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CHAPTER 112 - GAME DAY
publish date:
2026-05-11 07:24:36
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PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE THIRTY-SEVEN - TIME ZONES
NAOMI’S POVI fly the next morning from the small airport in my mother’s town that has just one terminal and four gates.The flight to Tokyo is seven hours of altitude and silence. I’m sitting in an economy seat with a passport and a ring on my finger that I will need to remove before I land to avoid suspicion from Caleb’s parents.The ring.I look at the gold band catching the reading light above my seat during the flight, and I remember the moment Rhys put this ring on my finger in a garden with everyone watching as we said our vows.I twist the ring. Once. Twice. The metal warm from my body heat. I don’t take it off yet. Tokyo is a connection. Seoul is the destination. The ring comes off at the destination when the performance begins.I land in Tokyo, then transfer and board the Seoul flight.Three more hours.Somewhere over the Sea of Japan my phone connects to the aircraft Wi-Fi and the texts load.Rhys, two hours ago: Land safe. Love you.Miles, four hours ago: Mom ate soup toda
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE THIRTY-SIX - TOO QUIET
RHYS’ POVThe call ends and I hold the phone against my ear for three seconds after the line goes dead because the silence after her voice is still closer to her than the silence of the apartment without it.I put the phone on the counter, screen up, just in case she calls back.She won’t call back. I know that.The tone she used means she’s on autopilot.I open the fridge. Close it. Open it again. The fridge contains leftover Thai and a protein shake and the sad pasta from two days ago and none of it is relevant but the opening and closing gives my hands something to do while my brain processes the call.Korea. A month. Without coming home first.The logistics make sense though. She’s already on the East Coast with her mother, so flying to Portland to repack and then flying to Seoul would add a day of travel, and a day of travel is a day she could be working.But none of it explains why she didn’t fold her clothes when she packed.I sit at the kitchen table with the spreadsheet still
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE THIRTY-FIVE - THE CONDITION
I sit with this for two days. I sit with it while holding my mom’s hand and watching chemo drip and eating cafeteria sandwiches and texting Miles and calling Rhys and saying fine. The calculation is running underneath every interaction in away that is consuming the parts of me that I need to function.The calculation asks: what would I sacrifice to keep my mother alive?The calculation already knows the answer because the answer was decided six years ago in a different hospital room when I learned that the gap between alive and not-alive is measured in days, not months, and the days run out regardless of what you sacrifice – but the not sacrificing, the standing still while the clock runs, is the thing that follows you into every subsequent room for the rest of your life.My father died fast. He had a countdown shorter than anyone expected because his body had already decided before the doctors finished the paperwork.If I had known. If someone had come to me during those weeks and sa
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE THIRTY-FOUR - HIGH PRICE
I reach for her hand immediately and hold it like I’m trying to prove something to myself. Her fingers are thinner than they were when we last saw, and it immediately makes me recall the specific pressure of a hand in mine that is losing weight and the way thinning fingers feel when they close around yours with less force than they used to.I’ve kept those memories locked away for about six years because it contains a hospital bed carrying a man whose hand went from squeezing to still over the course of an hour.“Mom.” My voice is carefully level because I know my falling apart would make her feel worse. “Tell me everything. The truth.”My mom looks at me with a sad expression. “The leukaemia is acute myeloid. AML. But the doctors are starting treatment this week.” She recites the words like she’s been repeating them to herself in private. “The oncologist says the response rates are reasonable for my age and the specific mutation, and Richard has already called four specialists and bu
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE THIRTY-THREE - QUIET APARTMENT
RHYS' POVShe cried after with her face against my chest. The tears arrived silently, and I felt them before I hear them.I held her. Didn’t speak. Naomi’s tears have a schedule and the schedule doesn’t accept interruptions.But the crying was wrong.This crying didn’t resolve. It just stopped. And stopping wasn’t the same thing. Her body went still against my chest with a weight that wasn’t rest. She was rationing it. Like she was saving whatever the crying didn’t consume for something she hadn’t told me about yet.Her hand on my chest, like it always has been – palm flat on my sternum, her body’s nightly check that mine is still running. But the hand was heavy.She pretended to sleep. I watched her do it – eyes closed, breathing regulated, jaw tight, fingers rigid. Every sign of unconsciousness performed while the woman underneath stayed wide awake. A replica of my wife. Identical in every dimension I can see. Wrong in the one I can’t.Something is off beyond the cancer.I can feel i
PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE THIRTY-TWO - THE TERMINAL
At the terminal he pulls the suitcase from the back seat and sets it on the curb, then he stands in front of me with his hands in his jacket pockets and his breath making small clouds in the air.I look at his concerned face, and I want to tell him everything. Caleb at the door. The money. The condition. The hospital in Seoul. The treatment. The kiss from two years ago that I’ve been carrying in my pocket like a stone that gets heavier with every month I don’t put it down.I want to tell him so bad that my mouth opens, the first syllable of Caleb’s name forming against my teeth, but then I remember that the telling would require explaining why Caleb knows about the cancer before Rhys does, and explaining that would require admitting that I sat on the kitchen floor for five hours processing alone instead of calling my husband, and admitting that would mean looking at the pattern and seeing it clearly for the first time.“Call me when you land,” he says.“I will.”“Call me when you see
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