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2026-04-14 21:03:27A 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 night’s bad decisions.
“Are you deadass?” Joe’s voice exploded through the speaker. No good morning.
“Coach asked us to be present this morning. We have a new member. And you—as our captain—are still in bed?”
My eyes flew open.
Shit.
I shot upright so fast the room tilted. Sunlight stabbed through the blinds like punishment. My head pounded in protest, my mouth dry as sandpaper. I glanced at the time.
Ten minutes.
Practice started in ten fucking minutes.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. Memories from last night came in flashes—neon lights, bass shaking the floor, a body pressed against mine in a dark hallway. Hands. A mouth. Teeth grazing my shoulder. The smell of cologne and sweat.
I got absolutely wasted.
And thoroughly wrecked by— What was his name again? Wait, did he even leave? When? I sure do hope no one saw him. I don’t want to start explaining why a man is leaving my dorm so early.
I frowned, trying to piece it together. I didn’t push to, it’s probably for the best. Fuck and forget about it.
“You better be joking,” Joe continued when I didn’t answer fast enough. “Coach is already in a mood. If you stroll in late today, he’s gonna lose it.”
“I will be there soon,” I said, already kicking off my sheets and stumbling out of bed. My head spun, but panic sobered me up faster than coffee ever could.
“You have five minutes before I tell him you died.”
“Love you too,” I muttered, hanging up before he could reply.
I rushed around my room, dragging on sweats and a hoodie, grabbing my duffel bag off the chair. My reflection in the mirror made me pause for half a second.
Messy hair. Faint marks along my collarbone.
I swore under my breath and yanked the hoodie higher.
Captain.
Get it together.
**********
By the time I skidded into the rink, my lungs were burning and my hangover had evolved into full-blown self-hatred. The familiar smell of ice and sweat hit me as I pushed through the double doors.
Coach’s voice echoed across the rink.
Great. I’m late.
The team was already gathered at center ice, helmets off, sticks resting against their shoulders. Coach stood in front of them, arms crossed behind his back, that permanent crease between his brows looking deeper than usual.
I slipped in quietly at the back, hoping to blend in.
No such luck.
Coach’s eyes snapped to me immediately.
“Nice of you to join us, Captain.”
A few of the guys snickered under their breath. Joe shot me a look that clearly said you’re dead.
“Sorry, Coach,” I muttered, jaw tight.
He held my stare for a second longer than necessary, then turned back to the team.
“As I was saying,” he continued, voice hard and steady, “last night was a close call. Too close. We got lucky.”
The mood shifted instantly. The celebration from hours ago felt distant now.
“Harper took a bad hit in the third period. Torn ligaments. He’s out for the season.”
A low curse left someone’s mouth. My stomach dropped.
Harper.
Damn.
He’d gone down hard against the boards, but I hadn’t realized it was that bad.
Coach nodded once. “He won’t be joining us anytime soon.”
“But,” Coach continued, clasping his hands behind his back again, “we’re fortunate.”
“We have a transfer student joining us this semester. Played varsity at his previous school. Strong stats. Solid build. He’ll be filling Harper’s position.”
A murmur rippled through the group. Joe leaned slightly toward me. “Told you.” I ignored him, focusing on Coach.
“Captain,” Coach said suddenly.
Shit.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll make sure he integrates properly. I expect leadership from you. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“So team, I’d like you to meet Noah…” Coach paused, turning slightly toward the bench.
My stomach dropped before I even looked.
Please don’t.
Please—
“Oh fuck no,” I muttered under my breath as he stepped forward.
It was him.
Dark hair falling perfectly messy over his forehead. Broad shoulders stretching the practice jersey. That same sharp jaw I had my hand wrapped around last night.
“He’s our new winger,” Coach continued, completely unaware that my entire nervous system had just short-circuited. “Transferred this semester. Solid stats. He’ll be taking Harper’s spot.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
That’s the guy I hooked up with yesterday.
Of course he is.
Because apparently the universe woke up today and chose violence.
A winger.
Which means he’s not just on the team.
He’s on my line.
I felt Joe glance at me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he muttered.
I couldn’t even respond.
Noah’s eyes found mine instantly.
Recognition flickered.
Then came that slow, dangerous smirk.
The same one he wore when he had me pressed against the wall in that dark hallway. The same one right before he—
I forced the memory down.
Bab terbaru
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother The Fall
Noah~The national news hit before lunch. I was sitting in the back of the lecture hall with Theo’s knee pressed against mine under the desk when my phone lit up with a breaking-alert banner from every major network at once. The volume on the muted classroom projector somehow managed to catch the crawl at the bottom of the feed someone had left open on their laptop two rows ahead. Blackwood University. Hockey star. Private messages. Photographs. The words “suspended pending investigation” scrolled past in white letters against a red bar while a polished anchor’s face filled the small screen, lips moving in the familiar cadence of manufactured outrage. I did not need the audio. The caption alone was enough. Theo’s name and mine sat side by side beneath a still of us walking across the quad that morning, hands linked, faces calm. The freeze-frame made the contact look deliberate, almost staged, which was exactly what we had intended and exactly what the networks now wanted to dissect.
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother The Leak
I woke up to the sound of my phone vibrating non-stop against the desk. The screen was full of notifications before I even unlocked it. Messages from Melody. Messages from Jeremy. Group chats lighting up one after another. I sat up and opened the first link someone had sent. Then the second. Then the third. Photos I had never seen before. Screenshots of messages that looked real enough to hurt. Old posts mixed with new ones. Half-truths stacked on top of actual facts until it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Everything had landed at once.Theo was already awake beside me. He stared at his own phone with the same tight expression I felt on my face. The room was quiet except for the constant buzzing from both devices. Outside the window the sky was still early-morning gray. Campus had not fully woken up yet, but the internet already had.“They released everything,” he said.I nodded and kept scrolling. There were clearer photos of us walking together. Screenshots th
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother Checkmate
I sat in the study with the lights low and the latest reports open across the desk. Every update from the last forty-eight hours was there. The press conference clip. The comments online. The quiet messages from people still loyal enough to keep me informed. Theo had walked into a room full of reporters and spoken like he was the one in control. He had refused to deny the relationship. He had said he was done letting other people tell his story. The words had already spread further than any of the earlier pressure points.I leaned back in the chair and stared at the paused video on the screen. My son looked calm. Steady. Certain of himself in a way that made the problem worse. He had always been talented. That was never the issue. The issue was the path he kept choosing. The people he kept choosing. Every decision pulled him further from the future that had been built for him since he first stepped on the ice.Legacy was not a soft word. It was the reason the company still held its po
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother Press Conference
Theo~I walked into the small media room on the lower level of the athletic complex with my hands steady and my pulse louder than I wanted it to be. The decision Noah and I had made that morning still sat clear in my chest. No more pretending. No more letting the blurry photo and the hallway speculation write the only version of us that existed in public. The room was already half full when I arrived—local sports reporters, two campus journalists, a camera from the regional network that had been camped near the practice facility for days. They quieted when they saw me. Someone adjusted a microphone on the long table at the front. The air smelled like coffee and the faint metallic tang of equipment that had been running too long.I sat down without waiting for an invitation. The chair scraped lightly against the floor. A stack of notes I did not need rested under my hand. I had not prepared a statement in the formal sense. I had only decided that the silence was finished.The first qu
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother Enough
Noah~I woke before the alarm and lay still in the dim blue light that filtered through the thin dorm curtains. Theo’s arm was heavy across my waist, his breathing deep and even against the back of my neck. The events of the previous night still sat close to the surface—the way he had broken down after meeting my mother, the raw comparison between her quiet gratitude and his father’s conditional control, the long minutes I had held him while the pressure of weeks finally found an exit. Something in me had shifted while I listened to him cry. The careful distance we had maintained in public, the half-truths, the way we still angled our bodies away from each other when too many eyes were present—all of it suddenly felt like a coat that no longer fit.I slipped out from under his arm carefully, sat on the edge of the bed, and watched the slow rise and fall of his shoulders. The room was quiet except for the distant sound of someone moving in the hallway and the soft hum of the radiator.
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother Home
Theo~I walked back to the dorm with Reina’s words still sitting in the center of my chest, heavier and lighter at the same time. Thank you for loving my son. Spoken without conditions. Without a list of requirements I had to meet first. Without the quiet threat that the affection could be withdrawn if I failed to perform. I kept replaying the moment in the conference room—the calm way she had looked at me, the deliberate step around the table, the hug that had arrived instead of the interrogation I had braced for.The hallway outside our room was empty. I unlocked the door and stepped inside, closing it softly behind me. Noah was at the desk with his laptop open, headphones around his neck, the glow of the screen lighting the side of his face. He looked up the second the latch clicked and read whatever was written across my expression before I could arrange it into something neutral.“How did it go?” he asked.“She’s not what I expected.”Noah closed the laptop and turned the chair t
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother Move-In Night
Theodore~I should've fucking said no. That was the first thought that hit me when I saw the moving truck pull up but the second thought was far worse.Why is he actually here?I stood by the window of my dorm, arms crossed, watching like it was some kind of bad joke the universe was trying to sel
Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother 4
CHAPTER 4Theodore~“Mom, you can’t do that!”My voice cracked and pitched higher than I meant it to. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to breathe through my nose before I completely embarrassed myself. Jesus Christ. How could she possibly think this was okay? Sharing a dorm was one thing.Sharin
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 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
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