Page 54 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys (Forbidden Fantasies #18)

She hoists Sidney, then Mario, rearranges their limbs so I can hand her Kennedy.

Once she has all three lined up like baby penguins, she fixes me with a look that’s halfway between get going, champ and don’t you dare cry .

I don’t cry. I might have three years ago, when all of this felt like an experiment in whether human beings could actually fracture under pressure and then be reassembled with medical tape and caffeine.

Cass sips her coffee, then passes the cup to me. “You got at least twelve minutes before the wheels come off. Go get your moment.”

“Don’t you have a job?”

She shrugs, unfazed. “I swapped the PM shift. Nobody codes on Cup night, anyway.” She reaches out and smooths my hoodie, a reflex from the days when we both wore scrubs. “Beau’s already organizing a champagne riot in the locker room. You want a head start, trust me.”

I do trust her. I have trusted her since undergrad, since that first study group when she brought a thermos of wine and a folder labeled Anatomy: Ultimate Cheat Sheet , since every panicked text about a failing grade or a lost job or a night I thought I couldn’t keep going.

Cass has seen me at my worst: drunk, postpartum, panic-attacked out of my mind at three in the morning, nursing two babies and trying to explain to my mother that yes, all three are mine, and yes, I’m dating three men.

She’s also seen me at my best, which, ironically, is right now—dressed in athleisure, sleep-deprived, and shoving my kids into the care of another adult so I can go play grown-up for fifteen minutes.

Cass waves two Storm interns over—kids in team polos, sneakers already ruined by confetti—who fall in on either side of the triplet formation, ready to act as wingmen.

The trio of chaos is now a procession, marching down the hallway toward the media room where Cassidy will set them up with juice boxes and iPads and the promise of future snacks. She doesn’t look back.

I watch them for a second. It’s a stupid, sappy second, but it hits me in the sternum anyway.

My kids are safe. My kids are happy. For the next few minutes, I don’t have to be anyone’s mother, or the face of a nutrition program, or even the ex-medical staff who once got blackballed for making the wrong choices. I can just be myself.

Cass peeks back around the corner, raises an eyebrow, and mouths: “Go.”

I go.

The walk from the service corridor to the locker room is surreal, like moving through the dream of someone who always wanted to see the inside of a hockey arena after closing.

It’s quieter now, the party muffled by three layers of concrete and the endless, echoing tunnels underneath the ice.

I count my steps to distract myself from the fact that my hands are still sticky from confetti and that I may or may not be wearing two left shoes.

I pass a row of catering carts stacked with champagne buckets and the remains of a five-foot sub sandwich.

The media room is at the end of the hall, half lit and empty except for a flock of folding chairs and the faint smell of old popcorn.

I duck in to fix my hair, maybe splash some water on my face before braving the postgame circus.

I get as far as the water cooler before Finn finds me.

He comes in at a jog, sees me and stops, hands on hips, breathless in a way that has nothing to do with his cardiovascular health. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, eyes roving from my face to my hoodie to my legs, which are still dusted with a faint layer of gold confetti.

“Hey,” I say, smoothing my hair. “Congrats on the MVP. That’s, what, your third?”

“Fourth,” he says, and it’s so on-brand I nearly laugh.

Finn walks over, closing the gap in three steps, and before I can get another word out, he kisses me.

Not a tentative, let’s-not-get-caught kind of kiss, but the kind you see in old movies right before the world ends.

His hands are cold from the ice, and his face is still red from the onslaught of cameras, but he kisses me like I’m the only thing he remembers from the last hour.

I let myself fall into it, let the world collapse down to the taste of Gatorade and the prickle of his stubble against my cheek.

When he breaks, he’s smiling so hard I think he might pull something. “Did you see it?” he asks, forehead pressed to mine. “Did you see the shot?”

“Everyone saw the shot,” I say. “You’re going to be a meme for the rest of your life.”

He beams, then winces as if remembering his ribs are probably cracked. “Worth it.”

He kisses me again, softer this time, then takes my hand and leads me to a corner of the room, away from the glass door and the chance of prying eyes. I sink onto a folding chair, and he sits on my lap, which would be funny if he weren’t six five and made entirely of muscle and stubbornness.

For a minute, we just sit, wrapped around each other like the whole season has been leading to this. He buries his face in my neck, breathes in, and sighs. “You have no idea how much I needed that,” he says, voice muffled.

I run my fingers through his hair, still wet from the shower and the victory spray. “Rough day at the office?”

“You have no idea,” he says again, but this time it’s a joke. He slides into the seat next to me.

We talk, quietly, about everything and nothing: the game, the kids, how he missed breakfast because the hotel bagels tasted like old sponges. He teases me for crying on national TV when they handed Beau the Cup. I tease him for doing the same when he talked about our kids in his MVP speech.

He lifts his head and looks at me, serious now. “Thank you,” he says. “For…you know. All of it.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, even though the real answer is: Thank you, for not running. For not hiding. For making a life out of the ruins. But I’m not in the mood to be sentimental.

He grins. “You wanna make out in the green room before anyone finds us?”

I look at the clock. “We have six minutes.”

“That’s a new record.”

He slips his hands under my hoodie, cold palms on bare skin, and I shiver. He kisses me again, deep and thorough, and it’s like the last three years never happened—like it’s just us, sneaking around after morning skate, stealing time before the trainers come in and spoil the illusion.

Except it’s not just us anymore. It’s us, and three kids, and a career, and a city full of people who now know our names and our faces and, thanks to the Storm’s social media team, our home address.

It’s messy, and hard, and sometimes so exhausting I want to throw my phone into the river and move to Canada.

But right now, it’s perfect.

Finn pulls away, hair askew and lips swollen, and says, “You still want to run away with us and the kids?”

I kiss him again, and say, “It’ll be chaos, but I do.”

He laughs, that big, helpless Finn laugh, and I feel the sound all the way down to my bones.

I hear them: the unmistakable crosstalk of two men who should never have been let near a microphone, much less each other.

The voices bounce down the hallway, ricocheting off the concrete in a way that even postgame cleanup can’t muffle.

Beau is shirtless, again, jersey slung over his shoulder like a towel.

He’s still wet, this time with a froth of champagne and something that could either be blood or Sharpie, courtesy of a very determined fan.

Grey is in full postgame mode, which means he’s still in his pads, but the rest of him is composed enough to pass as a human man and not a discount superhero.

They stand close enough that I can smell the victory smoke and the barely-concealed terror of impending parenthood.

Neither of them has ever looked so alive.

“Told you he’d find her first,” Beau says, elbowing Grey in the ribs and nodding at the closed door where Finn disappeared.

Grey grunts, unimpressed. “He’s quick. No stamina.”

Beau snorts. “You’d know.” Then he catches sight of me and grins, all teeth and cocky half challenge. “Hey.”

“Give it a minute,” I say, but my heart’s already in my mouth. These men, these disasters, these partners in crime—they’re the axis the last three years have spun around.

Grey leans in, voice soft for once. “You okay?”

I nod. “Better than okay.”

He smiles, the kind that’s just for me, then tugs my hoodie to pull me in for a hug. He always hugs like he’s bracing against a storm—full body, both arms, face tucked in the crook of my neck. He lets go only when Beau gets impatient, slapping my ass and saying, “C’mon, we got a team meeting.”

Finn’s smile is lazy, proud, and so beautiful it hurts.

The four of us stand in a circle, waiting for someone to call the play.

Beau moves first, like always. He sidles up to Finn and musses his hair. “MVP, huh? You remember who set up that shot?”

Finn rolls his eyes. “You remember who carried you all season?”

Beau lets it slide and grabs me around the waist, spinning me into the huddle.

His hands are rough but warm, fingers already roaming over my hips, my back, the skin at the nape of my neck.

Grey moves in behind, hands strong and certain, mouth at my ear.

Finn presses up against my front, smelling of sweat and hope and the unmistakable promise of something better than winning.

For a second, I want to laugh. This is the most ridiculous place I have ever had sex, and that includes the time we tried to christen the new nutrition office and ended up breaking a shelf full of vitamins.

But then Beau is kissing me, hard, and Grey’s hands are working under my shirt, and Finn, beautiful Finn, is stroking my hair and murmuring how proud he is of me, of us, of the weird, stubborn family we’ve built out of nothing.

We take our time. There is no rush. Every touch is a memory, a celebration, a chance to say: I’m still here.

You didn’t lose me. You never will. We kiss and tease, trade spots, tangle limbs and stories and the kind of dumb inside jokes that only make sense at two in the morning when the whole world is still spinning.

Finn slides my pants down, kissing every inch of skin as if he’s mapping a territory he never wants to forget.

Beau is impatient, already pressing against me, but he waits his turn, content to watch and stroke and whisper dirty encouragements in my ear.

Grey holds me steady, his hands a fortress, and when he finally takes me, it’s with a care and a strength that makes my whole body sing.

I lose myself in them, in the way they move around and with each other, the easy confidence of men who know every line and edge of my body, and love it all the more for the changes three babies have wrought.

We are a machine, well-oiled and reckless, never the same twice but always, always better than before.

We fuck until we’re breathless, until there’s nothing left but the shaking and the laughter and the stubborn refusal to let go.

We collapse in a heap, Beau beneath me, Finn draped over my legs, Grey curled at my back like a weighted blanket.

My skin is hot and tacky, my throat hoarse from moaning, and my heart so full I think it might finally have outgrown its cage.

We lie there, tangled and happy, and talk about nothing: what we’ll eat for breakfast, whether the kids will ever let us sleep past six again, who’s going to be the first to puke at the victory parade.

Beau pokes my side and says, “We’re a mess.”

Finn kisses my ankle. “Best mess I’ve ever seen.”

Grey just squeezes my hand and says, “Family.”

It’s true. It’s stupid and improbable and so far from what I ever imagined, but it’s real. We’re not just surviving anymore. We’re living. We’re winning.

We clean up, as best we can. Finn finds a box of baby wipes in my backpack and does a once-over on Beau’s abs, “for the cameras.” Grey puts the room back together, stacking chairs and wiping down the table, always the fixer.

I reapply lipstick with shaking hands and think about how easy it would be to do this forever.

We head for the exit, arms around each other, steps in sync. Outside, the world is still loud with celebration, but here in the tunnel, it’s quiet. Safe.

Finn leans in and says, “You still want that weekend away?”

I nod. “Anywhere but a hockey rink.”

Beau smirks. “We’ll see.”

Grey presses a kiss to my forehead, then steers us all forward, toward the noise, the future, the mess we’ve made and the promise that we’ll keep making it, together.

As we walk, I reach back and link my fingers with Finn’s, then Beau’s, then Grey’s. We move as a unit, a line, a team.

We’re not perfect. We’re not always pretty.

But I wouldn’t change a thing.