All Chapters of PUCKED BY MY STEPBROTHER: A FORBIDDEN HOCKEY ROMANCE: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

I sat on the edge of Rhys's bed and watched my world tilt sideways and did nothing to stop it.Because what could I do? What was the plan – the plan I'd never made, the conversation I'd never prepared for, the exit strategy I'd never built because I was too busy tracing tattoos in the dark and pretending that love was a fortress when it was really just a house with no locks? I'd known this was coming. From the very first night – the bar, the bathroom, the stranger who turned out to be the one person on earth I couldn't have – I'd known that every choice I made was building toward a moment exactly like this one. And I'd made them anyway. Every single one. Eyes open, name known, consequences understood and willfully ignored because his hands on my skin felt more real than any future I could picture without him.This was the price. And it was being collected now, at six in the morning, through a door I couldn't see past.I could hear them. Not every word – the hallway muffled the details

I drove to his apartment with my heart in my throat and every worst-case scenario playing behind my eyes – Rhys at Richard's office, Rhys on the phone screaming, Rhys doing the thing he always did when the world pressed too hard, which was press back harder and worry about the wreckage later.He opened the door before I knocked. Like he'd been standing there. Like he'd been waiting for me to show up ever since he'd hung up, knowing I would, because that's what we did – we crashed toward each other when everything else was falling apart, drawn together by the same gravity that was going to destroy us.He looked calm. That was worse than anger. Rhys's calm was the eye of a hurricane – quiet at the centre, catastrophic at the edges."What else did he say.""Rhys–""All of it, Naomi. What else."I sat on his couch. He stood by the counter. Arms crossed. Jaw set. Listening the way he listened when it cost him something – completely still, absorbing every word like a blow he'd decided to ta

I always sat in the fourth row now.Same spot. Same routine. Laptop open on my knees, a document I wasn't writing pulled up on screen, my eyes tracking number seventeen on the ice instead of the cursor blinking on the page. It had become a ritual without either of us naming it – me in the stands, him on the ice, the invisible thread between us that pulled taut every time he took a hit and loosened every time he skated away from one. I told myself I came to study. I came to watch him breathe.Today was different. I could feel it from the first whistle.Rhys was carrying everything onto the ice and it was spilling out of his body in ways I hadn't seen before. The scholarship. Richard at six AM. My mom refusing to come downstairs. Miles's text glowing on the kitchen counter. The word on the whiteboard that Zara had erased but that lived behind my eyelids every time I blinked. He was carrying all of it, and the weight was converting into something dangerous – his checks harder than necess

Zara called at 7 AM. Not texted – called. Zara didn't call unless something was on fire."Don't go on social media."Which meant I immediately went on social media.The screenshots were everywhere. A girl I'd never seen – blonde, pretty, soft features – claiming she was pregnant with Rhys Maddox's baby. DMs that looked like his account, his profile picture, his handle. Conversations that referenced specific details – his apartment, his schedule, a scar through his left eyebrow. Intimate enough to be convincing. Specific enough to make my stomach turn inside out.The hockey group chat had it first. Which meant thirty players knew before I'd even finished reading the thread. Which meant the coaching staff would know by lunch. Which meant by the time I walked across campus today, every pair of eyes I passed would be calculating whether the girl with the anonymous blog and the viral love story moment was also the girl who'd been publicly humiliated by a pregnancy scandal she didn't see co

My mom wasn't asking. I understood that now.The second call came Wednesday morning – same careful tone, same neutral phrasing, same invisible scaffolding of a decision already made. "I've set up your room. Miles is excited to have you home. Richard thinks a few weeks will give everyone perspective." Every sentence a closed door disguised as an open hand. She wasn't inviting me home. She was relocating me. And refusing would mean choosing Rhys over my mother publicly, permanently, in a way that couldn't be walked back.I packed a bag. Not much – clothes for two weeks, my laptop, the notebook I wrote first drafts in. Sienna sat on her bed and watched me fold shirts with the quiet attention of someone who wanted to say something and was choosing not to."Two weeks," I said. Not to her. To myself."Two weeks," she repeated. Not believing it either.I drove to Rhys's apartment. Parked in the lot. Sat in the car for four minutes staring at his window on the third floor, the light on behind