Page 55 of Pucking Them
I rest the phone on the pillow between us. Then I stroke the soft skin of Robyn’s cheek. Her breath is warm against my lips.
Our serious gazes meet.
Yet I can’t help glancing back at my phone, which is still displaying the article and a photograph of the couple with their arms around each other.
Nicole is short and wiry. She may have been startlingly pretty when she was younger with the same blond hair and gray eyes as the twins.
I hate that.
Except, she looks prematurely aged, as if she could be their grandmother, rather than their mom.
Craig is tall with dirty blond hair tangled over his face and dull, watery blue eyes. He’s gaunt with thinning hair.
Their clothes are cheap but appear to be new.
I bet that this trash tabloid bought the clothes and chose the non-threatening pose.
Can you tell whether someone is monstrous underneath the smiles?
Nicole and Craig appear to be the type of people who would fuss over grazed knees and take you to soccer practice. Looking at them, you would have guessed that they’d raised Eden and Shay with the love that the twins deserve.
Yet it’s a lie.
I pick up the phone again. But Robyn gently takes the mobile out of my hand and places it too high on the pillows for me to see the screen.
“Hey, stop it,” she says, softly. “You must be able to quote it word for word by now. It’s not helping Shay or Eden to keep looking at this.”
“What will? Finding the journalist who thought it was a good idea to print this shit, then stuff the printed copy down their throat?”
“That would at least makemefeel better.” Robyn kisses me, dragging my attention fully onto her. “Calm down, papa bear. Shay and Eden are safe. They’re just down the corridor. They survived and escaped that hell. We’ll see them through this. And what we do about it depends on how the twins want me to spin things. We can simply not comment and hope the interest dies down by itself. The important thing is to do less and choose to only do the right things. If you put out your own version, then the press will feed on it like piranhas. You’re making it more of a story. But then, Shay may want to hold his own open interview.”
“He’ll never do that.”
“I know. This sucks. But Shay and Eden are the victims in this. They haven’t done anything wrong. So, they have shitty biological parents and were adopted. It’s not like it’s a scandal about them doing something wrong. The fans will be sympathetic.”
How is Shay meant to focus on his hockey?
He’s just been chewed out for being distracted by Wilder. Wemustwin the next game tomorrow.
“Do you think that all of this is real? What if it’s fake? These Webbs may not even be their parents.” I narrow my eyes. “This could be a tactic to fuck with us like dropping Wilder on us last minute.”
“Maybe. But there are these details in it, which match with what Shay has shared with me. How would the journalist have known them if the whole thing is fake? How can we find out for sure?”
I give a dark smile. “I’ve already sent a text to Garcia. He’s tracking down the journalist and thesources.”
Robyn snuggles closer to me, draping her arm over my hip. She caresses me in circles that soothe her as much as they do me.
“If they’re the twins’ genuine biological parents, do you think that someone has brought them to America?” She asks in a small voice.
“They better not have done for their own fucking sakes.”
The twins’ adoptive parents — the ones whodidlook after their hurts and took them to ice hockey as well as soccer practice — haven’t even seen the twins play pro hockey live. They have only been able to see that the twins have a home where they are loved over Facetime.
The twins’ true parents are going to see that their sons are safe and loved. It’s an omission that I won’t let pass any longer.
“You look comfortable. Are we okay to join you, darlin’?” Shay’s voice says from the door but it’s shyer and less certain than I would like.
Shay should know that he is always welcome in this bedroom.
