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The Family Secret
publish date:
2026-10-16 00:14:32
Latest chapter
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term The Family Secret
CHASEThe steakhouse on Fourth was the kind of place where the menus didn't have prices.Dark wood. Low light. White tablecloths so heavy they pooled on the floor. A pianist in the corner playing something slow and expensive that nobody was listening to. The hostess took one look at me in my only collared shirt and the blazer Jax had lent me, half an inch too short in the sleeves, and said, "Hartley party?" before I said a word.Of course she did. He'd told them what I'd look like."This way."She walked me past a wall of wine bottles lit from behind like museum pieces, past booths full of men in suits who looked like they'd fired people that afternoon, to a round table in the back corner with a view of the whole room.My father had picked the seat facing the door. He always did.He stood when he saw me. Charcoal suit, no tie, collar open. He looked rested. He looked like a man who'd slept eight hours and eaten breakfast and never once wondered whether his son was breathing."You wore
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term The Things Fathers Hide
CHASEJax moved into Marcus's side of the room on Wednesday.He didn't ask. He showed up with a duffel bag, a goalie mask, a small cactus in a plastic pot, and a printed sheet of paper he taped to the wall above Marcus's old bed.**ROOMMATE AGREEMENT****1. No talking before 9 a.m.****2. If you can't breathe, wake me up.****3. The cactus is named Gerald. Don't touch Gerald.**"Coach approved it," he said, unpacking socks."I didn't ask Coach for a new roommate.""I did." He set Gerald on the windowsill. "You didn't eat on Monday. Tyler told me. Tyler doesn't notice things, so if Tyler noticed, it was bad.""Marcus put you up to this.""Marcus asked me to check on you Sunday. That was Sunday." Jax looked at me. "Moving in was my idea. He doesn't know yet. He's not asking about you. He's asking *around* you. There's a difference."That was all he said. He made the bed with goalie precision, hospital corners and everything, put his earbuds in, and was asleep by ten like a man with no u
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term The One Who Stayed
SLOANEKira Walsh texted me at 11:52 a.m.**KIRA:** don't freak outThere's no faster way to make me freak out than saying that.**KIRA:** hartley and callahan just fought at optional skate. like actually fought. on the ice. coach had to blow the whistle. marcus has a split lip. hartley's nose is bleeding**KIRA:** marcus was apparently defending YOU?? something about breakfast**KIRA:** idk the details. tyler told DuPont's gf who told me. i'm not supposed to know any of this. delete thisI was in the media room with my laptop open to Part Four. Ethan was across the desk editing last night's photos. He looked up because I'd gone completely still."What?" he said.I turned the phone around. He read it. His face did nothing at all, and then he very carefully set down his stylus."Okay," he said. "So, that's not good.""Why would they—""Sloane." He said it gently. "You know why."I got up."Where are you going?""To fix it.""How?""I'll figure it out on the way."---Marcus was outside
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term She Was Crying Because of Me
CHASEI didn't go to my room.I went to the rink, because the rink was the only place I'd ever known what to do with my body. I suited up alone in the locker room at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, and I went out on the ice with a bucket of pucks and shot them at an empty net until the half-healed ink across my back burned raw under my pads.Every one went top corner.Every one, I saw her face through the dining hall glass. Laughing. Laughing at something he said. In his hoodie. Gray, DALTON HOCKEY across the chest, the sleeves past her fingertips, the way she used to wear mine.Bang. Top corner.I hadn't heard what he said to her. I didn't need to. I knew exactly what Marcus Callahan said to sad girls, because I'd watched him say it at fifty parties. He always found the one crying in the bathroom line, and he always meant it, and that was what made him dangerous. He was kind. He was actually kind.Bang. Top corner.She'd laughed. Twice. I'd counted through the glass.I hadn't made her laug
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term The Hoodie He Wasn't Wearing
SLOANEThat night, I couldn't sleep in the hotel.Castillo had approved the overnight. The series needed Sunday's practice for Part Four, and the drive was too long to do twice in a weekend. Ethan was in the room next door, asleep by eleven like a functional human. I lay on top of the comforter in a room that smelled like industrial lavender, staring at a crack in the ceiling, until 4:40 a.m., when I gave up, put my coat on over my pajamas, and drove to the rink.I told myself it was research. Marcus had mentioned five a.m. film sessions, the empty building, the light left on for watching tape. Part Four was about him. It made sense to see it.It didn't make sense, and I knew it didn't.The side door was propped open with a rubber wedge, the way it had been in January. The rink was empty. One bank of lights was on over the far end, and the ice gleamed under it, fresh from a Zamboni pass. The compressor hummed.I walked down past the stands to the bench by the boards and sat where I'd
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term The List of Suspects
SLOANERiley stood in the doorway of the newsroom with two coffees and the expression of a woman serving a warrant."It's 7:02 a.m.," she said."Good morning.""You're already here.""I'm always here.""You weren't always here. You used to be here at 7:30 like a person." She set one coffee on my desk and pointed at it. "Vanilla oat milk, extra shot. Drink it in front of me, or I'm calling your father."I drank it in front of her."How long have you been here?""Six.""*Sloane.*""The February issue has thirty-two pages, and half of them are mine.""Half of them are yours because you took them." She dragged Ethan's chair over and sat down. "Leah told me you reassigned her girls' basketball feature to yourself.""Leah had a chemistry test.""Leah *wanted* that feature. She cried in the bathroom."I stopped typing."I'll give it back," I said."Too late. You already finished it. At two in the morning, according to the doc history." She reached over and closed my laptop. Gently. All the w
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term Collision Course
SLOANERevenge tasted like shirtless pettiness and the faint scent of cedar body wash.I was starving for anything that wasn’t Victoria’s artfully plated grilled salmon, so I’d claimed the kitchen while the happy couple was out “finalizing wedding details.” The massive marble island gleamed under r
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term Morning After
CHASEThe bed was empty when I woke. Sheets tangled, pillow still dented from where she’d collapsed. Amber—Ashley?—had ghosted around 3 a.m., heels clicking softly down the hall like she thought stealth was an option. It wasn’t. Thin walls go both ways.Sunlight sliced through the curtains like a
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term Welcome Home
CHASEThe locker room reeked of sweat-soaked gear, fresh tape, and the cold bite of sharpened blades. Most of the Vancouver Titans had already peeled out after morning skate—laughing, slapping asses, scattering to hotels for whatever flavor of chaos they’d lined up: threesomes, one-night stands, or
Hate Should Be A Hockey Term The News
SLOANEI was halfway through a very important scroll when my bedroom door swung open without so much as a courtesy knock.“Oh my god, Dad—what the hell?” I yanked the sheet up to my chin, though my silk camisole and tiny sleep shorts had already betrayed me by riding up in all the wrong places. Dad
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