Page 2 of Play Dirty

Warmth surged over me, the second I pushed inside. Nothing soft or welcoming; just the heavy, stale heat from overworked radiators. The house was thick with the scent of age, and dry rot, and perhaps a little bit of mold. But there was sweat, too. Sweat… and something fried in oil.

The foyer itself wasn’t half bad. Tall, vaulted ceilings. The kind of height you’d expect in an entryway like this. Off to the left, a narrow staircase climbed upward at a too-steep angle. The hardwood floors were original. Worn almost concavely smooth, they proudly displayed every scuff mark from every person who’d ever lived or set foot in the place.

Noise floated in from somewhere deeper in the house. A television. Voices. Laughter.

They were here.

I struggled to close the door against the swirling wind. Once I’d done it, the house felt too still by comparison. I stood there for a moment, drinking the place in. Thinking about my life’s choices. Wondering if it was too late to back out.

No. This was it, at least for now.

Home sweet home.

I was still scanning around when I spotted it. Mounted on the opposite wall, poorly-centered above an abused couch, was the team logo.

I squinted at it hard. It took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing.

A grim reaper. Or… something that was trying very hard to be one.

The figure was hooded, scythe slung casually over one shoulder, but the proportions were off just enough to make it look slightly wrong. The lines were bold, almost retro, like something copied from an old patch design. The reaper’s expression — what little of it you could see beneath the hood — wasn’t menacing so much as… smug.

The whole thing was stylish. Almost cartoonish.

“They’re kidding,” I murmured.

They weren’t.

This was the North Shore Reavers. Not Reapers. Reavers.

Because someone, somewhere along the line, had apparently mislabeled Death himself.

I huffed a quiet laugh, shaking my head as I stepped further inside. The sound felt out of place in my own ears.

“This team tanked last season,” I muttered softly, “and couldn’t even spell its own name right.”

“Got something to say about it?”

The voice came from behind me. I whirled.

He stood at the base of the stairs, like he’d been there the whole time. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Built solid in a way that spoke of hard years on the ice, and even harder years off it. He had dark, raven-colored hair, cut short. His expression was unreadable.

Grayson Sinclair.

I recognized him immediately. Not from meeting him — because I hadn’t — but from game footage, from stats, from the hours I’d spent studying the Reavers even before I set foot in this town. Grayson was the team captain. The golden child. The center that everything and everyone else rotated around.

He was also the only player on the team roster who didn’t belong in a house like this.

And he was looking at me like I’d just tracked mud across his most prized carpet.

I straightened my posture, tightening my grip on my suitcase handle.

“Just taking it all in,” I said.

His gaze flitted to the logo, then back to me.

“Do that quietly,” he answered.

Not loudly. Not aggressively.