Page 58 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
He follows, spilling inside me, then hugs me so tight I can barely breathe.
We stay there, tangled up, sweat drying on our skin.
I close my eyes and pretend the world doesn’t exist. For now, it doesn’t.
I am nothing but muscle and want, and the weight of him holding me together. When we are both stable, we make ourselves decent.
I’m the first to leave. The coast is clear and I head downstairs. The lobby is empty, the street outside a wash of sound and light. I cross the hall to the lounge, expecting nothing but my own echo, but as soon as I step inside, I freeze.
Finn is there. Grey too, both of them at opposite ends of the room, as if the universe arranged them for maximum impact.
Finn sits in a battered armchair, ankles crossed, one arm flung over the back in a way that makes him look lazy and dangerous at the same time. His face is unreadable, but his eyes track me from the second I walk in, blue and sharp as ice.
Grey stands by the window, mug in hand, staring out at the city like he’s waiting for a sign. He doesn’t turn when I enter, but I can feel his attention shift, subtle as a change in air pressure.
For a second, I consider turning around. Running back upstairs.
Finn is the first to move. He stands, stretches, and walks over to the counter. He pours himself a cup of coffee. He doesn’t say anything. Just sits, stirs his coffee, and studies me over the rim of the cup.
I wait. I count my heartbeats.
Finally, he lifts the mug in a slow toast. Grey finally looks at me as I make my way to the exit, my cheeks burning. He catches up, takes my hand. A thrill runs down my spine. “You do what you want,” he says, voice low enough that only I can hear. “Nobody else gets to decide.”
He lets go, and I walk out, heart thudding, legs shaky, but for the first time in months, I feel alive.
20
FINN
The look on Sage’s face yesterday at the charity skate event told me everything I need to know. She still wants us, and from the looks of it, Beau has already tested the theory. It doesn’t solve the lingering doubt that snags in my chest: why is she resisting this so hard?
When I walk into the weight room, the relief is chemical. There’s no camera crew here, no board members, no motivational posters aboutrelentless processorteam above all. Just the faint whirring of the recirculation fan and the ozone snap of the deadlift platform grounding out static. You can always tell when the docu crew has been through a room—someone has adjusted the benches so they line up perfectly, and all the dumbbells are racked in descending order like some intern is angling for an early parole.
I take the far platform that faces away from the mirrored wall, and load up the bar with plates so old the numbers are worn to silver. The feel of them—dense, cold, honest—is the only reason I haven’t thrown a chair through a window at least once since this morning. I could do this by algorithm, but instead I let my hands tell the story: palms already tender from tape residue,blood drawn into the tips from last night’s overtime, tiny blisters forming under the calluses. I wrap the bar, set my feet, and let the world reduce to numbers. Five sets of five at one sixty, rest ninety seconds, increase by five, drop reps, repeat. It’s all ritual and self-correction. No one here to see if I cheat the last rep or grind out an extra. The body doesn’t lie, and neither does the ache in my quads as I finish the first ladder and rerack the bar with a solid, satisfying clang.
Halfway through the set, I catch myself glancing at the frosted glass window, waiting for the flicker of a lens or the red dot of a recording light. There’s nothing. Even the clock above the whiteboard is stuck at 6:44, as if time itself agreed to be suspended while I got my head right.
I’m midway through a set of bent-over rows when the door opens. The sound is a pneumatic hiss, the faint slap of sneakers against tile, a whiff of latex and coconut. I freeze, arms flexed, bar halfway to my chest. For a second, I hope it’s just the cleaning crew, but then I hear the distinctive clatter of a cafeteria tray and a muttered curse in a register only matched by a woman who’s spent her entire adult life explaining to men why they’re not as clever as they think.
I don’t turn right away. I finish the set, focus on the microtremors in my grip, the tension at the base of my spine, the familiar burn that tells me I’m still here and not dissolving into the mental noise of everything that waits outside this room. When I do look up, she’s already halfway across the gym.
Sage is carrying a tray loaded with what looks like bricks of artisan soap but is probably her latest experiment in sports nutrition. She’s in a Storm hoodie that’s two sizes too big, sleeves pushed to her elbows like she’s been working, and shorts that make her legs look like something a man could lose sleep over. She doesn’t see me at first, or pretends not to.
She’s got her hair in a bun, but strands have escaped and caught on the sweat at her temples. There’s a red streak on her wrist, marker ink or maybe a burn from the oven. She is so completely not supposed to be here that for a second, I think I’m hallucinating, some cortisol-induced mirage of what I wish would interrupt this monotony. But then she looks up and sees me, and I know it’s real because her mouth goes flat in a line and she doesn’t say a word.
We stand there, the barbell suspended in my hands, the tray balanced on her palms, both of us weighing the physics of this new arrangement.
I break first. “Early shift for R & D?” My accent always gets worse when I’m tired, more Helsinki than Brooklyn, but she never mentions it.
She blinks, like she’d forgotten she had to interact. “Someone in media suggested we get player buy-in for the new recovery bars.” She lifts one of the blocks between two fingers, as if it might squirm away. “They wanted honest feedback.”
I drop the barbell with a muted clang and wipe my palms on my shorts. “I don’t think you want my version of honest.” I nod toward the tray. “Is it coconut?”
Her eyes narrow. “Coconut oil, with flax. Supposed to promote cognitive resilience. That’s the theory.”
I step closer, lean an elbow on the rack, and let her set the tray on a bench. “Theory always falls apart on contact with reality.” I reach for one, roll it between my fingers. It’s dense, sticky.
She watches me, arms folded. “Go ahead. I need a baseline.”
