The Puck and The President

Prologue

PROLOGUE

My life was a spreadsheet. It’s not an insult, just a fact. I could see it laid out in my mind’s eye, a grid of perfectly aligned cells. Each one was a task, a goal, a responsibility. The A column was for academics, meticulously planned: class schedules, study blocks, research paper deadlines. The B column was for extracurriculars: Student Council meetings, volunteer hours, debate club practice. The C column was for everything else: weekly grocery runs, two hours of cardio at the campus gym, and the occasional fifteen-minute call with my mom on Sundays.

I thrived in that world. I knew where everything was, where I was going, and exactly how I was going to get there. It was safe. It was predictable. It was perfect. I was Nadine Leyva, Student Council President, and my life was a work of art, a perfectly organized masterpiece of my own making.

My phone buzzed on the mahogany table in front of me, startling me out of my meticulous thoughts. The fluorescent lights of the Student Council meeting room hummed, casting a sterile glow on the ten other members seated around the table. They all looked up, their faces a mix of impatience and passive boredom.

“President Leyva,” Mark, the Vice President, said, his voice a little too formal for a Tuesday evening. He adjusted his glasses. “We’re ready for your concluding remarks on the Spring Gala budget.”

I offered him a tight smile and swiped the notification away. It was from my best friend, Jane. A photo of her at a frat party, arms wrapped around a guy I vaguely recognized as a business major, a red Solo cup in her hand. The caption read: Wish you were here! It’s a riot!

A riot. The word felt foreign, messy. I couldn’t imagine willingly stepping into a situation with so little structure. My gala budget spreadsheet had seven different tabs, all color-coded for clarity. “A riot” sounded like a financial apocalypse.

I cleared my throat, returning my focus to the meeting. “As I was saying, we’ve accounted for all contingencies. The catering is non-negotiable, but we can save on floral arrangements by using locally sourced blooms.”

I was mid-sentence when the double doors at the back of the room swung open with a loud thud. Everyone turned.

Standing in the doorway, framed by the harsh hallway light, was a figure that embodied chaos. His shoulders were wide, a navy athletic bag slung over one of them. He had a mop of dark brown hair that was damp and disheveled, like he’d just taken off a helmet. There was a trickle of sweat at his temple and a bright red scratch on his chin.

Liam Hayes. The Puck. The king of the ice and the bane of my meticulously ordered existence. He was a second-year student, a transfer from some university in London, and the star of our college hockey team. He was famous on campus for two things: scoring goals and getting into trouble.

And for being infuriatingly charming while he did it.

A low murmur rippled through the room.

He didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t care. His eyes, a shade of blue so startlingly bright they looked fake, scanned the room before landing on me. A slow, lazy grin spread across his face, and my heart did a little stutter step. I hated that my body had a physical reaction to him, that the sight of him could throw off my rhythm. It was unprofessional. It was illogical.

“What’s the rule about entering a meeting, Hayes?” I said, my voice sharp and cold, the way I practiced it in the mirror.

He took a step inside, leaning against the doorframe. “I believe it’s a knock-and-enter sort of deal, isn’t it, Prez?”

Prez. He was the only person on campus who called me that, a nickname that was half-mocking, half-endearing. It drove me insane.

“That’s correct. You seem to have missed the first half of that equation,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

He pushed off the doorframe and sauntered into the room, his hockey bag bumping against the desks as he passed. He walked with a loose, confident swagger, every bit the athlete he was. He stopped right in front of me, a mere two feet from the end of the table.

“Ah, yeah,” he said, his voice a low rumble. I could hear the London accent, thick and melodic. “My apologies. My phone died. Lost track of time.”

I stared at him, my expression unmoving. “Lost track of time? Your meeting was supposed to start twenty minutes ago.”

“Was it?” he said, his blue eyes wide with mock innocence. “My mistake.”

I sighed, a long, exasperated sound. “This is the fourth time this semester, Liam. We can’t have the Captain of the Hockey team missing his mandatory meetings.”

He chuckled softly. “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? I’m here now. So, what’d I miss?”

The sheer audacity of the man was breathtaking. I glanced at the other members, all of them watching us, their expressions ranging from amusement to pure disdain. Mark looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.

I stood up, the chair scraping against the floor, the sound echoing in the sudden silence. “You’ve missed the introduction, the budget discussion, and the vote on committee assignments.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Right, right. So, what do you need from me?”

“We need you to take your responsibilities seriously,” I said, my voice low. I didn’t want to cause a scene. “You have a position on this council, and you need to earn it.”

He leaned forward, his hands on the table, his face inches from mine. He smelled like sweat and pine needles and something clean and earthy. It was a dizzying mix. “I am taking it seriously, Prez. I’m here, aren’t I? What’s more serious than that?”

“Showing up on time would be a start.”

“Fair,” he said, a corner of his mouth twitching up into a smirk. “But I had a… pressing engagement.”

“A pressing engagement?” I repeated. “Liam, you’re the Captain. Your team needs to be here.”

He shook his head. “Nah, they don’t. I’m the Captain. I’m the one you need.”

“This is a Student Council meeting, not an audience with the king,” I snapped.

He threw his head back and laughed. It was a loud, boisterous sound that filled the sterile room, and for a moment, the world felt less gray. “You wound me, Prez. But seriously, I was at the rink. My skates were getting sharpened.”

I frowned. “That’s not a good enough excuse.”

“Maybe not,” he conceded, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that made the hair on my arms stand up. “But I didn’t get to see you, did I? You’re always so busy.”

The air in my lungs hitched. He was flirting. In the middle of a Student Council meeting. He had to be.

“I’m busy because I get things done,” I said, my voice a little shaky.

“And I don’t?” he asked, his grin widening. “We’re a lot alike, you and I. Just in different ways.”

He was wrong. We were nothing alike. He was a storm, and I was a perfectly still lake. He was a hurricane, and I was a meticulously tended garden. He was a riot, and I was a spreadsheet. We couldn't be more different.

Before I could retort, the door opened again. It was Coach Davies, the hockey team’s coach. He was a large man, with a face that looked like it had been carved from granite.

He took one look at Liam and sighed. “Hayes, you’re in here. We’ve been looking for you.”

“I told you I was coming to the meeting, Coach,” Liam said, straightening up.

“You’ve been in here for five minutes,” Coach Davies said, his gaze hard. “And where’s the rest of your team?”

Liam shrugged. “They're not here. They said they were busy.”

Coach Davies’s eyes narrowed. “Get out. Now. I need to talk to you.”

Liam gave me a wink, a gesture so casual and out of place that it made my jaw clench. He turned and followed the coach out, the door swinging shut behind them with a definitive click.

The silence that followed was heavy. Everyone was staring at me, waiting for my reaction. I felt the heat rising in my cheeks. He had made a mockery of my meeting, of my authority.

“Right,” I said, my voice sharp. I picked up my pen, my hand trembling slightly. “Let’s return to the budget. As I was saying…”

I went through the motions, but my mind was elsewhere. It was on him. On the way he moved, the way he laughed, the way he had leaned in, his voice a low, teasing whisper. He was so incredibly, infuriatingly… alive.

After the meeting, I packed my things and walked back to my dorm. The night air was cool, a welcome relief from the stuffy room. The campus was quiet, but I could hear the faint sounds of music and laughter coming from a distance. The frat party. Jane’s riot.

I walked past the hockey rink, the glass walls glowing with the floodlights from inside. I could see the players on the ice, skating back and forth, the sound of their skates on the ice a rhythmic hiss. And there he was. In the center of it all. Liam Hayes.

He had his helmet off, his hair a mess of curls. He was leaning on his hockey stick, talking to the coach. He was laughing again. The sound was muffled by the glass, but I could still feel the low vibration of it in my chest. He was chaos personified, a hurricane in a hockey jersey.

I stopped and watched him. He moved with a grace and power I had never seen before. He was a force of nature, untamed and wild. He was everything I wasn’t. And for the first time in my life, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, being a perfect spreadsheet wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

I had spent my entire life building walls, creating a fortress of grades, responsibilities, and future plans to keep the unpredictable world out. But a storm was coming, and I had a feeling it was going to tear my perfect life apart. And the scariest part?

I think I wanted it to.