Page 53 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)
SAGE
Three years later
G ame seven. Overtime. The crowd is standing, fists clenched around foam fingers and plastic cups and whatever else the janitorial union has preemptively mourned.
On the ice, both benches are on their feet, twenty-four hunks of meat in matching synthetics holding so impossibly still that the entire world tilts around them.
You can almost taste the adrenaline sweating out of them, out of the fans, the coaches, even the camera crew running the broadcast up in the rafters.
Every person in this building is ready to explode.
Except, apparently, for my children.
The triplets, now three years old, Storm jerseys tucked into their diapers and faces glistening with what is either snot or pure molten sugar, are clustered on the floor just behind the home team bench.
They’re supposed to be in the suite, eating soft pretzels and learning not to staple things to each other, but the minute someone mentioned “Cup on the line,” they staged a mass prison break and have since made it their mission to lick the glitter off every commemorative hat in the building.
“Stop eating the hat,” I hiss, prying one kid’s face away from the brim of a Stanley Cup foam crown.
She’s the eldest, at least by six minutes, but you’d never know it by the way she’s currently trying to snort confetti.
Her siblings are under the table, gnawing the plastic off a souvenir puck and cackling like gremlins.
I look up at the scoreboard. Three minutes, nineteen seconds left in the first overtime.
If anyone on the Storm bench glances my way, they’ll see me in my faded Wellness Staff hoodie and a credential pass that says All Access , but I don’t think it’s fooling anyone.
My hair is in a pulled-back-for-safety situation, and there’s a faint crust of what I hope is cheese on my left sleeve.
I smell like a locker room and a preschool had a baby, which is not inaccurate.
Behind the glass, the bench is a murder of desperate, beautiful men, each one coiled so tight you could use them to store wind energy.
I count faces: Finn is still on the top line, his eyes unblinking as he stares at the sheet.
Next to him, Beau—hair even shorter now, less pretty but somehow more menacing—leans over the boards, breathing like he’s been underwater for a week.
Grey, my gentle mutant, is wearing an “A” now, which means he shaves twice as often and grumbles only half as much.
Together, they form the core of what passes for leadership in this league, and for the first time in years, it looks like they might actually pull it off.
The puck drops. The teams jostle for possession, a mess of skates and sticks and the kind of violence that is only legal if you can draw it with blue and red lines on a Jumbotron.
The puck circles the offensive zone, a perfect arc to Beau, who does what he always does—waits one unnecessary second to make sure everyone’s heart rate spikes, then snaps a pass so perfect it’s basically a hate crime.
Finn collects, drops his shoulder, and wires it top shelf.
The red light detonates. The arena goes nuclear.
For a second, I forget to breathe. I forget everything, even the part where my youngest is actively trying to climb the penalty box plexi.
It is all noise, everywhere, shrapnel of sound and light and bodies slamming together, grown men howling like birth was a recent memory.
The bench erupts, players vaulting over the boards and dogpiling in the corner.
On the glass, fans claw for a piece of the moment.
The triplets scream, partly from joy, partly because they know if they’re loud enough, someone will eventually give them a cookie.
And just like that, the Storm are champions.
Three years ago, I was hiding in a windowless exam room, charting hemoglobin values and pretending I didn’t know half the team was debating whether to call me “the baby whisperer” or “Momboss.” Now I’m running Storm Wellness, a league-wide program endorsed by a panel of sports science PhDs and, less formally, every mother in the tri-state area.
We’ve gone from five clients to fifty in a year, and next season, I’m slated to run seminars in at least four other NHL cities.
They’re putting my face on the website and everything, which is hilarious if you remember the time I couldn’t get through a staff photo without blinking.
But this is the payoff. Not the Cup, not the banners, not even the suddenly respectful press coverage (“groundbreaking female leadership” is the phrase they’re testing this week).
It’s here, watching my kids inhale confetti and the men I love collapse into a pile of champagne, blood, and expensive hair product.
The postgame is a blur: the trophy lift (Beau and Grey, together, biceps flexed so hard the Cup looks like it’s made of tinfoil), Finn getting doused by half the Gatorade cooler and still managing to smirk for every camera angle, the parade of media and families pouring onto the ice in a flood.
At one point, Grey spots me in the scrum, gestures with a come here that could move tectonic plates.
He’s too polite to leave the interviews, but the second the last question is over, he finds us.
I wedge through the crowd, triplets in tow, and get a face full of beard sweat and black eye as Grey scoops me up and spins me.
I squeal, an actual squeal, and he laughs—a deep, rolling laugh that makes my bones go weak.
The kids pile on, one after another, forming a kind of wriggling, shrieking human bouquet.
“You see that shot?” he shouts over the noise, eyes shining.
I’m pretty sure I was the only person on this side of the glass who didn’t black out. “Saw it. Can’t wait to watch it on replay four hundred times.”
He plants a kiss on the top of my head, then lets the kids hang off his arms while he basks in the insanity.
Beau is next. He’s already shirtless, because of course he is, and his torso is covered in a constellation of fresh bruises and what looks like half a bottle of gold body glitter.
He grabs the kids, hoists one onto his shoulders, tucks another under his arm like a football, and jerks his chin for the third to latch onto his leg like a koala.
Then he slaps a palm over my ass in full view of every camera within a hundred yards.
“Classy,” I say, grinning.
He winks, leans in, and mutters, “We’re getting you drunk tonight.”
“Is that a promise or a threat?”
He looks me up and down, weighing the options. “Yes.”
Finn, meanwhile, is already doing a press scrum with the network crew, but he keeps glancing over at us with a look I haven’t seen in a long time—a mix of pride, relief, and something else I can’t quite place.
When he finally breaks away, he makes a beeline for the kids, dropping to his knees so fast that all three of them barrel into him like linebackers.
He hugs them all at once, eyes scrunched shut, and when he pulls back he’s actually misty.
“Don’t say it,” he warns, but I can’t help myself.
“MVP and softest dad in the league. Your reputation is shot.”
He wipes his face, grins. “Worth it.”
The next hour is a stream of faces: former players, trainers, every cousin I never knew existed, and more than one reporter who would like to know “what this win means for the franchise moving forward.” I play the part, answer the questions, even pose for a family shot with the Cup and the kids and a pile of empty energy bar wrappers.
The kids crash hard, conked out in a pile of blankies and foam fingers in the media lounge.
I hoist Kennedy, the oldest, onto my hip and head for the back exit, where it’s quieter.
The corridor is cold, still echoing with the ghosts of celebration, and for a second, it’s just me, my baby girl, and the sound of my own heart beating out the overtime winner.
I pause, let the silence soak in.
Three years ago, I thought my life was over. Now it’s the best overtime I’ve ever played.
And the Cup? It’s not a trophy. It’s the three little monsters: Kennedy, Mario, and Sidney. Yes, I let their fathers name them after hockey greats. But right now, this little hockey great is drooling on my shoulder and dreaming of the next thing she’ll conquer.
I make it halfway down the corridor before the ambush.
Cassidy is there, backpack slung so low it nearly grazes her calves, disposable coffee in one hand and a look in her eye that says she’s already solved three problems I haven’t realized I have.
Her badge— Storm Wellness: Volunteer —dangles from her lanyard, and there’s a streak of blue glitter on her cheekbone, the kind of war paint only a true professional can wear with authority.
She scans for the kids before she even says hello. “They escape already?”
“The other two are under the table,” I say, jostling Kennedy to the other hip.
Cass nods, glances at the debris trail of Goldfish and shredded napkin in our wake, and pivots into full command.
She squats, makes eye contact with Mario and Sidney—who are now attempting to unscrew the faceplate of a fire alarm—and, with a single word, corrals them to her side.
“Up.” They obey instantly, Mario clambering up her back like a lemur while his sister, Sidney, tucks herself under Cassidy’s elbow.
Cass turns to me, deadpan: “You want to run interference with Security, or should I?”
It’s not a real question. Cass is the only person I trust to singlehandedly shepherd all three of my offspring through a state of maximum entropy.
This is not because I am an unfit parent (jury’s still out), but because Cassidy is the only person on earth with enough tactical awareness to both anticipate and disarm any tantrum or obstacle these kids can deploy.