Page 64 of Pucking the Single Dad
The weights hit the floor with a crack that made me jump. Brad straightened slowly, toweling off sweat that kept coming anyway.
"Tell her to go to hell."
"Brad—"
"You're not my social secretary or the team's fundraising coordinator. You're—" He stopped, jaw tightening.
"What am I?" The question escaped before I could stop it.
He crossed the distance between us in two strides, hands bracketing my face with that strange gentleness he saved for fragile things. "Everything. You're goddamn everything. And I won't let those vultures shrink you down to 'Brad Wilder's girlfriend.'"
"People talk." My voice came out smaller than intended. "Someone called me a gold digger. Said I'm an opportunist who conveniently showed up when the famous hockey player needed childcare."
The air in the room shifted, became something arctic and dangerous. Brad went perfectly, terrifyingly still—the same stillness I'd seen before he'd dropped gloves on the ice.
"Who?"
"It doesn't—"
"Who." Not a question anymore.
"Some blog. They posted photos from Finn's school, called me an 'opportunistic educator strategically inserting herself into a vulnerable athlete's life.'"
His phone materialized in his hand before I could blink. His first call was surgical—legal department, seventeen seconds, mostly threats. The second, to his agent, contained profanity in three languages. The third surprised me.
"Coach? Yeah, it's Wilder... I need that contact you mentioned. The one from your custody thing... Some bottom-feeder blog is going after Serena... Yeah, exactly like what happened to Bethany."
He listened, nodded, his free hand finding mine and squeezing hard enough to hurt.
"Understood. Yes, sir. I owe you one... No, sir, I owe you seven now."
When he hung up, I was gaping. "You called your coach?"
"Coach’s girlfriend got eviscerated online during his divorce. Character assassination via some shitty blog. He knows people who know people who make problems disappear." Bradpulled me against him, and I could feel his heart hammering against my chest. "Nobody comes for my family. Nobody."
My family.
The words landed like a punch, like a promise, like something I wasn't ready to name. His arms tightened around me, and I could feel the barely controlled fury vibrating through him—not at me, but for me. The enforcer protecting what was his.
"Brad—"
"They can write whatever trash they want about me. Been there, survived it. But you? Finn? That's a line." His voice dropped to something lethal. "They crossed it. Now they burn."
"You can't fight the entire internet."
"Watch me." He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and what I saw there made my breath catch. "I've thrown gloves for less. Way less. You think I won't go scorched earth for you?"
The intensity of it—of him—should have scared me. Instead, something in my chest uncaged itself, wild and fierce and matching his energy exactly.
"Together then?" I asked, echoing our conversation from the mountain.
His smile was all teeth, all danger, all devotion. "Together."
That evening, Maria invaded our kitchen armed with lesson plans and the kind of best friend energy that meant interrogation disguised as casual conversation. She'd positioned herself at the breakfast bar like a judge, wielding her wine glass as a gavel.
"You're nauseating," she announced, jabbing her fork in my direction. "Look at you. You're literally luminous. It's offensive to those of us living in the real world."
"Theo says Dad's gone full marshmallow," Finn contributed from his spot next to Brad, where he was constructing a mashed potato volcano. "Says he smiles at his phone during practice like a teenager."
