Page 36 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)
SAGE
A few days later
The light in my bedroom is the soft, forgiving kind that makes even the sharp corners blur.
I dream of the boys, not separately but together, circling me like sentries.
Finn’s steadiness at my back, all anchored muscle and unspoken promises.
Grey’s quiet intensity, the way he watches like he sees every fracture and doesn’t flinch.
Beau’s golden heat, laughter against my skin, hands where I need them most. In the dream I am softer, but not weaker.
In the dream, I am allowed to be held. Allowed to want. Allowed to stay.
By habit, I check the team group chat, then my inbox, then the Slack for medical staff only. No surprises yet. I breathe out, slow and careful, and for a minute, I let myself believe that today could be just another day in a sequence of increasingly impossible days.
The nausea blooms about eight minutes later, a slow surfacing like a diver with too much nitrogen in her blood.
I flatten my palm against the wall and ride it out, breathing through my teeth, picturing every cell in my gut lining up for roll call.
The urge to puke is so pure it almost makes me proud.
Instead, I spit in the sink, wipe my mouth, and open the fridge to see if any of last night’s prep is still edible.
Two boiled eggs, four cubes of rotisserie chicken, a Tupperware of premixed oats. I eat a handful of saltines first—dry, almost sweet—and then the eggs, sliced onto a piece of grain toast. Every swallow is a dare: Will this be the one that comes up? Will I get to keep any of it?
While I chew, I think of the men. About 90 percent of me is certain I should tell them about the pregnancy now. The remaining 10 percent is deathly afraid they’re going to ruin their careers over it.
After I finish eating, I pull on compression tights, then the Storm polo, one size up and forgiving at the waist. It’s still the early days, but this being triplets has resulted in what I’m almost sure is a small bump.
I do three slow passes in front of the mirror, checking the drape at every angle, then swap for the looser sweatshirt with the stitched-in kangaroo pocket.
If I hunch my shoulders and keep the badge lanyard high, nobody will notice the way my stomach is starting to shape itself into something unfamiliar.
It’s not a real bump yet—just a faint convexity, a rumor of rounding—but my brain can’t stop seeing it, projecting two months ahead to a future where hiding isn’t an option anymore.
I use the old yoga mat to stretch out my calves, then my hamstrings, then the low, deep twist I copied from a prenatal YouTube routine.
The stretch is more burn than relief, but the voice in my head repeats: Adapt.
Don’t complain. I alternate between cat-cow and child’s pose until the nausea drops from a tidal wave to a background hum, and then I get down to business.
The first thing I do is open the work laptop, punch in the VPN, and bring up yesterday’s practice film.
The camera angle is too high, the sound is all skate squeak and shouted profanity, but I mute the audio and scrub through the footage until I spot my own reflection in the glass at the edge of the rink.
I’m in the background, bent over the Gatorade cooler, retaping a player’s knee.
I pause the video and study the scene for a full minute: posture, face, hands.
I look normal. No obvious tells, no sign of the secret.
I exhale, then fast-forward to the next time I appear, which is thirty-four minutes later.
This time I’m jogging down the bench, arms full of ice packs, moving with a speed that looks almost convincing.
Nobody is watching me. That deserves a sigh of relief.
While the footage plays, I open the journal where I’ve been tracking symptoms. Today is week ten, day one.
The entry reads: Dreams sharp. Morning: light cramping, low energy, 3/10 pain.
Appetite: better than Monday. Bloating: unremarkable.
Mood: not good but not catastrophic. There’s a column for interventions ( hydrotherapy, positive self-talk, avoid caffeine ) and another for triggers ( Finn’s texts, video call with Mom, existential dread ).
The structure is a joke, but the data is real.
I tally the numbers, then close the notebook and stack it under three unrelated books on the windowsill.
By the time the sun starts to fully rise, I’ve finished a protein bar and half a bottle of water. I brush my teeth again.
At 5:41, my phone vibrates with the first notification of the day: “Be on-site by 7:00. New camera crew arriving for pregame prep. All personnel to report to main entrance.” I sigh, not because I’m annoyed, but because this is the part of the job that never gets easier: the expectation that you’ll always be ready for your close-up, no matter how many secrets you’re smuggling under your skin.
I pack my bag with the essentials: second set of clothes, two extra water bottles, electrolyte tabs, and a miniature first-aid kit I built myself. I also bring the notebook, even though I know I’ll never let anyone see it. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I have a plan.
As I leave the apartment, I stop to check the deadbolt, then the stove, then the deadbolt again. It’s a ritual. The click of the lock is the only sound I trust in the morning.
The city outside is just waking up. The sidewalk is wet with the residue of a half-hearted rain.
I keep my head down, shoulders high, eyes scanning for the bus because I don’t trust myself to drive today.
My reflection in the glass of the pharmacy window is a shadow with no detail, no features. For a second, I like it that way.
Today is a game day, which means everything will happen twice as fast and half as well.
The plan is to get through the morning without incident, keep the recovery station running, and hope the powers that be don’t invent a new way to make the job impossible.
I run through the schedule in my head: ice baths, player taping, last-minute supplements, the endless parade of urgent requests and petty emergencies.
I can do this. I have done this. Nobody does it better.
The ache in my body is background now, folded into the routine like a low-grade fever. I breathe in the cold air, count to four, then out for eight. I imagine every cell in my body lined up on the blue line, waiting for the whistle.
The city is still quiet, but in my head, the rink is already roaring.
One more day. Every day is one more.
The Storm training center always reminds me of a high-budget holding cell: too much glass, too many cameras, windows so frosted you lose track of time unless you clock the LED panels bolted to every hallway.
I badge in through the staff entrance, nod at the intern half asleep behind the security desk, and head straight for the supply room—my usual refuge from preshift small talk and players looking to pregame their therapy with gossip.
The keycard sticks, as usual. It takes three tries before the lock accepts me.
I drop my bag, log the date, and start unloading the new shipment: four canisters of tape, two knee braces, and the case of electrolyte gels I fought Procurement for all month.
For a minute, it feels normal. Then Dylan walks in, paper cup in hand.
He doesn’t close the door behind him. That’s the first sign.
“Morning,” he says, with a jaunty smile that makes him look like he’s fighting a persistent toothache.
“Hey,” I answer, eyes on the inventory sheet, pen scratching even though I’m not writing anything useful. I’m hoping he’ll spit it out and leave.
He watches the hallway instead, arms folded, the silence pressing in around us.
When he finally speaks, it’s the voice of a man who’s memorized his lines but still doesn’t want to be the one to deliver them.
“So, there’s been a thing. A little thing.
” He scrubs a hand over his jaw, which is starting to gray at the edges.
“Talia called me in last night. Apparently, there’s been a review of, uh, facility security footage. ”
I don’t let my hands stop moving, but the energy in them changes. “What kind of footage?”
He forces a cough. “From the storage room. Last Thursday. You and, uh, Grey.”
For a second, I can’t breathe. I picture every possible version of myself on that camera: laughing at a bad joke, passing a protein bar hand to hand, maybe standing a little too close, or—shit—was there a hug?
I can’t remember. Suddenly my head is full of images, not even memories, just flashes of surveillance from every building I’ve ever worked in.
How you think you’re invisible until someone pulls the tape.
“What did she say?” My voice doesn’t shake, but my fingers do. Dylan glances back at the open hallway. “She flagged it for review. HR is in the loop. She said it’s not a ‘disciplinary’ thing, more like optics, but…” He lets the sentence drift, unfinished.
He’s not meeting my eyes, and that’s what gets me. “You didn’t see it yourself?” I say, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice. “You’re just…passing the warning down the chain?”
He bristles a little, but not in a way that makes me hate him.
“I’m telling you because you should know before it comes from someone higher up.
Talia’s on a warpath. She doesn’t want ‘distractions’ before the playoffs.
” He does air quotes, then lets his hands flop to his sides. “Just—be careful, okay?”
“Do you know what was actually on it?” I ask. “I mean, what did she say, specifically?”
He hesitates, takes a sip of coffee, then stares at the floor. “Not much. Just that there was a lot of time unaccounted for. That it looked…personal.” He glances at me, quick, then away. “She’s gonna want to talk to you. Alone.”