Page 43 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)
BEAU
T he chairs in the GM’s office are designed for discomfort.
They make you feel like a child on trial, your feet never quite touching the floor, your knees wide and exposed.
I sit in one with my hands balled into fists around the armrests, watching the slow, methodical way the Storm’s crisis response team sets up for slaughter.
The GM paces behind his desk, which is so clean and empty it looks like the office belongs to a dead man.
On the credenza, three bottles of hand sanitizer and an unopened tin of Storm-branded shortbread cookies.
His shoes squeak in an endless figure eight, polished so aggressively they catch the fluorescents in strobe.
The head of PR—formerly in TV—spreads printouts across the conference table.
Each sheet is a log of disaster: headlines, aggregated tweets, a time-stamped rumor mill stretching back to the hour someone slipped Sage’s name to the league.
There are two other men here, both with the look of recent MBA, their faces scrubbed and anxious.
One wears a Storm windbreaker zipped all the way up, the other a purple dress shirt and an expression of near-religious anticipation.
They whisper to each other every few seconds, keeping their eyes on the stack of phones at the center of the table.
The GM clears his throat. The room stops moving.
“Let’s get this started,” he says, as if we haven’t all been here for half an hour, marinating in the silence.
I keep my eyes fixed on a scratch in the tabletop, a clean gouge from some previous session of doom. I measure my breaths, keep them slow, keep my chest from rising and falling in any way that might betray anxiety. The rest of the table seems to be playing the same game.
The PR lady leans forward, steepling her hands. “Beau, thanks for coming. We know this is…sensitive.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s a party.”
She gives a twitch of a smile, the kind that never touches the eyes. “We’re here to make sure everyone’s on the same page, and that we get ahead of the narrative before the league does.”
The GM stops pacing just behind my left shoulder. I can feel the heat of his frustration radiating in waves. “The short version,” he says, “is we’re fucked.”
MBA in purple shirt coughs, recovers, and tries to look like he belongs here. PR ignores him.
“We have it on good authority,” she continues, “that certain facts about your medical staff are going public. Very public. There’s already a leak to league HR. It’s going to be a story, with or without our input. So the question is, how do we want to play it?”
I look up at her, then at the GM, then at the two suits. Nobody blinks. “What exactly did they leak?” I ask, not because I don’t know, but because I want to hear how they’ll say it.
GM gestures at the printouts. “We’re told that Sage is pregnant.
Possibly by a member of the team. That she concealed it from HR.
And that it’s already reached the league’s compliance office.
They’ll do a review. Standard procedure, but with the way the Front is shooting this year, it’ll be more like a fucking episode of Law and Order. ”
There’s a pause, as if everyone’s waiting to see if I’ll explode or laugh. I do neither.
“So who’s the source?” I say.
Purple Shirt shifts in his seat. “That’s not clear. There’s a good chance it’s internal. League HR is saying it came to them through ‘concerned parties.’” He fingers a binder, nervous. “Could be a player, could be someone on the ops staff. Could be a anyone, really.”
I let that one hang for a beat. “It wasn’t a player.”
The GM says, “We know that. But optics don’t care about the truth.” He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek. “We have to assume the league will treat this as a worst-case scenario.”
The PR lady takes over again, voice pitched for reassurance.
“That’s why we want to get you ready. If anyone asks, you didn’t know, and you had no reason to suspect anything.
You answer only what’s asked. Don’t speculate, don’t editorialize.
We’ll get you a statement to memorize by tonight.
The narrative is ‘professional boundaries.’ We’re dealing with a culture issue, not a specific incident.
Do not personalize the story. Do not refer to Sage by name if you can avoid it. ”
My knuckles are white. The arms of the chair dig into my thighs. I can feel the sweat pooling under my knees, a cold patch that’s only going to get worse as this drags on.
“And what’s the actual story?” I say.
This time, it’s MBA in the windbreaker. “We’re treating it as a team culture review. On the record, no comment until the league completes their process. Off the record, we’re emphasizing player health and safety, with particular attention to boundary maintenance and staff training.”
“In other words,” the GM says, “we say we’re shocked, and we promise it’ll never happen again. Then we do whatever it takes to keep the playoffs from getting canceled.”
I tap my foot, once, hard enough that it rattles the leg of the chair.
“And Sage?” I say.
The PR lady’s face twitches at the edge, a hairline fracture of real emotion. “We’re putting her on paid leave, pending investigation. We’ll offer her resources, support, whatever she needs. If the media gets to her, it’ll be ugly. We have a team of lawyers ready.”
“She’s probably not coming back, Beau. You know that, right?” the GM says quietly.
I do. I want to break something, or at least slam my fist on the table, but all I do is flex my fingers around the armrest until I’m sure it’s about to snap.
“Anything else?” I say, keeping my voice as empty as possible.
The PR lady nods, shuffling her notes into a neat stack. “Damage control is our priority. We’ll need you for the morning press, and there will be questions about leadership. Stick to the talking points. Remember that this isn’t about you, it’s about the team.”
“We need to lock down the locker room, Beau. No leaks. No rumors. If anyone talks, it’s a problem,” the GM says.
My jaw ticks. “We’re supposed to just sit on our hands while the whole building’s on fire?”
“Yes, if you want to keep your contract,” Purple Shirt adds.
I look around at the four of them, at the tidy piles of paper and the cloud of fear that thickens every time someone says the word “pregnant.” The windows behind the GM’s desk look out over the practice rink, empty now, just the reflection of this room and the hollow sound of the air handlers running overtime.
Damage control. Like any of us have ever controlled a goddamn thing in our lives.
The PR lady is already on to the next agenda item, speaking in a clipped, fast-forward monotone about timeline and social media and “precleared responses.” She hands one page across the table, and when it reaches me, I don’t even look at it.
The GM starts again: “Look, I know it’s a mess?—”
That’s it. I stand, the chair legs scraping on the tile, louder than any word spoken in the last hour. They all flinch.
“No offense,” I say, “but if you want a puppet, talk to the mascot.” I walk out, leaving the paper on the table and the door swinging in my wake.
Damage control. I wonder if they even remember what the word “team” means.
The corridor outside the GM’s office is empty. My sneakers slap the concrete, echo down the length of the training facility, bounce off steel doors and echo back, warped. I walk fast, but not fast enough to escape the sound of my own pulse, which is rattling my ribs with every other stride.
There’s no one at the front desk, no one in the medical suite, not even a janitor. I take the stairs two at a time and duck through the fire door at the landing, because the elevator is for people with time to spare.
Grey and Finn are in the equipment room, sitting on opposite sides of a folding table stacked with sticks and foam tape.
They look like the aftermath of a bad negotiation: Finn with his head in his hands, elbows digging into the battered wood, Grey with his arms crossed so tight his biceps are probably leaving marks on his rib cage.
Finn’s eyes are bloodshot. “Well?”
I let the door slam behind me. “It’s out,” I say. “They think a player’s involved.”
Grey doesn’t move. He’s staring at the wall where a torn poster of last year’s playoff run is pinned between two racks of shin pads. “Anyone say which one?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, and it’s true. Once the rumor machine starts, names are irrelevant; it’s all about the team and the stain on it.
Finn runs a hand through his hair, which doesn’t move. “How did they even get the medical file?”
I shrug, but the gesture is a lie. “Could be anyone. PR says it’s ‘internal,’ which could mean a dozen people. League’s going to run an investigation, but I’d bet they already have their culprit.”
Grey cracks his knuckles, one finger at a time, each pop a little louder than the last. “They’ll go for the guy with the most to lose,” he says.
I look at Finn, then at Grey, then back at Finn. He’s not even pretending to play dumb.
“Nobody’s going to roll over,” I say. “But they want us to shut up, keep it tight, and let the lawyers handle everything.”
Finn huffs a laugh. “So, business as usual.”
The room goes quiet again. The only sound is the soft hum of the mini-fridge and the sharper, less forgiving click of Grey’s joints as he flexes his hands.
“I don’t get why they’re all sure it’s a player,” Finn says. “Sage could have a life. Outside this place, I mean.”
I lean against a rack of practice jerseys. “That’s the point. They don’t care if it’s true. They want it to be a player, because that’s a story people will read. If it’s just a staff thing, it’s HR, it’s paperwork. If it’s a player, it’s a scandal.”
Grey finally looks at me. “You think Sage knows?”
I nod once. “She’s not stupid.”
Finn gets up, starts pacing between the racks, fingers twitching like he’s looking for a fight. “So what now? We sit on our hands and hope it blows over? We’re supposed to just—wait?”