LOGINShare
Chapter Thirty: Clara
publish date:
2026-06-25 02:32:45
Latest chapter
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Thirty: Clara
POV: RileyI sat with my phone in my hand for ten minutes before I dialed. I had the number memorized without ever consciously learning it, the way you know things that have existed in the background of your life for as long as you can remember. Aunt Vera. Birthday calls. The occasional holiday.She picked up on the third ring."Riley." Warmth in her voice, and surprise, and underneath both of them something else. Something that arrived with my voice and arranged itself immediately into watchfulness."Hi," I said. "Is this an okay time.""It is always an okay time for you. Are you all right? You sound...""I am okay," I said. "I want to ask you something.""Of course."I looked at the window. The quad was its ordinary afternoon self outside. Students moving in both directions. Backpacks and coffee cups and the unhurried motion of people who had nowhere urgent to be. Everything ordinary. Everything completely indifferent to what I was about to ask."I want to ask you about someone name
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Twenty-Nine: Liam Asks The Wrong Question
POV: RayPractice ran until almost noon. Defensive zone coverage, taken apart and rebuilt from the ground up, which required arguing about every piece before putting it back together slightly differently. Useful and exhausting in equal measure.I was pulling off my skates on the bench when Liam dropped down beside me.He had the look. I knew that look. I had been on the receiving end of it twice in three years and both times it had preceded a conversation I had not wanted but had needed."Talk," he said."I am taking my skates off.""Talk while you take them off."I kept working at the laces."You have been somewhere else for two weeks," he said. "You missed film review. You have been taking routes across campus that go nowhere. Derek said you came out of the east corridor yesterday and nobody takes the east corridor.""I was walking.""Ray.""I was.""You have been walking to specific places you do not want anyone to know about," he said. "And whatever is happening there has been get
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Twenty-Eight: Marvel's Play
POV: MarvelCoach Reyes called me in before practice. He had a printout in his hand and the kind of expression that meant either very good news or very bad news and he had not decided yet which framing to use."Sit down," he said.I sat.He slid the printout across the desk. Academic affairs letterhead. A confirmation receipt dated three days ago. Professor Hartwell had submitted a formal letter of recommendation on my behalf to the regional scouting network. The summary paragraph used words like leadership profile and integrity under pressure and exceptional capacity for sustained focus.I read it twice. Then I looked up."When did this happen.""Three days ago. I was not informed until this morning. He sent it directly, outside the standard athletics channels." Coach Reyes leaned back. "Do you know Hartwell personally.""I know his daughter."He said nothing. He had been coaching for twenty years and he understood exactly what that sentence meant and what it left out."A recommendat
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Ice Doesn't Lie
POV: RileyCoach Farrow ran us through the showcase sequence four times before she called us in. We gathered at center ice, seven skaters in a loose arc, breathing steam into the cold air, and she looked at each face the way she did before something that mattered."Adjustments," she said. "Effective today, the lead position in the synchronized sequence goes to Riley."The arc went quiet. Not the quiet of people with nothing to say. The quiet of people making decisions about what to say and how loudly.I kept my eyes forward. I had learned early that the moment you scan a room for reaction, you have already surrendered the higher ground. You scan when you are uncertain. When you are certain, you look straight ahead.Coach Farrow continued. New entry formations. Modified timing on the second transition. A change to the closing position. I filed it all into the part of my brain where instruction turned directly into muscle memory.When she sent us back to practice I went immediately into
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Twenty-Six: Breakfast Like Nothing Happened
POV: RileyFour hours of sleep. I knew exactly because I checked the clock before I closed my eyes and again when I opened them, and the number was simple and honest and the only uncomplicated thing in my immediate environment.I lay still for sixty seconds. I ran a deliberate inventory. What I knew. What I did not know. What needed to happen today and what needed to wait.What I knew: my phone had been compromised since before I arrived on campus. My father had built a surveillance system around me that included hired monitoring, remote access to my device, and a file documenting my psychology. The man I had been confiding in most recently was operating under false identity and had been hired to build proximity to me.What I did not know: exactly what Declan Morrow's current role was, who he was working for now, and what the woman who called Ray was working toward.What needed to happen today: get through it. Skate practice, classes, normal face on, nothing unusual. Give Naomi the 24
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Twenty-five: The Other Watcher
POV: RayI did not sleep. I lay in the dark for an hour and then moved to the desk because lying in the dark was accomplishing nothing except giving my brain an unlit room to run laps in.My laptop was open. The cursor blinked at me from a blank search field. I had been sitting there for twenty minutes and had not typed anything that led anywhere useful.Declan Morrow.I typed it and pulled up what I had already looked at three times. University graduate student directory. Clinical psychology, second year. Advisor listed as Professor Crane, who had a faculty page and publications and an office in the psychology building. Enrolled eighteen months ago. Three credit hours this semester, one incomplete from the semester before. His photo was the standard institutional headshot that told you nothing about a person except that they had once sat in front of a camera.I pulled up his advisor's page. Professor Crane. Six years at the institution, two recent publications, nothing that flagged a
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Five: The Assignment Begins
POV: RayMonday came like a punishment. I stood outside the athletics media room with my hands in my jacket pockets, telling myself I was calm. I was not calm. I'd barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the photograph on Hartwell's desk, the girl with the laughing eyes and the swinging hai
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Four: He Said Walk Away
Riley The Rink Bar was everything I hated about hockey culture crammed into one sticky, overheated room.Blue and gold jerseys clashed everywhere I looked, Falcons and Eagles pretending to be civil while shooting daggers at each other over red plastic cups. The music was too loud, the bass vibrati
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter Three: I Need To Find Her
Riley's Pov Marvel,” I said, the word coming out as a relieved sigh.He didn’t smile. His eyes, usually so warm when they landed on me, were hard. “What’s going on?”“I was looking for you. I came down to… I saw the end of the game.” I took a step toward him, wanting to bridge the gap, to get us a
The Forbidden Puck: The Coach's Daughter Is Off Limits Chapter 1: To Baby Sit Her?
Ray's PovI should have said no.The second Professor Hartwell asked me to babysit his daughter, I should have walked out. But I didn’t. I just sat there, in the worn leather chair across from his desk, trying to figure out what game we were playing.I’d been in his office plenty of times. Usually,
You may also like
Her Graceful War Song
Summer's Blaze947.0K viewsThe CEO's Addiction To Love
Moonlight City955.3K viewsThe Heiress' Return: Six Brothers at Her Beck and Call
Night Eleven566.4K viewsSpoiled by Mr. Russell
Luminous Night1.0M viewsForbidden Fantasies A Steamy Collection
Gumnijir314 viewsFAR TOO LATE
DMU👑✍️107 viewsThe Billionaire's Contract Maid
YORMI42 viewsHis Lost Love: His Hidden Heir
Author Nwabudike24 views
