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Off Balance (Joe)

Author: Liora
last update publish date: 2026-08-14 23:34:38

Theo~

I arrived at school the next morning still turning over the photograph from the apartment window, the knowledge that someone had been close enough to capture us through the glass sitting heavy in the back of my mind. Fatigue made everything slower, yet something else pulled my attention almost at once.

Joe was avoiding me.

Across the hallway he stood with a few teammates, and the moment our eyes met he turned away and kept walking. Under ordinary circumstances he would have made a comme
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  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    Information Leak

    Theo~The single word on the screen held more weight than any threat I had received so far.Don’t.Whoever sent it had reacted the moment Noah finished speaking. Not later. Not after some delay that might have come from checking a feed or catching a rumor. Immediately. The timing left almost no room for coincidence.I looked at Noah. “Do you think they’re watching our phones?”He shook his head once. “I don’t know.”That answer sat between us longer than either of us wanted. I still wanted to call Joe. Noah stopped me before I could open the contacts list.“We need to know what happened three nights before the first message,” he said. “If we walk in blind, Joe can shut the conversation down the same way he did in the cafeteria.”We stayed in the quiet corner of the library and started reconstructing the sequence from the beginning. The first anonymous message. My benching. The cancellation of the promotional event. The private training sessions that were supposed to stay off the sched

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    Don't Text (Joe)

    Noah~I spent the rest of the afternoon turning the cafeteria fight over in my head. Theo had swung first. That part was clear. Joe had used the slur, and Theo had answered it without hesitation. I understood why. What stayed with me was something else. During the scramble I had noticed a figure farther back near the windows, someone who did not join the rush toward the exits or the push toward security. The person had simply stood there watching. At the time the moment had been too fast to hold onto. Now it would not leave.When I found Theo later I asked him directly.“Do you remember anyone unusual in the cafeteria during the fight?”He frowned. “Students. Teachers. Security. Joe’s friends. The usual mess.”“Farther back. Near the windows.”We walked through the sequence together. Who had been standing where. Who had moved first. Who had shouted. Then Theo paused.“There was someone near the far windows with a phone up. I assumed they were recording the fight.”“I don’t think they

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    Off Balance (Joe)

    Theo~I arrived at school the next morning still turning over the photograph from the apartment window, the knowledge that someone had been close enough to capture us through the glass sitting heavy in the back of my mind. Fatigue made everything slower, yet something else pulled my attention almost at once. Joe was avoiding me. Across the hallway he stood with a few teammates, and the moment our eyes met he turned away and kept walking. Under ordinary circumstances he would have made a comment or found a way to pass too close. Today he left the moment I came near, and the pattern continued through the first two periods. Every time I approached a corridor he was already moving in the opposite direction.I mentioned it to Noah between classes. “He’s never been this careful. Joe doesn’t usually bother hiding what he thinks.”Noah listened and answered with the same measured tone he used when he was weighing risk. “Maybe he’s finally figured out there are consequences.”“Or he’s waitin

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    The Wrong Direction

    Theo~I could not stop looking at the photograph of Melody. The image remained on the screen long after Noah had handed the phone back, and the detail that unsettled me most was not simply that she had been photographed. It was the location. She had left campus through the side route she used when she wanted to avoid the crowded main entrance, the quieter path that only people who knew her habits would expect her to take. Whoever had taken the picture either already understood that routine or had watched her long enough to learn it.“Did she know anyone was following her?” I asked.Noah did not answer right away. The silence itself told me more than any explanation could have.I called her immediately. Her voice came through light and unconcerned at first, the ordinary tone of someone who had no idea what the image on my screen meant.“Where are you right now?” I asked.She laughed softly. “You sound like an overprotective boyfriend all of a sudden. I’m fine, Theo. What’s going on?”“

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    The Photograph

    NoahI was still standing beside him when the message arrived. Theo opened it without speaking, and the photograph filled the screen before either of us could look away. The image showed the two of us on the ice earlier that evening, framed from outside the facility at a distance that made the surrounding darkness deliberate rather than accidental. Whoever had taken it had not been passing by. They had chosen the angle, waited for the lights to catch us clearly, and held the position long enough to decide the exact moment worth keeping.I took the phone from his hand and studied the picture more carefully than he had time to. The distance ruled out chance. The height of the shot suggested the photographer had remained low, using the line of parked cars for cover. Both of our faces were visible, which meant the camera had been focused rather than hurried. Most telling was the timing. The anonymous messages had already arrived by then. This was not a reaction to the university’s decisio

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    Off the Ice

    Theo~I woke the morning after the game still turning over the anonymous messages in my mind, the words repeating themselves with a persistence that sleep had done nothing to quiet. The timing bothered me more than the content itself. Whoever had sent them knew about the benching and understood enough of what was happening to make the threat feel deliberate rather than random. I told myself it could have been a student looking for an easy target, yet the precision of the language kept undercutting that explanation every time I reached for it.Noah noticed the distraction at breakfast almost at once. He asked if I had slept, and when I gave a noncommittal answer he watched me longer than usual before letting the subject drop. I did not show him the messages yet. It was not a matter of trust. I simply knew what he would do the moment he saw them, and I was not ready for the confrontation that would follow.Campus felt different when we arrived. The story of the benching had spread farth

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    1

    Theodore POVYou probably think it can’t get any worse than hooking up with a random guy after a win and then seeing him the next morning as the newest member of your hockey team.Try going home that same day and finding out your mom got a ‘fiance’ over the weekend.Try watching that same guy—same

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    Jumpy Little Kitten

    Noah~I’d seen a lot of people try to fake control before.Athletes, especially. Hockey guys were the worst for it. All that chest-beating, loud voices and hard eyes, like if they looked confident enough nobody would notice they were falling apart inside. I had absolutely no idea why the fuckers co

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    3

    Theodore~“Do you know the new guy?”Joe’s voice was casual, but I could feel his eyes on me as we walked toward the lockers. I kept mine forward, jaw tight.“No. Why?”“You’re looking at him weirdly.”I let out a dry laugh. “Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I want to fuck every guy, Joe,” I mutte

  • Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother    2

    A deep groan clawed its way out of my chest as my phone kept vibrating against my nightstand like it had a personal vendetta against me.For a split second, I considered letting it die.It didn’t.I snatched it up without checking the caller ID. “What?!” I barked, voice thick with sleep and last ni

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