Page 7 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
Scene three: the Ryland warning, delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Scene four…
I’m halfway through swapping out my scrubs when a folded square of paper slips from my locker shelf and floats to the floor, landing perfectly in the shadow of my gym bag.
I pick it up.
The handwriting is bold and slanted, all caps, the kind of block letters you’d expect to see on a whiteboard during a power play strategy.
No signature.
But the words, scrawled in surgical black Sharpie, are unmistakable:
YOUR WRAP TECHNIQUE IS CLEAN, BUT YOUR SHOULDER ROTATION PROTOCOL NEEDS WORK. MIDNIGHT AGAIN?
For a heartbeat, I just stare at it, half certain this is a prank.
But I flip the note over, and there’s a tiny doodle in the corner—two overlapping circles, dark and brooding, like puck marks on fresh ice.
Grey.
I slide the note into the inside pocket of my bag.
It crackles as it settles next to my keys.
Coach Ryland’s words replay in my head:keep it professional, or it’s over.
I’ve navigated worse environments with less support and more risk. I know how to keep my wits about me.
But the men I dealt with today?
Literally, this is day one and I’ve already met the golden boy, the ice prince, and the dark horse.
And all of them are distracting in wildly infuriating and inconvenient ways. I sigh audibly and mutter under my breath, “At least I made it through without quitting or getting anyone sued. That’s a start.”
2
BEAU
Afew days later
Here’s a secret about the best locker rooms in professional sports: no one ever puts away the Gatorade towels.
You’d think after a decade on the ice I’d lose my fascination for the little rituals, but it’s the routines that keep me upright.
Half an hour post-practice, I’m gliding down the hall in my slides, hair still wet and cut jaw stinging from the day’s new nicks, and I catch the telltale flex of Sage Moretti’s shoulder through the rehab suite window.
She’s not my type, if anyone’s asking. I usually go for women who know exactly how hot they are.
Sage doesn’t.
She walks around in scuffed sneakers and a ponytail, smelling like menthol and liniment, and somehow still manages to look like she wandered out of a dream and into a war zone.
Her beauty doesn’t ask for attention because it’s too busy getting shit done.
And maybe that’s what messes with me most: she has no idea what she does to men.
But I linger anyway, elbow hitched on the door frame like I’ve got nowhere better to be.
Technically, I do—media huddle, then a post-practice film session, and Ryland’s death glare can be seen from space—but there’s something about watching Sage tape up Finn Sorensen’s beefcake shoulder that makes the clock run slower and the blood rush to my cock.
