Filed to story: Addicted To My Hockey Stepbrother
“Yeah.” I stepped back from Caleb. “We’re done here.”
I walked toward my friends without looking back. I could feel his eyes on me the entire length of the hallway. Watching me leave for the second time in a week. But this time, I wasn’t crying.
Outside, the cold air hit my face and I exhaled for what felt like the first time in an hour.
Sienna lasted approximately eleven seconds.
“So. Your anonymous bar bathroom stranger is the hottest hockey transfer in the country. Who now goes to our school. And plays on the same team as your ex-best-friend-slash-heartbreak. And just shoved said heartbreak into a wall. In front of you.”
“When you say it like that-“
“It sounds insane? Because it IS insane. This is not real life. This is a W@ttpad plot.”
“He scored four goals,” Zara said, almost to herself. “Four goals and then fought Caleb in the hallway. That man is chaos.”
“That man left a bite mark on Naomi’s collarbone,” Sienna corrected. “That man is our chaos now.”
“He’s not our anything. I didn’t know he was a student. I definitely didn’t know he played for Thornfield. It was one night.”
“One night that just showed up to your school with a grudge and a hockey stick.”
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out, grateful for the distraction.
Mom: Hi sweetie! Richard wants to do dinner this weekend. His son just transferred nearby so he’ll be joining. Would be nice for everyone to meet! Saturday 7pm? xx
I stared at the text.
Richard. Mom’s boyfriend. The man she’d been dating for almost a year. The man whose last name was –
Maddox.
I looked up. Looked at Sienna. Looked back at my phone.
Richard (MADDOX) wants to do dinner. His son just transferred nearby.
His son.
I was very, very sure I’d seen that same name on the back of a jersey tonight. Number seventeen. Scar through the eyebrow. Hands that had been inside me three days ago.
Please let Maddox be a common last name.
Please! Let Maddox be a common last name!
Please!!!!
I had asked the universe for one thing. One single, solitary thing: please let Maddox be a common last name.
The universe said no.
The universe said absolutely not, and also, here’s a restaurant table where you’ll be sitting three feet from the man who made you cum in a bar bathroom while your mother passes the bread basket.
The restaurant was Italian. White tablecloths. Candles. The kind of place my mom picked when she wanted to impress Richard, which was always, because my mother had been glowing like a woman reborn ever since she started dating him and I didn’t have the heart to ruin it.
I was seated between Miles and my mother. Across from Richard – tall, silver-templed, the kind of handsome that came with money and good genetics. He was warm in a practiced way. Polished.
And next to Richard, directly across from me, was his son.
Rhys Maddox. Number seventeen. Scar through the eyebrow. Grey eyes that hadn’t left my face since I walked in and realized that God had a sense of humor and it was cruel.
He looked different in civilian clothes. Black shirt, sleeves pushed to his elbows, tattoos on full display – the date on his wrist, the constellation on his forearm, the handwriting that curled toward his elbow. His knuckles were still bruised. His hair was pushed back. He looked like he’d walked out of a cologne ad that had been banned for being too suggestive.
His foot found mine under the table within the first thirty seconds.
I moved my foot. He followed. Pressed the side of his shoe against mine – not playing footsie, not being cute. Just there. A point of contact that said I know exactly what I did to you and I’m going to sit here and eat pasta with your mother while you think about it.
“It’s so wonderful that you kids already know each other from school!” Mom beamed across the table, completely oblivious to the fact that her daughter was having a cardiovascular event over the antipasti. “Rhys, Naomi says the whole campus is buzzing about your first game.”
“Is that right.” His eyes flicked to mine. “Didn’t realize she was paying attention.”
“Four goals,” Miles said, mouth full of bread. My thirteen-year-old brother had been vibrating since we arrived – a real hockey player at dinner, an actual Thornfield Wolf sitting across from him. “Dude. Four goals in your first game. That’s insane.”
“Miles, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mom said.
“It was a good game,” Rhys said. To Miles. But his foot pressed harder against mine.
“We’ve met,” he added, glancing at My mom. Casual. Easy. The way you’d mention running into someone at the grocery store, not the way you’d reference a bar bathroom and a bite mark and the sound a girl makes when she cums so hard she forgets her own name.
“We’ve met” – and the way he said it made my face burn from my jaw to my hairline.
Dinner was forty-five minutes of exquisite torture. Richard talked about his business. Mom talked about the engagement timeline – casual mentions of when we’re all one family that made my stomach flip for entirely new reasons. Miles asked Rhys about hockey with the unfiltered worship of a thirteen-year-old boy who’d finally found something more interesting than his phone. Rhys answered every question with patience I hadn’t expected – real patience, not performed.
And the entire time, his foot stayed against mine. His eyes found me every few minutes. Not staring – glancing. Quick, deliberate looks that landed like fingertips on bare skin.
