Page 13 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
But the world is a comedian, and before either of us answers, the sound of the recovery suite door slamming back against the stopper echoes like a slapshot off plexi.
I don’t even have time to blink before Finn Sorensen fills the doorway, all six foot five of him.
He’s wearing a sleeveless tee that shows off last year’s playoff bruise—still green at the edges—and the way he looks at me and Sage is cold enough to refreeze the ice outside.
Sage yanks her hand away as Finn’s blue eyes flick from her to me to the gap between us, calculating the odds of what he just interrupted.
He doesn’t say a word.
Just cocks his head, waiting.
Sage clears her throat. “Hey, Finn. Need something?”
He doesn’t answer, but she bails anyway, brushing past him with a muttered “goodnight.”
For a guy who hates confrontation, Finn’s pretty damn good at clearing a room.
He waits until the suite is empty, then fixes his stare on me.
I’ve seen him take cross-checks to the face with less intensity. “Walk,” he says, then turns on his heel, trusting I’ll follow.
We don’t talk until we’re two corridors away from the main drag, the air colder, no cameras, just the distant rumble of HVAC and the slap of our sneakers on tile.
Finn stops, arms folded, jaw ticking. “What are you doing?”
I play it cool, stretching out my shoulders like he caught me in a pregame routine. “Just checking in on the medical staff. You know, captain stuff.”
“Looked like something else,” he says, voice flat. “You know what happened to the last guy who messed with staff?”
“I’m not ‘messing’ with anyone,” I say, but the lie tastes like bad whiskey.
He shakes his head, disappointment radiating off him in waves. “We have policy for reason, Beau. You want to get the team wrecked again?”
That word—again—hits harder than any puck.
Last year’s off-ice disaster cost us the playoffs, and I was the face of that shame, every headline with my name in twelve-point font and my smirk in full color.
It happened a week after I found out Talia had been cheating on me.
Like a fool, I decided to get drunk and kiss a girl at an after-party, right in front of someone’s camera, while my name was still tied to someone else.
The footage hit the tabloids before I’d even sobered up.
Suddenly, the locker room had reporters in it.
Coach got grilled.
Sponsors pulled back.
Our captain had to hold a press conference just to say I wasn’t being benched.
Guys stopped trusting I had my head in the game, and honestly, they weren’t wrong.
We lost two games we should’ve won, fell out of contention, and PR labeled it a lapse in judgment.
The fans called it betrayal. The league called it unprofessional. I called it mindfuckery.
“I’m not wrecking anything,” I say stubbornly. “You of all people know what it was.”
