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Off-Limits
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2026-08-25 20:49:12"Wait. Your ‘what’ just enrolled here?"
Marco Ruiz nearly dropped his protein shake in the middle of the locker room, and word spread from there like a puck off a bad pass.
"Stepsister," Cameron said flatly, lacing up his skates without looking up. "Don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird. You're the one who brought a hot stepsister into our locker room conversation." Marco grinned, nudging the guy next to him. "Did you see her yet, Danny? Tall, dark hair, looks like she'd cut you and not blink?"
"Saw her outside the j-school building this morning," Danny said. "Didn't know she was 'the' stepsister. Would've introduced myself."
"She's not available," Cameron said, sharper than he meant to.
The locker room went quiet for half a second, that particular quiet that meant everyone had heard exactly what he hadn't meant to say out loud.
Marco's grin widened into something worse. "Not available. Interesting. You said stepsister, not girlfriend."
"She's off-limits because she's family, dumbass." Cameron stood, grabbing his stick, jaw tight. "And because I don't need my sister mixed up with anyone on this team. You'd chew her up and forget her name by Tuesday."
"Sounds like somebody's protective," Danny said, singsong, and the whole room burst into noise, whistles, laughter, somebody chanting ‘Cameron's got a stepsister crush’ until Coach Reyes stuck his head in and told them all to shut up and get on the ice.
Cameron skated the first ten minutes of practice harder than he needed to, slamming into drills like the boards had personally offended him. It didn't help. Nothing helped, because the truth sitting ugly in his chest was that Marco wasn't entirely wrong, and that terrified him more than anything a defenseman could throw at him.
Lena found out she'd become campus gossip by third period.
"Okay, so." Her new roommate, Priya, dropped into the seat beside her in Intro to Media Ethics, eyes wide with the specific delight of someone about to deliver news. "Is it true you're living with Cameron Hayes?"
"How do you already know that."
"Everyone knows that. Marco Ruiz posted a story an hour ago, something about his 'off-limits stepsister.'" Priya air-quoted with visible glee. "You're a rumor now. Congratulations."
Lena's stomach did something complicated. "He called me off-limits?"
"To the entire hockey team, apparently."
She didn't know whether to be flattered or furious. She landed somewhere closer to furious, mostly because some small, stupid part of her chest had gone warm at the idea of Cameron Hayes standing in a locker room, staking a claim on her like she belonged to him.
She did not belong to him. She needed to remember that.
She ran into Marco Ruiz outside the student union that afternoon, and in hindsight, ‘ran into’ was generous, he clearly clocked her from across the courtyard and made a beeline.
"So you're the stepsister," he said, falling into step beside her, all easy charm and a smile that had probably worked on a hundred girls before her. "Marco. I play with Cameron."
"I heard."
"All good things, I hope."
"He called me off-limits, so." She shrugged. "Interpret that however you want."
Marco laughed, delighted, like she'd just confirmed something he already suspected. "Off-limits is Cameron-speak for ‘don't you dare’. He's never said that about anyone." He leaned in slightly, dropping his voice into something warmer. "For what it's worth, I don't really listen when people tell me not to want something."
Lena felt herself smile despite everything, Marco was easy, harmless-seeming, the kind of flirt that didn't ask for anything real underneath it. "Careful. I bite."
"Counting on it."
That's when a hand landed on the back of her locker, no, on the wall beside her head, Cameron's arm suddenly there, his whole body angled between her and Marco like he'd materialized out of nowhere.
"Ruiz," Cameron said, voice deadly calm. "Don't you have conditioning in twenty minutes?"
"Just saying hi to your sister, man." Marco held both hands up, grinning, entirely too pleased with himself. "Relax."
"I am relaxed."
"You look like you're about to break my jaw."
"Give me a reason." Cameron's eyes hadn't left Marco's face, but his shoulder had somehow drifted closer to Lena's, blocking her from view like a wall being built in real time.
Marco laughed under his breath, backed away with his hands still raised, and shot Lena one last grin over his shoulder. "See you around, off-limits."
The second he was gone, Lena rounded on Cameron, arms crossed. "What was that?"
"That was me doing you a favor."
"I didn't ask for a favor. I was having a perfectly normal conversation."
"With Marco Ruiz, there's no such thing as a normal conversation." Cameron's jaw ticked. "He's not a good guy, Lena. He collects people. He'll say whatever gets him what he wants and then he's gone by morning."
"And you'd know that how? Personal experience?"
"I'd know because I've watched him do it to a dozen girls on this campus." His voice was tight, controlled, but something underneath it wasn't controlled at all. "I'm not going to watch him do it to you."
"Why do you even care?" She stepped closer, chin lifted, refusing to be the one who backed down first. "We're not really family, Cameron. You made that clear the first night. So why does it matter to you who I talk to?"
Something crossed his face, a war happening behind his eyes, fast and unresolved. For a second she thought he might actually answer honestly.
"Because I said you're off-limits," he said instead, low and rough. "To everyone. Including him."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
He turned and walked off toward the rink before she could push further, leaving her standing there with her pulse hammering and a question she couldn't shake.
‘Off-limits to everyone.’ Including him? Was that what he meant, or was that just what she wanted to hear?
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from an unknown number, no name attached.
‘Ask Cameron what really happened to your dad's career. Ask him before he lies to your face again.’
Lena's stomach dropped straight through the pavement.
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