Falling For My Hockey StepbrotherUpdated at Oct 31, 2026, 00:01
“Is it bad that I want to be friends with you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Was it not you, four nights ago, that said you didn't want to be family?”
“Yes, Siri. I said family, not friends.” He shifted, his knee rubbing against mine, and I sucked in a sharp breath, wishing our knees were bare. “Friends can become something more. Family can’t. Friends can go out, get drunk, be reckless, and kiss in the back of the car. Family can’t.” He shifted again, his knee on mine again, and I swear, he was doing it on purpose. “Friends can be more, Siri. Accidents can happen in a friendship that might end up with both of us naked, and tangled together under the same sheet.”
~.~
Siri’s father had just married his fifth wife, and she already knew how it would end. But she didn't know how close she would get to her new family, or how tangled she would get with her stepbrother.
Jackson was a man who made her mouth water and her insides melt. He made her attend every hockey game even though she didn't love the sport; she just enjoyed watching him be brutal on the ice. With his intense eyes and accent, she felt things she wasn't supposed to feel for someone who was supposed to be family. So she stayed away.
Or tried to.
There was no avoiding Jackson when he was everywhere, when his foot touched hers under the dining table, or his eyes never left hers even when their parents were watching. She was only a woman, and she no longer wanted to fight this fire between them, but every time they took a step forward, ghosts from the past threw them three steps back.
A conversation left unfinished. A wound left to fester. A superstition born from trauma. A relationship that might ruin his career. An unhinged ex that flips both their worlds.
They should have stayed family until this marriage ended and they had to go their separate ways, but kind attracts kind, and Siri and Jackson were broken, messed up, and everything kept going down to hell. They also kept fighting the devil as they went down there.
They kept fighting for their love story despite all odds. Despite the world against them.