Filed to story: Addicted To My Hockey Stepbrother
“I’m not telling you this to hurt you. I just think you deserve to know who you’re spending time with.”
The worst part wasn’t the words. The worst part was the expression on his face – gentle, worried, the perfect performance of a man who cared. And somewhere underneath the manipulation, buried so deep even he might not have known it was there, maybe a sliver of it was real. Maybe some tiny, calcified piece of Caleb Park actually did worry about me.
That was the most dangerous version of him. The one I couldn’t fully hate.
I found Rhys in the weight room after practice.
He was alone. Headphones in, knuckles taped, hitting a heavy bag with the kind of focused violence that made the air feel thick. I watched him for ten seconds before he noticed me – ten seconds of watching his fists connect with leather and thinking nearly killed someone and feeling my stomach turn.
He pulled his headphones out. “Hey.”
“Tell me about the expulsion.”
His face changed. Not dramatically – Rhys didn’t do dramatic. But something behind his eyes closed, like a door slamming shut in a house I’d only just started learning the rooms of.
“Who told you.”
“Does it matter? Is it true? Did you put someone in the hospital?”
Silence. His jaw working. Tape creaking around his knuckles as his fists opened and closed.
“It’s not what he made it sound like.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
“I can’t – it’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“Naomi-“
“You nearly killed someone, Rhys. A teammate. Fractured jaw. Broken ribs. And you didn’t think that was something I should know? Before I slept with you? Before I let you-“
“I said it’s not what it sounds like.” His voice was hard now. Flat. The shutters fully down, every window dark. He was standing five feet away but he might as well have been on another continent. “Drop it.”
“I’m not going to drop it. You asked me to trust you. You made a deal with me. You slept in a bed with me and told me I was the most dangerous thing that ever happened to you and now I’m finding out from Caleb – from Caleb – that you-“
“From Caleb.” He laughed. Short, ugly, nothing like humor. “Of course from Caleb. And you believed him. You heard it from the guy who read your love letter to a room full of hockey players and you just – took his word.”
“What else am I supposed to do when you won’t give me yours?”
The room went quiet. Just the heavy bag swinging gently from the chain and both of us breathing too hard for two people standing still.
He grabbed his gym bag. Walked past me. Didn’t touch me, didn’t brush my shoulder, left a gap between us wide enough to feel intentional.
“Rhys-“
The door closed behind him.
***
I didn’t sleep that night.
Lay in bed staring at the ceiling while Sienna slept and the campus went quiet and every version of Rhys I’d collected played on a loop behind my eyes. The stranger at the bar who’d called me brave. The boy in the kitchen who’d touched me like I was a secret worth keeping. The man on the ice who hit so hard the boards cracked. The look on his face when he’d said it’s not what it sounds like – not angry, not defensive. Scared.
Nearly killed someone.
I’d seen flashes. The way his eyes went cold during games. The body checks that were harder than necessary. The split knuckles he wore like accessories. I’d told myself it was hockey – that violence on ice was different, contained, sanctioned. But what if it wasn’t? What if the boy who touched me like I was glass was the same boy who’d put someone in a hospital bed?
And what if Caleb was right?
That thought was the worst one. Not because it might be true – because of where it came from. Because Caleb had planted it with surgical precision, watered it with concern, and was now standing back watching it grow. And I couldn’t tell if the seed was poison or truth because that was exactly what Caleb was best at – making you unable to tell the difference.
He found me the next day. Of course he did.
“I shouldn’t have dropped that on you like that,” he said. Coffee shop again. My coffee shop, my time slot, my corner. “That wasn’t fair. I just worry about you.”
I worry about you. Four words that sounded like love and functioned like a leash.
“I’m fine, Caleb.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you haven’t slept.” He reached out. Touched my arm. Gentle. “I’m here if you need me. I’ve always been here.”
I pulled my arm back. Said nothing. Left.
Two days. No texts from Rhys. No appearances at the library, no showing up at my lunch table, no midnight messages. The silence was deafening – worse than fighting, worse than arguing, because at least anger meant he was still in the room. Silence meant he’d left.
On the third morning, I walked to his apartment. Not to fix things – to end them. The deal was a mistake. All of it was a mistake. I’d write the essay on my own, avoid Caleb on my own, rebuild my life on my own the way I should have from the start.
I knocked.
The door opened.
