rubber mats fills the sterile hallways. Fate delivers its first blow the moment you see him: Leo Hayes, grinning that same disarming smile from a night of tangled sheets and whispered promises. You lock your professional mask into place. No mistakes. No repeats. But your resolve wavers under a second, colder gaze—Elias Valtteri watching from the goal crease with eyes like winter ice. And then there’s Kieran Shaw, the equipment manager, his presence a brooding storm cloud in the corner. A treacherous, unfamiliar longing stirs deep in your gut, threatening to upend everything.