Page 22 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

SAGE

A fter Beau sees me in what is arguably the worst state I’ve ever allowed another person to witness, I wake up with my body feeling like it’s been rung out and left to dry on the floor.

I’m technically fine, no fever, but I have this strange, hollow ache under my skin like something’s moved out and left all the lights on.

The idea of breakfast curls wrong in my stomach.

Food feels too loud. I stare at the fridge for a long time and settle on a splash of juice, just enough to remind my body I’m still in it.

It’s not the nausea that does me in though.

It’s the button. The sound it makes when it pops loose; tiny, traitorous, a tick louder than the click of the kitchen clock.

I stare down at the waist of my slacks and try again, but all the sucking-in and exhaling in the world won’t shrink the small, alien swell at my lower stomach.

Last week the pants fit; now they cinch my hips in a vise.

I stand there in my bedroom, top half already zipped and ironed, the bottom half bunched around my thighs like a snake trying to swallow itself.

There’s a hack I remember from junior high—take a hair tie, loop it through the buttonhole, then twist until it holds.

I find one at the bottom of my sock drawer, stretched out and caked with stray threads.

The motion of stooping to grab it nearly folds me in half.

I ignore the spark of pain behind my pubic bone and hook the elastic through, once, twice, three times.

It holds. I test it, squatting, standing.

The bulge in my shirt is obvious, but if I keep my hands in my pockets maybe nobody will notice.

A wave of nausea rolls in, the kind that licks the roof of your mouth and makes you taste your own teeth.

I breathe through it, slow and careful. There’s ginger tea in my go bag, two packets left.

If I can just get through the commute, if I can just make it to the center, maybe I’ll survive the morning.

The subway is a slaughterhouse of old sweat and burnt coffee, so I take the long way, biking up along the river until the air stings my cheeks and the cold spikes my headache.

When I get to the Storm facility, the first thing I do is hit the staff locker room, then dump both packets of tea into my water bottle and chug it, no time for steeping.

It burns my tongue and does nothing for the twist in my gut, but at least it kills the aftertaste of toothpaste and shame.

At the front desk, Mia is already sorting through patient files, tapping at her tablet with the focus of a nuclear technician. She looks up, eyebrows arched, and does the three-second inventory she always does: eyes, posture, gait, hands. I force my face into a smile.

“You’re late,” she says, but not unkindly. “Three minutes.”

“I biked,” I say, which is true. “There’s a detour near the bridge.”

She buys it, but only because she’s distracted by a tray of incoming sample vials.

The entryway is awash with the smells of pine disinfectant and athlete’s foot powder, which together form a new and hellish flavor of cleanliness.

I hold my breath, duck into the back, and scan the schedule.

The calendar is a losing lottery of overlapping appointments: one player with a torn labrum at 9:30, two linemen for post-op checks, a video conference with the new sports psychologist at noon.

I move the appointments around, shuffling time blocks so that nobody will see the blank spots where I should be working on myself.

In the rehab suite, I organize the day’s tape rolls by color and tension, line up the ultrasound gels in order of expiry, and sterilize the exam tables even though they’re already spotless.

It’s my armor, the ritual of making everything perfect so I don’t have to think about what’s going on inside my own body.

I sit at my desk, open my laptop, and stare at the glowing blue grid of the intake sheet.

Every third column jitters slightly, like the whole thing is held together by static.

Mia pops her head in, mouth full of protein bar. “You want me to hold your calls?”

I shake my head, immediately regret the movement. “No, I need the distraction.”

She shrugs, leans against the doorframe. “Suit yourself. Let me know if you want anything stronger than ginger tea.”

“Vodka?” I say, managing a laugh. She grins.

The next hour is a blur of bodies and voices.

A rookie with a groin pull grits his teeth through passive stretches.

I demo banded squats to a defenseman who pretends not to stare at my midsection.

Every time I lean over the exam table, the waistband digs deeper.

I keep waiting for someone to notice, to say something, but the men in this place are masters of selective blindness.

They don’t see you unless you make them.

Between patients, I duck into the supply closet to restock ace wraps.

The overhead bulbs are industrial-bright, and the shelving goes almost to the ceiling.

I have to reach to get the big box from the top shelf, standing on tiptoe, fingers straining.

There’s a roaring in my ears, like white noise or the throb of a distant drumline.

My vision narrows, the edges of the world turning to gray static, and for a second, I think I’m going to black out and take the whole goddamn shelving unit with me.

I manage to get the box down, but I have to clutch the cold metal frame to keep from sliding to the floor. There’s a sound behind me, and then Mia’s hand is at my elbow, steadying me before I can even turn around.

She doesn’t ask if I’m okay. She just says, “Sit,” and her voice is the closest thing to a command I’ve heard from her. I obey, dropping onto an overturned bucket like my legs are made of rubber cement.

Mia crouches in front of me, arms crossed. “That’s it,” she says. “I’m done watching you pretend you’re fine.”

I try to argue, to come up with some line about dehydration or blood sugar, but my mouth is dry and my tongue won’t cooperate.

“You’re going to urgent care,” Mia says, the way a parent says you’re going to your room. “Now.”

“I have patients,” I say, or try to. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone on TV, thin and faraway.

Mia’s face softens, just a fraction. “You nearly ate it in front of six cameras and the entire O-line. Either you come with me right now, or I call Coach Ryland and tell him you’re unfit to be here.”

She lets that hang in the air, and I know she means it. I want to protest, but another wave of dizziness drowns the words before I can get them out. Mia helps me up, keeps a grip on my wrist as we shuffle down the hallway.

“Don’t try to be a hero,” she says, not unkindly, as we exit the staff wing.

“Too late,” I mumble, but it doesn’t even make her smile.

The light outside the building is harsh and blue, the wind knifing through my jacket.

We get into her car, and she cranks the heat, hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

For the first three blocks, we don’t talk.

She keeps her eyes on the road; I keep mine on the soft fuzz of the hair tie, the single black loop holding my entire life together.

At the first red light, Mia glances over. “You want to call anyone? Next of kin, Finn, whatever?”

I think of my best friend, Cassidy, but shake my head. “Nobody.”

She nods, as if that’s what she expected. We ride the rest of the way in silence, the city blurring past, a bright and indifferent swarm.

I close my eyes, count to ten, try to imagine a world where I don’t feel like I’m falling apart.

The hair tie holds, for now.

We pull up to the urgent care. After getting inside, I find a chair and sit with my feet on the little chrome ring, hands folded in my lap, and try to keep my face neutral as a man with a bleeding nose and a child with a stuffy one take turns coughing on the carpet.

Mia checks me in, gives the woman at the desk my insurance card and a story about persistent GI distress, which is almost true.

The pressure under my ribs hasn’t let up in days, a slow swell that feels too solid to be nothing but too shapeless to be something I want to name.

When I press my hand to the curve just above my pelvis, it pushes back with a sort of dense resistance, like my insides are rearranging themselves.

I blame bloating. Ulcers. Maybe a fibroid.

I’ve had PCOS since college, and my cycle’s never played by anyone’s rules. Plus, I’m on the pill.

It only takes ten minutes before they call my name.

Mia says she’ll wait, and I see her pull out her phone and settle in for a long scroll.

I walk the corridor, past the cartoon animal mural and the dried-up potted plant, until a nurse in pale blue leads me to a windowless cell with an exam table and a faded poster about the dangers of dehydration.

She runs my vitals, takes my temperature, wraps the blood pressure cuff so tight it leaves a ghost ring on my bicep.

“Everything looks fine,” she says, which I already know is a lie.

She leaves the room and I’m alone, under the full glare of the fluorescent ceiling, every speck of lint on my shirt a fresh indictment.

The doctor comes in five minutes later. She’s got the build of an ex-rower, maybe forty, face cut from optimism and old sunburns. She introduces herself but I don’t catch the name, just the way she watches me over the edge of her clipboard.

“So, Sage, what brings you in today?” she says, flipping through the notes Mia provided.

“Fainting spell,” I say. “Nausea. Some pain, maybe dehydration. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

She clicks her pen, makes a note. “When did this start?”

“About two weeks, give or take.”