Page 31 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

GREY

Today, I slip the leash by ducking the perimeter hallway off the kitchen, doubling back through the staff entrance, and making a beeline for the only place in the building that hasn’t been turned into a sad facsimile of a tech startup: the storage wing.

No motivational banners, no positive mindset pop-ups, just cracked linoleum, the tang of bleach, and a graveyard of obsolete exercise bands in plastic tubs that could double as bathtubs for large-breed dogs.

The storage area is poorly lit, a design flaw I have come to love.

Most of the bulbs have burned out and been replaced with LED shop lights, which cast everything in a gentle, restorative gloom.

The shelves run floor to ceiling and are packed like a hoarder’s IKEA: protein powders, single-use meal replacement goop, cartons of Gatorade bottles, a stack of unopened boxes labeled Mouth Guards – Adult XL .

There’s also an entire section devoted to medical tape, which I know for a fact is the unofficial currency of the Storm’s athletic training staff.

The best hiding spot is the narrow cut between shelving units and the outer wall, a place only accessible if you can squeeze your body into the space between a case of replacement shin pads and a rolling cart labeled Emergency Concussion Helmets – Do Not Tamper .

I wedge myself into the gap, slide down to a low crouch, and wait.

The whine of the HVAC is interrupted every so often by the heavy tread of a passing janitor, or the hiss of a far-off espresso machine, but otherwise it’s silent. Perfect.

That’s when I hear the sound of plastic wrap being sliced a little further down the aisle.

Not a janitor. Too careful. Not a rookie—those guys move like they’re getting paid by the hour, and also, they’re terrified of this wing because they think it’s haunted.

Which leaves: staff. Probably Moretti, since she’s the only person in the building more allergic to human contact than I am.

I edge around the corner and there she is, standing with her back to me, hunched over a shipping carton.

Sage has a box cutter in one hand and her phone in the other, thumbed open to what looks like a spreadsheet app.

She’s reading off a list of SKUs, cross-referencing the contents of the box with the data on her phone, and muttering to herself in a voice so low and even that it’s basically white noise.

Her hair is up, but not in the tight, professional bun she wears in front of cameras; it’s loose and tangled, with a plastic pencil jabbed through it like a knitting needle.

I consider ghosting out, but she’s already clocked my reflection in the metal shelf. She doesn’t look up, just says, “Are you stalking me, Grey, or did you get lost on your way to the fridge again?”

“Both,” I say, and lean against a shelf with enough calculated nonchalance to communicate that this is a zero-threat interaction. “You don’t strike me as the type who needs inventory help.”

She sighs, drops the box cutter on top of the carton, and turns.

Her eyes are a little puffy, like she hasn’t slept, and the set of her mouth says she’s running on clever comebacks and caffeine, although that must, at some point, get exhausting.

“I wouldn’t say no to an extra set of hands, if you’re offering.

But you’ll need to pass the colorblindness test.” She tosses a roll of kinesiology tape at me.

I catch it one-handed, squint at the label: Storm Blue, 1. 75 inch .

“Is this the one that made the rookie break out in hives, or the one that’s secretly just painter’s tape?”

She gives a half smile, the first one I’ve seen from her in a week. “Surprise me. I’m behind on the reconciliation, and if we don’t log it by today, Ryland will send his angry elf in here to do it for us.”

I start slicing open boxes, dumping their contents onto the table, and lining up the tape rolls by color and size.

She watches for a second, then resumes her own work, reading off SKUs and jotting down notes in a little spiral notebook that has seen better days.

The silence is comfortable, except for the occasional interjection:

“Did you ever actually play with a torn groin, or is that just a myth they made up for PR?”

“I played two weeks with a partial. Full tear, you can’t walk. Or piss, really.”

“That explains a lot,” she says.

We work in tandem, our pace almost synchronized, and by the third box we’re sorting tape and gauze with the grim efficiency of disaster relief workers.

Occasionally, her elbow brushes my side when she reaches for a new roll, and I can feel the tension in her arm.

Not nervousness—more like she’s trying to keep her hands from shaking.

She’s careful not to let it show, but after a few more minutes, I catch her fingers trembling as she lines up the blue tape on the top shelf.

“You good?” I ask gruffly.

She stops, takes a breath, and sets her hands flat on the edge of the table. “I’m fine,” she says. “Just haven’t eaten. Or slept.” She glances over, and there’s a flicker of something in her eyes—irony, self-loathing, a little pride at how efficiently she’s killing herself for a job.

I reach into my pocket and toss her a ginger chew. She looks at it, then at me, then back at the candy, as if she’s never seen one before.

“I keep them for the bus rides,” I say, and to make the joke land, “Finn says they’re for pregnant women but they’re also great if you get concussed on an empty stomach.”

She laughs, actually laughs, and unwraps the chew. “Didn’t know you were the team nutritionist.”

“I’m more of a cautionary tale.”

She eats the ginger chew in one bite, and for a second, her face goes slack, eyes shut. When she opens them again, there’s a little shine around the edges, but she doesn’t wipe it away or acknowledge it. Just goes back to her list.

“Thanks,” she says, and the word is so soft I almost miss it.

“Anytime,” I say.

We finish the boxes and stack the tape, then collapse onto two battered folding chairs shoved against the wall. My thighs cramp up instantly, but I don’t mention it. Neither does she.

“Ryland will think we’re dating if we keep disappearing together,” she says, staring up at the flickering shop light overhead.

“Wouldn’t be the worst rumor,” I say. “My stock’s been tanking since the last playoff run.”

She grins at that, then rubs her hands over her eyes, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of her nose. “I should get back. There’s three rehab sessions and an intake with a new transfer from Calgary.”

We kill half an hour in the storage room, neither of us in a rush to reenter the habitat of cameras and overcaffeinated interns.

After the initial crisis of tape logistics, we migrate to the two crates by the far wall—one labeled Hydration Tablets, Lemon-Lime , the other Tourniquets, 2018-2022.

There’s something perversely comforting about sitting on a crate of obsolete medical gear, like if the world ends, at least you’ll be able to MacGyver your own survival kit.

Sage pulls out her phone and scrolls through her email, but mostly we just sit in a silence that is marginally less awkward than the one before. I sense she’s trying to work up to something, so I head it off with, “You ever notice the new snack packs taste like melted Lego?”

She looks up, smirks. “That’s because they’re mostly plastic. If the apocalypse hits, they’ll outlive the rats.”

“Finn told me they’re designed to last three years. He eats them with ketchup.”

She makes a face, then leans back against the concrete wall. “Did I ever tell you about the time I had to design a meal plan for a decathlete with a shellfish allergy and a religious restriction against, like, half the food groups?”

“No, but I want to hear this.”

“He was training for Worlds and couldn’t eat anything that cast a shadow after four p.m. Which meant all-night training, and nothing but white rice and root vegetables.”

“Sounds bleak.”

“It gets better. His coach insisted on a protein supplement, but it had to be non-dairy, non-soy, and certified Halal. So I found this cricket protein powder on the dark web.”

“Cricket as in … bug?”

“Cricket as in the world’s most sustainable source of complete amino acids. I made a smoothie with it. It tasted like if you licked the floor of a pet store, but he drank it and got a PR in the 400.”

I think about this, trying to top it. “Finn once dared me to eat surstromming.”

Sage chokes on her own saliva. “The Swedish fermented fish? Isn’t that banned on airplanes?”

“It should be. The can hissed when I opened it. Smelled like something died in a tire fire. Finn said it builds character, so of course I had to finish the whole thing or lose a bet.”

“What was the bet?”

“Shaved head for a week, and I had a TV interview scheduled. If you google me and ‘skinhead,’ you’ll see why our PR director had a meltdown.”

She laughs, loud enough that it echoes off the shelves. I let the sound hang, basking in the rarity of seeing her actually amused. It’s contagious; I find myself smiling, which is not in my brand, but fuck it.

After a while, she looks down at her hands, rubs her arms. The storage room is cold, and she’s only in a thin Storm hoodie.

Without overthinking it, I strip off my warm-up jacket and toss it to her. She catches it, eyes wide, then shrugs into it. The sleeves swallow her arms, the hem nearly to her knees, but she pulls it close anyway.

“Didn’t peg you as the chivalrous type,” she says.

“It’s not chivalry. I’m just sick of seeing people freeze to death around here. The maintenance guy went hypothermic last month.”

“Liar,” she says, but softer, a note of gratitude underneath.

We sit in companionable silence, the smell of synthetic fabric and old Gatorade powder filling the air.

Eventually, she closes her eyes and leans her head against the wall, letting herself rest for the first time since she walked in.

Her breathing slows, and I wonder if she might actually drift off. I almost want her to.

When the digital clock on her phone pings noon, she stands, slower than before. The movement is careful, almost measured, as if every joint has a warning label attached. As she bends to pick up her bag, I catch her wince, one hand pressed briefly to her ribs before she straightens.

“You okay?” I ask.

She clears her throat. “Fine. Bruised them two days ago wrestling with the hydro cart. The damn thing weighs as much as Beau after lunch.”

I make a mental note, then let it go. No point in pressing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nobody likes a spotlight on their pain.

She hands me back the jacket, but I shake my head. “Keep it. If you don’t, Ryland will think I lost it gambling and make me wear a blazer for the rest of the season.”

She holds my gaze for a second, searching for the joke, then pulls the jacket tighter. “Thanks, Grey.”

Her voice is edged with something I can’t identify. Maybe respect, maybe exhaustion, maybe just the universal relief of not being alone for a minute.

As we leave the storage room, I catch her shadow in the reflection of the glass. She’s wearing the jacket like armor, chin lifted, shoulders squared, moving through the hallway like she’s ready to take on the next idiot who needs her help.

I follow, a half step behind, wondering if maybe that’s enough.

We hit the main corridor at the same time as the overhead fluorescents go on the fritz, plunging the hallway into a strobe-lit horror show.

I brace for the soundtrack of a disaster movie, but instead it’s just the distant whirr of the vending machine eating someone’s last dollar.

Sage walks with her chin up, jaw set, still wearing my jacket, and for the first time in a while, I can’t read her.

The peace lasts exactly twenty feet. We turn the corner and there he is: one of the Storm Front film guys, home early from his smoke break and already powering up the rig. The camera is pointed directly at us, the little red dot on like a sniper’s laser.

Sage freezes, mid-stride. Her shoulders tense, the jacket bunching up around her neck.

I go full protective dad mode, stepping between her and the lens. I plant myself, hand out, palm facing the camera with all the subtlety of a Do Not Disturb sign.

“Not now,” I say, and if my voice is rough, it’s because I want it to be.

The cameraman stops, blinking like a deer in LED headlights. For a moment, I think he’ll push it, but then he just shrugs and drops the rig to his chest, backing off with the slow retreat of a man who knows he just lost the tip-off.

I stay planted until he’s gone, down the hallway and around the next bend. Only then do I relax, rolling my neck and shaking the adrenaline out of my hands.

Sage says nothing, but when I look over, her fingers are white-knuckled on the cuffs of my jacket. She’s staring straight ahead, eyes glossy, but not from tears. More like she’s taking inventory, cataloguing every possible exit in case the world tries to ambush her again.

I want to say something, maybe a joke about how her new look is the hottest trend in disaster fashion, but it doesn’t seem right.

Instead, I just nod at her, a silent Hey, I’ve got your back , and start walking toward the ice. She follows, half a step behind, matching my pace with an exactness that would make any coach proud.

We hit the end of the corridor and the rink opens up before us, the cold air rushing in, sharp and clean. For a second, the whole world is just blue lines, white ice, and the faint echo of our footsteps. Nobody is watching. Nobody is waiting for us to fail.

We stand at the edge of the rink, side by side, the sound of the world outside dying away behind the heavy doors. For once, it’s quiet.

I pull the jacket tighter around her shoulders and let myself believe, just for a moment, that this is enough. Then I shoulder open the rink door and step onto the ice, ready for whatever fresh hell comes next.