Page 35 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
No one speaks for a long time.
The quiet is full but not uncomfortable. It is soft. Safe.
Until it isn’t.
I feel the shift first. The way her body stills beneath my palm. The way her breathing evens out, not in peace, but in effort. Like she’s bracing. Her hand curls into the blanket at her chest, and when I look over her shoulder, I see her eyes are open now. Wide. Clear. Awake in a way that has nothing to do with recovery and everything to do with retreat.
“Sage,” I murmur, just to ground her, but she doesn’t answer.
She sits up slowly, carefully, the blanket clutched around her like armor. She doesn’t look at any of us at first. Her eyes drift around the room, taking in the mess, the scattered clothes, the towels, the soaked chair, the faint, humid fog of what we just did. Her lips press into a thin line. Her shoulders tighten. I sit up straighter behind her and say her name again, softer this time.
She turns then, meets my eyes, then Beau’s, then Finn’s.
Her voice is quiet. Not cold, not angry. Just quiet in the way storms often are.
“This can’t happen again.”
The words land with a strange, muffled thud. Not loud, not dramatic, but like a dropped weight in the center of a glass table. Beau’s head tips slightly. Finn doesn’t move at all. I blink once, trying to understand if I heard her right. She pulls the blanket tighter around her chest.
“I mean it,” she says, voice a little louder now, more certain, like she’s gathering herself as she speaks. “I can’t do this again.”
“Do what?” Beau asks gently. No flirt in his voice now, just confusion and the first curl of something tender.
“This,” she says, and gestures vaguely, not at the three of us, but at the space between us, the air, the aftermath, everything hanging heavy in the room. “I—I lost myself. For a minute it felt…amazing. All of it. But now I feel…”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to.
Her hand lifts to her mouth, fingers brushing her lips like she’s trying to erase what just happened, even as her body still aches with it. Her voice trembles as she adds, “I can’t be this person. Not with you. Not with all of you.”
There is silence again, but it isn’t soft this time. It’s thick with the weight of things unsaid.
Beau moves to reach for her hand, but she flinches just slightly and he stops.
“I’m sorry,” she says. And she means it.
There are no words left, so, with dread sinking deep into my chest, I put my clothes back on. Beau and Finn follow suit, all the while Sage maintains that deathly calm on her face, like this, none of this ever happened. I nod at the boys and head out the door. It’s mercifully empty out in the hallway. Minutes later, both of them join me.
“What do you think?” asks Beau as we make for our rooms.
I shrug. “Best not to think at all.” Beside me, Finn grunts in agreement.
10
SAGE
After the boys leave, I drift off into a deep, dreamless sleep, natural, given the sequence of events that have just come to pass.
I wake alone, tangled in the wreckage of what we did. The blanket is still wrapped around my body, warm where they left me, cold where I’ve shifted. My mouth is dry, my skin flushed, and between my legs I’m sore in a way that feels like memory, raw, stretched, sated. But the space around me is quiet. No voices. No footsteps. Just the distant creak of pine wood settling against snow. An ache curls inside my chest and settles deep into my bones. They were here. And now they’re not.
By the time I’ve showered and dressed, the morning is already underway. Outside the tall windows, the world is a postcard of snow-covered trees and glittering slopes. The sun is high and the sky is clear and everything is so fucking beautiful it almost hurts to look at. I follow the scent of food down to the lodge kitchen, where someone—probably one of the interns or maybe Kingston himself—is frying bacon and flipping pancakes like this is some kind of Instagram-ready winter fairy tale. There’s fresh-brewed coffee, eggs scrambled with herbs, and apile of cinnamon rolls so gooey and warm the glaze runs off the sides like syrup.
I pour a cup of coffee and pretend not to notice when Beau looks up from the other end of the table. Grey is sitting beside him, slicing into a stack of waffles as another player piles his plate with rashers of crisp, glistening bacon. Finn is nowhere in sight, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s avoiding me or just avoiding this. I take the seat farthest from them and dive into my plate like I haven’t eaten in days, because part of me hasn’t. Part of me has been too busy trying not to feel.
The next two days blur into duty. My role on the retreat is very clear: keep the team functional, manage inflammation, oversee cold plunges and mobility work, and make sure none of the idiots tear their ACLs on the mountain. I set up a recovery station in the main lodge, rotate guys through stretches and massage guns, wrap knees, check for swelling. I watch the documentary crew swarm around the players like bees, capturing every staged laugh and fist bump and bro-hug with lenses that never stop rolling. I smile for the background shots, answer questions about post-ski protocols, and keep my hands busy.
But my mind is a riot.
Every time one of them walks in, I pretend I’m busy with work, because that’s easier than dealing with what my body does around them. Beau flashes that shit-eating grin like I’m still the prize in a game, and it’s infuriating how much I want to let him cash in. Grey stands too close like he doesn’t know what personal space is, all that deep calm and accidental intimacy, brushing my shoulder like it’s nothing, catching me when I shift like I’m breakable.
