Page 37 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

A pair of players walks by in the hallway, laughing too loud, the sound reverberating through the metal shelving.

One of them glances in, makes eye contact, and then keeps walking.

I have no idea if they’re laughing at me, or just at the idiocy of the morning, but the effect is the same: I feel raw, exposed, every inch of me stretched to the breaking point.

Dylan checks his phone, then looks at me with something almost like pity. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine.” I close the supply cabinet, hands clenching the handles tight enough to leave a crescent imprint on my palms. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

He stands there a second longer, like he’s waiting for permission to leave. When I don’t say anything else, he nods once and slips out, not looking back.

The supply closet is silent again, but it’s a different silence: charged, radioactive, ready to detonate. I count to ten, then to twenty, then to thirty, breathing slow and even until the urge to scream passes.

I open the logbook to today’s date and write, Dylan: warning re: footage in the margin, and then I underline it twice.

Outside, the hallway is filling up.

I roll my shoulders, plaster on my best game face, walk out into the corridor, and busy myself with setting up the game-day recovery station in the east hallway because it’s the farthest point from Talia’s office and the only place the new ring lights don’t cast a shadow that makes everyone look like they’ve got a double chin and a criminal record.

The folding table is hospital-white, smooth as a coroner’s slab, and every inch of it is mine—at least for the ninety minutes before puck drop.

I start with the tape: three rows of KT tape, color-coded by function.

Blue for shoulders, black for knees, neon green for the rookies who refuse to admit they’re already falling apart.

Each roll is sliced into precut strips, ends rounded with surgical scissors, the stacks arranged like dominoes waiting for a tiny, intentional collapse.

Next come the gel packs—cryo and heat both, wrapped in microfiber towels I laundered myself at this morning.

I fan them out along the near edge, alternating hot and cold, so nobody has to search for what they need.

While I work, I pop two electrolyte tablets in a liter of water and chug half before I even notice the taste.

The powder doesn’t mix right, so every gulp is a shock of salt and fake citrus that leaves a residue on my teeth.

I log the flavor profile in the back of my mind: Too acidic, tweak for next batch.

It’s the kind of note that will make exactly zero difference in the grand scheme, but it feels important to pretend there’s still a version of the world where small fixes matter.

The players trickle in, first in ones and twos, then all at once as the bus drops the rest from the morning skate.

The room is full of noise and sweat and the chemical tang of whatever air freshener Facilities thought would be an upgrade.

I don’t know most of the new faces by name yet, but I know their injury logs: left quad, right wrist, chronic hip impingement.

I can tell who’s limping before they reach the table, and I’ve already lined up the treatments in the order they’ll ask for them.

Beau is the first to show, hair still wet from the shower, stubble gone but for a fresh cut at his chin. He leans on the table like it’s a bar and grins. “What’s the flavor today, Coach?” He means the tape, but it sounds like he’s asking about my mood.

I hold up a roll of the black tape. “Limited edition. Just for guys who whine.”

He laughs, then flexes his knee and points. “Got anything for this?”

I already know which pattern he’ll want.

I peel off three strips, overlap them in a Y, and anchor the base just below his patella.

The tension is perfect, the tape smoothing flush against his skin with no bubbles or creases.

I finish the job in twelve seconds, a new personal record.

He tests the flex, nods approval, then grabs a cold pack for his thigh and a protein bar from the display I set up on the corner.

“Tell the trainer he’s got competition,” he says, and I almost let myself smile.

As the room fills, the station turns into a triage line.

Shoulders, ankles, calves. One by one, the guys cycle through, some chatty, some dead silent, but every one of them leaves better than they arrived.

I demo the new hamstring stretch for a cluster of defensemen, then show the goalie how to use a resistance band to keep his hips from locking up in the second period.

Each time I see a wince transform into a look of genuine relief, the pressure in my chest lets up by a degree.

Even the coaching staff gets in on it. The assistant head coach, whose right arm has been in a soft brace since October, sidles over and asks if I’ve got any of the “magic powder” left over.

I mix up a batch of my personal blend—extra sodium, half the sugar, a secret dash of ginger—and hand it off with a knowing look.

“You’re saving us a fortune in cortisone,” he says.

“Just trying to keep you vertical,” I reply, and he shakes his head, a real smile ghosting across his face as he heads back to the whiteboard.

At one point, Grey walks by on his way to the media lounge.

He doesn’t stop, but he catches my eye and nods.

I nod back, careful not to let anything else show.

Whatever was on that tape, whatever Talia is plotting, it hasn’t blown up in my face yet.

I’m still here, still doing my job better than anyone else in the building.

For a while, the fear recedes. The noise in my head is drowned out by the clatter of sticks and the shouts of the trainers, the easy banter of men who don’t have to live in the margins of the roster.

I watch a rookie tape his own wrist, badly, then sneak over and fix it for him when he’s not looking.

He doesn’t say thank you, but the next time he passes, he leaves a pack of gum on the corner of the table.

It’s a dumb gesture, but I pocket it anyway.

When the last round of players leaves for warm-ups, I lean on the edge of the table and take inventory.

Every surface is chaos, wrappers and cut tape and beads of water from the gel packs pooling at the edges.

But there’s an order to it that nobody but me would see: the blues are almost out, the black is half gone, the towels are already wet enough for postgame use. The evidence of work well-done.

For a minute, I allow myself to feel proud.

Then the fear creeps back in, slow as a leak.

I think of the footage, of Talia, of the email that is probably already drafted and waiting in my inbox.

I think of the babies, of the future I’m dragging into a world that can’t stop watching and judging and waiting for me to fuck up.

I close my eyes and count to four. Unfortunately, I open them to Talia.

She’s in heels today, navy pencil skirt, blazer with the Storm logo embossed in silver at the pocket.

Her hair is pulled back tight enough to peel the skin from her scalp, and her smile has the tensile strength of fishing wire.

She’s talking to someone behind her—probably a sideline producer—but the second she spots me, she pivots, lets the conversation die mid-sentence, and closes the distance with the slow, hungry glide of a shark.

“Sage,” she says, and it’s the kind of greeting that dares you to act like you have somewhere else to be. “You got a second?”

I try for a neutral smile. “Always.”

She steps in, half a meter closer than social convention requires, and drops her voice to a private frequency. “Loved the setup in the east hallway today. The crew got some great footage of you in action. Very, um”—she pauses, hunting for a word that won’t sound like a bullet—“dynamic.”

I let my eyes drift to her left eyebrow, so I don’t have to make eye contact. “Glad it’s working for the cameras.”

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, even though there’s nothing out of place. “You know, there’s a push to showcase more of the human side of support staff. Fans love an underdog story. We’re thinking of doing a featurette: ‘Women Who Power the Storm,’ that kind of thing.”

Her tone is syrupy, but the warning is pure acid. She wants to know what I’m hiding, how I plan to spin it when the spotlight lands on me. For a second, I consider the version of myself that would smile back, say yes, lean into the brand. But that’s not me, and it never will be.

“I don’t really do interviews,” I say, then add, “I’m better behind the scenes.”

She tilts her head, all concern. “But you’re such a natural in front of the camera. They caught some really interesting moments on the security feeds last week. You and Grey, after hours? It’s honestly very authentic.”

My stomach ices over. I feel my hand move toward my abdomen before I can stop it, a subconscious shield, but I catch myself and jam it into the pocket of my sweats.

Too late: her eyes flick down, scan my torso, then flick back up.

Her gaze lingers on my face, the width of my jaw, the slight puff at the edge of my cheeks I’ve been pretending isn’t there.

The math is already happening behind her eyes.

She leans in, whispers, “There’s talk of bringing in fresh blood for the offseason. PR wants someone with ‘growth potential.’ Just a heads-up.”

I force a smile. “I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

She holds the pose for a second too long, then straightens and smooths her skirt. “You’re a valuable asset, Sage. Don’t forget it.”

She’s gone before I can reply, heels tapping away down the corridor.

I stay rooted to the spot, the heat from her words burning my skin.

I take three slow breaths, then a fourth, counting in time with the echo of her footsteps.

My heart is hammering, not from fear, but from the sick, electric clarity that comes from being hunted.

A junior trainer rounds the corner, phone in hand, and pauses when he sees me. He offers a smile, soft and apologetic, and I realize I’ve been standing there with my arms crossed, jaw clenched hard enough to crack a tooth.

“You good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I lie. “Just—thinking through a new protocol.”

He nods, doesn’t push, and ducks into the skate sharpener room. I flex my fingers, shake out the tension, and walk away, counting my steps to make sure I’m still moving.

I make it as far as the stairwell before the adrenaline hits full force.

I lean against the cinderblock wall, breathing in shallow bursts, and replay the conversation in my head, trying to map out every layer of threat and subtext.

Talia knows. Or suspects. Or maybe she’s just good at guessing which animals are ready to be picked off the back of the herd.

It doesn’t matter. I’ve been underestimated before. I know how to hide in plain sight.

I straighten, tuck the loose hair behind my own ear, and head upstairs to the trainers’ lounge. There’s still work to do, and if Talia wants a show, I’ll give her the best damn performance she’s ever seen.

The city is back to dark by the time I get home, a cold flicker in the windows across the courtyard and the old man who chain-smokes on the stoop already counting down to midnight.

I don’t bother turning on the overheads.

I slip off my shoes, pad barefoot to the kitchenette, and eat a handful of trail mix straight from the bag, barely tasting the shards of almond and chocolate.

The day is still alive in my skin, every muscle twitching with the memory of work, of Talia’s smile, of the echo in the corridor when the crowd peeled away and left me alone.

I sit at the kitchen table, open the laptop, and scroll through the treatment plans I typed up after the last injury report.

I fix a typo, then two, then delete a paragraph and rewrite it from scratch.

It’s the only way I know how to slow my heart down—fix something, improve it, make it ready for the next disaster.

At 10:14, there is a new email, flagged urgent. I close the treatment doc and stare at the subject line for a full thirty seconds before I open it.

PENDING HR REVIEW – PERSONAL CONDUCT CONCERNS

I read it once, then again, then a third time, the words crawling across the screen like ants. The body of the email is all boilerplate:

We are conducting a routine review of employee interactions…

You have been identified as a relevant party …

Your cooperation is required…

There’s a date for a mandatory meeting. There’s a warning about confidentiality. There’s a link to a Google Form for preliminary comments. The sender is just a general HR email address, no human attached.

For a long time, I don’t move. The blue light from the screen washes the rest of the room in a kind of artificial dawn, bleaching the shadows until my hands look pale and not quite real.

I glance at the water glass, at the legal pad where I’ve written nothing for three days, at the clock on the microwave.

My hand is steady when I click the link. The form is blank, a white void with five text fields and a promise at the top that your input will be taken into consideration . I hover the cursor over the first box, then close the laptop without typing a word.

In the dark, my eyes won’t adjust. The glow is burned in, and every time I blink, I see the subject line, in all caps, waiting for a response.

PENDING HR REVIEW – PERSONAL CONDUCT CONCERNS

I stand, stretch my arms over my head, and feel the pop of cartilage in my shoulder.

I think about all the ways this could end—suspension, reassignment, the slow fade-out of a career I never really planned to have.

I think about the babies, the notebook, the way Grey looked at me in the hallway as if he knew the exact second my world would come apart.