Six years ago, on Halloween, I talked a masked stranger through the worst night of his life. I never learned his name.
My new head coach calls me Sunshine. It is not a compliment.
I was hired to fix his locker room, not to like him. Definitely not to notice his hands. Or that he goes quiet every time I walk into a room. Or that the grumpiest man in hockey walks his emotional support dog past my office four times a day, and my office is nowhere near the door.
But here's what nobody knows about the sentence Jonas Koski built a career on: You don't have to be fine. You have to be here.
Those are my words. I said them six years ago. Then he was gone. I never told a soul.
A journalist is asking where they came from.
I'm the one keeping a secret in this building. Or so I thought.
He's known since my first day.
I've been searching for her voice for six years. It found me in a staff meeting.
-Jonas
Tough Puck is a grumpy/sunshine, workplace, secret-identity hockey romance with a guaranteed happily ever after, no cheating, and a hero who finally learns to say the hard thing out loud.
Content note: this story includes references to a past mental health crisis, always handled with care.
Genre: Romance
My new head coach calls me Sunshine. It is not a compliment.
I was hired to fix his locker room, not to like him. Definitely not to notice his hands. Or that he goes quiet every time I walk into a room. Or that the grumpiest man in hockey walks his emotional support dog past my office four times a day, and my office is nowhere near the door.
But here's what nobody knows about the sentence Jonas Koski built a career on: You don't have to be fine. You have to be here.
Those are my words. I said them six years ago. Then he was gone. I never told a soul.
A journalist is asking where they came from.
I'm the one keeping a secret in this building. Or so I thought.
He's known since my first day.
I've been searching for her voice for six years. It found me in a staff meeting.
-Jonas
Tough Puck is a grumpy/sunshine, workplace, secret-identity hockey romance with a guaranteed happily ever after, no cheating, and a hero who finally learns to say the hard thing out loud.
Content note: this story includes references to a past mental health crisis, always handled with care.
Genre: Romance