Ice Breaker

FREE short story for newsletter subscribers onlyWhen Jamie met Katie…it might have been love at first blush.Jamie Babcock couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he’d landed a spot on the Portland Storm at age eighteen. Shouldn’t he be on his way back to his junior team, not being dragged out to strip clubs to celebrate and trying to figure out where he was going to live? There was no time to come to terms with his new reality, either, before he was swarmed by a gaggle of giggling girls at the team’s preseason Ice Breaker.But then he bumped into her. Literally bumped into her, no less, and all he could do was blush and stammer and hope she didn’t think he was a freaking idiot, because he sure felt like one. She blushed and stammered, too. And then she walked away before he could even ask for her name.Love at first blush? A crazy thought, for sure, but so was the idea of playing in the NHL at only eighteen. Crazy or not, it looked like they were both about to happen.