Page 41 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
I grip the bottle tighter and let the plastic creak as I cut through the last security gate and head to the parking lot through the private exit lane. It’s nearly empty, much to my relief. I fish for my keys, ready to disappear into my own engine noise, when I see Sage by the driver’s side of her car, arms crossed against the cold, jacket zipped all the way up, but her cheeks still pink from windburn and work. She looks like the day chewed her up and kept the best parts—messy hair, posture loose, exhaustion in every line of her body. But fuck if she doesn’t look beautiful.
I step into her line of sight just as she unlocks the door, and she looks up. Her expression doesn’t shift at first, like she’s still deciding how to play it. Then that smile tugs at her mouth—tired, crooked, half a second from vanishing—and I feel it hit like a delayed impact.
“Long night?” I ask.
She huffs a laugh without humor. “You could say that.”
“Are you okay?” I say, voice coming out gruffer than I mean.
She doesn’t look up. “I’m fine.”
I reach out, touch her elbow, light as I can. “I just wanted to check in.”
She finally faces me, eyes rimmed red but hard as glass. “You don’t need to check on me, Finn. That’s not your job.”
Something in her tone hits me harder than any crosscheck. I pull my hand back, let it hang at my side. “I know it’s not. But I wanted to.”
She meets my eyes. “Please,” she says. “Just let it die.”
The words slice clean through me. I nod once and back away, hands in my pockets, head low.
13
GREY
It’s the day after the big win. The rehab center doesn’t open for another hour, but I let myself in with the backup key and disarm the alarm before it can wake the street. It’s not habit, not the kind of ritual the team expects of me, just a compulsion. If I keep moving, keep ahead of the noise, nothing can catch up. Not the press, not the ghosts in my bed, not even the silence in my own head.
The lights are already on in the east wing, a pale strip leaking from under the therapy suite door. It takes a full minute for my eyes to adjust, another for my ears to catch the drone coming from the other side: soft, tuneless, almost a child’s lullaby if you didn’t know the voice. I know the voice. Sage is in early, again, humming to herself as she unpacks tape rolls from a shipping crate. I linger in the corridor, watching her through the chicken wire mesh of the security glass. She doesn’t see me at first.
She’s wearing the same navy-blue scrubs as always, hair in a rough knot at the back of her skull, the ends poking out in ragged angles like she cut them herself with trauma shears. Her hands move fast, fingers stripping the plastic from each roll and lining them up by color and width. There’s no wasted motion, nothingbut the rhythm of work and the offhand sound of her voice. I can’t stop watching the way she moves, beautiful in a way that makes my mouth go dry.
I push the door open, and she startles, dropping the half-opened tape roll into the bin with a thud. For a second, we just stare at each other. She blinks first, then goes back to the crate, humming louder this time as if that will erase the moment.
I move to the far side of the table and start unpacking the next box. Neither of us speaks. I keep my eyes on the tape, on the labels, on the movement of her hands as they work parallel to mine. We sort by length, by adhesive, by the weird proprietary numbering system the trainers invented last year. Her nails are short and painted the same dull gray as always, chipped at the tips from too many rushed mornings and too much hand sanitizer. She doesn’t look at me, but I can feel her in the room the way you feel a shift in air pressure before a storm.
The silence isn’t comfortable, but it’s familiar. We work like this for maybe fifteen minutes, filling the bins, breaking down cardboard, stacking the tape by the wall. At some point, our elbows brush, just a glancing contact, but she flinches so hard I half expect her to drop the tape again. I stop, set my roll down, and wait for her to speak first. She doesn’t.
Finally, I break the silence. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”
She keeps her back to me. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re humming.”
“It’s to keep my head clear.” Her voice is flat, no inflection. She starts on a new box, but her hands are shaking.
I reach for the next stack and slice the tape with my thumb. The cut is shallow but stings. I wipe the blood on my sleeve. “You always this jumpy when it’s just us?”
She finally looks up, and the effect is electric. Her eyes are red, but not from crying. She hasn’t slept. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says in an undervoice.
“I go where I’m needed,” I say, but it’s automatic, the kind of line a parent or a drill sergeant would use. She hears it for what it is—an excuse, a wall.
We both start unpacking again, faster this time, the rhythm almost frantic. She finishes her bin, slams the lid a little too hard, and wipes her palms down her thighs. “We can’t do this again,” she says, voice slicing through the room.
I freeze, hands wrapped around a roll of gauze. “What do you think ‘this’ is?”
She doesn’t answer. Just sets the last tape roll in its place, aligns it with obsessive care, and closes the box like she’s locking away a secret. For a second, she stands there, hands flat on the lid, back facing me. The humming starts again, but it’s softer, the notes trailing off into nothing.
When she speaks, it’s almost to herself. “You know exactly what I mean.”
