Checking It Twice

Chapter Five - Hollis

By the time November hits, the arena turns into a machine.

Not for hockey—hockey is the obvious part. The easy part. The thing everyone sees.

No, the real machine is everything around it: sponsors, media schedules, community events, ticket promos, charity drives, family nights, and the endless, glittery marathon that is Holiday Season.

Which is why I’m standing in the main concourse at nine in the morning, holding a clipboard like it’s a weapon, staring down a forty-foot Christmas tree that isn’t even assembled yet.

“Okay,” I tell the small crew of event staff and volunteers gathered around me, “we’re aiming for ‘festive,’ not ‘mall Santa has been held hostage.’ Got it?”

A few people laugh.

I don’t.

Because this isn’t my first rink Christmas, and I know how fast “tasteful winter wonderland” can become “tinsel crime scene.”

“Lights first,” I continue, pointing to the bins. “Garland after. Ornaments last. Nobody hangs anything until I say—because last year someone put the candy canes upside down and I still have nightmares.”

“Candy canes can be upside down?” a teenage volunteer asks.

“Everything can be upside down if you try hard enough,” I answer, deadpan.

The concourse is loud with movement—forklifts humming, ladders clanking, someone unrolling a massive banner that reads CHECKING IT TWICE: HOLIDAY TOY DRIVE in bold red letters.

The irony is not lost on me.

My phone buzzes in my pocket with another email notification. I ignore it. If I look at it right now, I’ll start replying, and if I start replying, I’ll forget to breathe, and if I forget to breathe, I’ll pass out into a box of ornaments and that will be my legacy.

I turn to the schedule on my clipboard—timelines, checklists, assigned roles—trying to focus on work.

Because focusing on anything else is…

Dangerous.

A throat clears behind me.

“Reed.”

I don’t jump. I refuse to give him that satisfaction.

I pivot slowly, forcing calm into my face like I’m putting on lipstick in the rearview mirror.

Rowan Beckett stands there with a cardboard box balanced against his hip, hair damp from morning skate, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows like he’s auditioning to be my personal inconvenience.

He looks… annoyingly awake for someone who has already been hit by a hundred-mile-an-hour puck in his lifetime.

His gaze flicks to my clipboard, then back to my face. “You’re in full dictator mode.”

“I prefer ‘competent,’” I say sweetly. “But sure.”

He smirks. “Same thing.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask, because I need to hear him say it.

Because if he says he volunteered—chose this—then it means he wants to be in my space.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

He lifts the box slightly. “Coach said players should show their faces. Community involvement. Team brand. All that.”

“Mm-hm,” I hum, unimpressed. “And you were the obvious choice for this?”

Rowan’s eyes gleam. “You saying I’m not festive?”

I glance at him. “I’m saying you look like you’d fight a snowman.”

He laughs under his breath, and it does something stupid to my chest. Something warm. Something familiar.

I shove it down.

“Put that box over there,” I say, pointing. “Then—”

“Then?” he repeats, eyebrows lifting like he’s bracing for orders.

“Then you’re on kid-duty.” I meet his eyes. “If you can handle it.”

His smirk sharpens into something cocky. “I can handle anything.”

“Dangerous sentence,” I tell him.

Rowan leans closer, voice dropping like we’re sharing a secret in the middle of a public concourse. “You always did hate when I sounded confident.”

I freeze.

Because there it is again—that undercurrent. The thing that lives beneath the banter, beneath the forced normal, beneath the pretending.

I recover quickly. “I hate when you sound wrong.”

“Oh, I’m wrong now,” he says. “Interesting.”

I tilt my head. “Do you want the job or not?”

Rowan takes a slow step back, hands up in surrender—like he’s conceding without actually conceding.

“Yes, ma’am.”

My jaw tightens at the words—at the tone—because I can’t tell if he’s teasing or if he’s genuinely trying to behave.

And that’s the problem with Rowan Beckett.

I can’t tell what’s real and what’s performance.

And if I guess wrong, I lose.

He carries the box where I told him to, then turns back, eyes scanning the concourse like he’s assessing his battlefield.

“Okay,” he says. “Where do you need me?”

I stare at him for a beat too long.

Then I look away first, because that’s what we do now.

We look away.

⸻

An hour later, the first wave of kids arrives.

They come in clusters—families, school groups, community programs—coats zipped up, cheeks pink from cold, eyes bright at the sight of decorations and players in Santa hats.

It’s… a lot.

I’m coordinating a check-in station when I hear laughter rise near the tree.

Not polite laughter.

Real laughter.

I glance over—and there’s Rowan, kneeling down to talk to a little boy holding a toy dinosaur. Rowan’s Santa hat is tipped sideways, and he looks like he’s been personally attacked by holiday spirit.

The kid holds up the dinosaur like it’s a weapon. Rowan lifts his hands dramatically.

“No,” Rowan says, voice loud enough to carry, “not the T-Rex. I’m too young to die.”

The kid shrieks with laughter.

Rowan looks over the kid’s head—and meets my eyes.

His mouth curves into a small, satisfied smile, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Like he’s saying: See? I can behave. I can be good.

My stomach flips anyway.

I turn back to my check-in list, jaw tight.

Fine.

If Rowan wants to play games, I can play too.

“Hey,” a voice says beside me.

I glance up and find Evan Cole—backup goalie, friendly face, soft smile, the kind of man who doesn’t feel like walking into a storm.

“Need help?” he asks.

I exhale, grateful. “Yes. Please. Before I start handing out tasks like prison sentences.”

Evan laughs. “I can do that. What do you need?”

“Can you manage the ornament table?” I ask. “Kids decorate one, we tag it with their name, it goes on the tree.”

“Done,” he says easily. Then, after a beat: “You’re good at this.”

I blink. “At what?”

He gestures around us. “All of it. Making chaos look organized.”

Heat flickers in my cheeks—not the dangerous kind. The safe kind. The kind that doesn’t threaten to burn down my whole life.

“Thanks,” I say, and because I’m tired and because I’m irritated and because Rowan Beckett is laughing across the room like he has no idea what he does to me, I add, lightly: “You’re not bad yourself.”

Evan’s smile turns brighter. “Careful. I’ll start thinking you like me.”

“Maybe I do,” I say, then immediately regret how easy it comes out.

Because it’s not entirely true.

And it’s not entirely false, either.

I don’t miss the way Rowan’s laughter dies down.

I don’t miss the way his gaze snaps to us—sharp, assessing, darker than it should be for a man who has no claim on me.

Good.

Let him feel it.

Let him remember that I am not something he can glance at and then ignore.

Evan shifts a little closer, lowering his voice. “You going to the team dinner tonight? It’s at that new place downtown.”

“I might,” I say. I keep my tone casual, like it’s nothing. Like it’s just dinner.

Rowan starts walking toward us.

Not fast.

Not angry.

Controlled.

That’s worse.

He stops just within our orbit, eyeing Evan first, then me.

“Cole,” he says, tone too even.

“Beckett,” Evan replies, cheerful but cautious, like he senses the temperature drop.

Rowan’s gaze returns to me. “Need help over here?”

I lift my chin. “I’ve got it handled.”

Rowan’s eyes flick briefly to Evan—then back to me. “Sure you do.”

The words are mild. The implication is not.

Evan clears his throat. “I’ll go—uh—set up the ornament station.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, and Evan disappears like he’s just been released from a hostage situation.

The second he’s gone, Rowan’s attention sharpens like a blade finding its edge.

“That was…” he starts.

I arch a brow. “What?”

Rowan’s jaw flexes. “Nothing.”

I step closer, lowering my voice because there are kids everywhere and I’m not about to cause a scene. “No. Say it.”

Rowan’s gaze drops to my mouth—quick, uncontrolled—then snaps back to my eyes.

“I don’t get to say anything,” he says, voice rougher than before. “You made that clear.”

My chest tightens, but I refuse to let it show.

“Then act like it,” I say, echoing words that still burn from the other night.

Rowan’s expression goes still. Controlled. Carefully blank.

He nods once—slow, deliberate.

“Got it,” he says.

Then he turns and walks away like he didn’t just rattle every nerve in my body.

Like he didn’t just make me want to chase him.

I stand there, clipboard tight in my grip, staring at his retreating back.

This is what we are now:

Work.

Distance.

Banter sharp enough to cover what we can’t say.

And the worst part?

It’s working.

We’re hiding it better.

But hiding something doesn’t make it smaller.

It makes it stronger.

Because under the lights and garland and fake snow, beneath the laughter and the kids and the cheerful chaos—

Rowan Beckett is still the same mistake I never stopped thinking about.

And I’m starting to suspect I’m going to make it twice.