Page 41 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

SAGE

I t’s game night again. That means movement and shouting and cameras and a soundtrack of slapshots and skate blades and someone inevitably forgetting their lucky jockstrap.

But for me, this is something else entirely.

Time feels sticky, stretched, like the countdown on a microwave when you know it should beep but it just won’t.

I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to tell them.

My hands shake just enough to be annoying, the kind of tremble that makes the plastic handles on the portable rehab kits rattle against each other like I’ve got nerves I can’t admit to.

I stack them on the folding table like it matters, like symmetry can anchor me to the floor when everything else inside me is threatening to lift off.

Kinesiology tape, ice packs, massage ball, the overworked Theragun with the loose attachment I still haven’t fixed.

I’ve done this routine a hundred times. Muscle memory, spinal reflex.

But tonight, it feels like I’m standing outside my own body, watching myself go through the motions while something warmer and meaner brews behind my ribs.

The ache in my lower back pulses in time with the overhead lights.

There’s something almost majestic about the way a body this tired still performs. I press a hand to the small of my spine, try to stretch discreetly, then curse under my breath when that only makes the cramp worse.

The nausea waits its turn like a bouncer at the velvet rope.

Not now, I tell it, like I’ve got some kind of authority.

I’m not telling the boys because I have to.

Not because the logistics are suddenly impossible to hide.

I want them to know. Really know. And I want to see what they do with it.

That’s the part that surprises me. It isn’t fear anymore, not the usual bone-deep flinch I’m used to carrying around like an accessory.

It’s curiosity. Hope, maybe. God help me.

My reputation’s been tossed like a puck during warmup, clacked around between skates, but they haven’t blinked, not once.

They’ve stood beside me like the chaos didn’t matter, like the whispers in the hallway weren’t about us.

It feels like they deserve this piece of the story.

Not because it’ll make anything easier, but because it’s ours.

I pick up the roll of tape, find the edge, and smooth it out against the side of my thumb.

The rhythm helps. Tape, smooth, place. Repeat.

My stomach gurgles in a way that makes me question the life choices that led to microwaving leftover soup at midnight, but I breathe through it and keep going. This is what I know. This is mine.

I set up the stretch station near the door: foam rollers, resistance bands of different tensions, mats, ice-cup bags.

Beau stopped by a few minutes ago with the full squad trailer whiteboard—the X’s and O’s for tonight’s game flashed under fluorescent light.

I ran through it when I got a minute, picking out transitions, checking edgework drills, noting the predicted line combos for the Monarchs tonight: their power play featuring Drake and Richards, Grey guarding the crease.

I blink and the overhead light blurs at the edges. I blink again hard, desperate for clarity. Focus. Keep going. Can’t slow down. Not now.

Outside the trailer, I hear the swell of the Storm Front cameras—their pregame hustle hype reel they’ll cut later for social media.

It sounds like background noise in my head.

Someone calls out the Storm’s hot streak, the energy in the bench tonight, the undefeated home streak.

Even through my fog, I feel a twitch of pride.

You thrive when it counts. Just get through this.

One of the camera crew pokes his lens through the open door. He ducks in and points it at me. “Get that physio hustle,” he quips, voice loud, joking, friendly. I force a smile, nod, tap at my rehab kit.

“Yeah, gotta keep the crew in shape,” I say, voice quivering just enough to betray me if someone listened too closely. I grab a wrapped ice-cup and hold it up. The camera clicks. Be one with the work. Even though it’s killing me.

Beau steps in behind me, tossing a towel over my shoulder. “You good?” he asks, voice low, eyes scanning me like he can see past the sweat. I pat my arm like it helps. “Thanks.”

“Peachy,” I lie. I drag the towel across my face and flick hair out of my eyes. My vision thumps at the edges again. I tighten my grip on the bench as I step forward, grabbing a foam roller to set on the far mat.

My back twinges again—a hot spike of pain just above my sacrum, like someone punching me from inside.

My fingers tremble. I ground my feet, shift my weight.

Hyperextension stretches, side bends, rotate the torso—building stretches but with caution.

I cannot let this lay me down. Clarke, fucking rookie, counts on me to get his knee loosened before warm-ups.

Kingston might need his cage strapped tight.

Grey? He doesn’t actually need me, but I know he’ll want the carb-gel bags and ice bath later, just for the habit of it.

Marco, Luc—they’ll take anything I’ve got.

Another camera swivel—this one following Beau as he grabs a clipboard, calls out some tape-on edge drills to one of the trainers prepping on the other side. The lens glances at me again, and I suck in a breath and meet it head-on, pretending I don’t feel the vertigo boiling.

Hands shaking, I assemble the portable T-bar station next to the roller.

I connect the tension bands to the hooks on the wall.

I load the knee-compression sleeves, heat wraps, gel-pack sockets into the bin.

Somewhere in all that I feel Beau’s hand on my shoulder.

His voice is real, not just bantering camera fodder.

“You good?” he asks again.

“Totally,” I say. I flex through the pain, trade out a gel pack, and shift kit boxes. Each breath tastes like iron, sweat, desperate willpower. I swallow again, slower, more deliberate. Hold it in. Don’t let it rise.

Beau keeps watching. He edges closer, lets the lens focus on me again. I glance at him, grit my teeth. His eyes don’t judge, but they’re not sure either. I should keep him away from my back pain bullshit. The last thing I need is pity.

But maybe I do. Just a little.

“Watching the line combos?” I ask him, buying time, stalling before I fall apart. My voice cracks.

“Yeah.” He nods, gestures out the door. “They’re running the same setup—Kovacs on breakout, Rossi ferrying biscuit to the point. Grey’s guarding the crease. Might pull Kingston mid-power play if Michaels gets too nasty.”

The words make everything snap back—focus. I edge one of the kits closer to the door, nudge another toward the rolling board.

“Good,” I say. My voice steadies. “Could use two full trays at the bench tonight.”

“Got it,” he says.

The camera lens lingers for a second longer. I drop the towel, wipe my hands on my jeans. I force the same smile, nod again at the crew, “All good here,” and step aside.

My vision yanks sideways again. Everything darkens at the edges. My world narrows to Beau’s face, concerned but quiet. I blink, ground myself again. Re-center.

“Want me to run Clarke’s knee?” I gesture toward the trainer’s area.

“Yeah,” he says, softly. “But give yourself a break first. I’ve got the stretch station. I’ll handle it.”

I move past him, out of the main walkway, into the quiet rear corner where the gear bins give way to a semi-enclosed space we all call the bathroom trailer, though it’s mostly a supply nook with a mirror, a sink, and just enough floor space to breathe without anyone looking.

The lights shift into their pregame dimming cycle, soft and low, barely humming.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and it knocks the breath out of me.

My hair clings damp to my forehead. My eyes look like they’ve been rubbed raw.

My face has taken on that waxy sheen that comes just before things go sideways.

But I’m still standing. That counts for something.

I brace my weight on the counter edge and draw in a slow, thin breath. The pain in my back pulses steady now, a rhythm beneath the noise, but I shove it down. Clarke’s waiting. There’s no room for collapse.

I gather the compression sleeve and a fresh heat wrap from the storage bin and step back into the main trailer, where Clarke’s already perched on the low bench by the med cabinet, his right leg stretched out in front of him, tape half peeled and irritation stamped across his face.

“Hey,” he mutters, “I tried stretching it out, but it’s not warming up.”

“Let me see,” I say, already crouching down beside him.

The mat presses into my knees as I unwind the old wrap and discard it.

The joint looks tight, not swollen, but stiff through the lower quad.

I rub a line of heat balm down the side, working it in with the heel of my palm, smoothing tension away with the practiced rhythm of a hundred other game nights.

“You skating or babying it?” I ask without looking up.

“Skating. Full-out.”

“Then breathe through it.”

He winces once. I pause.

“You want to sit or play, Clarke?”

He huffs out a laugh and exhales. “Yeah, okay. Keep going.”

I finish wrapping his knee, check for compression, then press his foot gently. “Push against me.”

He does. The resistance is good. I nod, pat his shin once, and step back as he stands and tests the joint.

“You’re good,” I tell him. “Out there in two.”

He nods, grateful in the way players are when they know their body’s been held together by someone who didn’t flinch. He exits fast, already focused on warm-ups.