Patrick rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head, still watching me closely. I gave him one of my best sultry smiles, pretty sure we’d be going at it again this morning. I ran my hand down his rib cage to where the sheet rested against his hip. Licking my lips, I rose up, ready to go down on him, as I edged the sheet lower and lower to reveal a cock once again hard, ready, able, and willing. I traced the tat that rode low on his flat stomach between his hip bone and his dick. I’d wondered last night if he’d had any tats. I’d figured a guy like him had to have tats.
Leaning in, I licked his tattoo with my tongue. His tat was simple. Crossed hockey sticks with his jersey number in the center in Moo U green and white.
I blinked a few times, certain I was dyslexic. I stared harder.
Fifteen?
One five?
Patrick’s jersey number was fifty-one. I knew his number better than I knew my own cell phone number.
I had to be reading it wrong. That brain fog thing from drinking and fucking.
I squinted at the number as I absently traced it over and over again.
Patrick held still, not even breathing.
Fifteen.
Fifteen.
Fifteen.
Why would Patrick have his twin brother’s number on his—?
His identical twin brother.
Identical.
I gaped at the tattoo in horror.
The reality of the situation slammed into me harder than a rabid defenseman slamming me against the boards.
Oh. My. God.
What have I done?
I was going to be sick, throw up, or die of embarrassment. I’d slept with the wrong twin. I’d slept with my friend. My very good friend. My confidant. The guy who was always there for me.
And he’d told me he loved me. I’d said those three words back thinking he was someone else. I’d had sex over and over believing he was someone else. I’d been shameless in my lust for him—no, not him, someone else.
For two years, Paxton had listened sympathetically as I crushed on Patrick, and he’d never once let on that he had a thing for me until last night.
I was mortified, but not for myself, for him.
If—correction, when—he realized my mistake, he’d be humiliated beyond belief. Our friendship might not survive this. Damage control must happen immediately. The truth would deal his pride a mortal blow, but he had to know the truth. To continue with this charade would only make things worse.
But how to do to it? How to let him down carefully with his dignity intact but tattered?
“Naomi, what’s wrong?” Patrick, no, Paxton asked. Concern weighted his tone. My reaction aroused his suspicions. He wasn’t stupid. In fact, he was pretty damn smart.
“I…I…” My brain churned through possible solutions to handle this mess in the kindest way possible. I averted my eyes, certain he’d read the truth there before I had a chance to decide on a course of action.
“Naomi?” His voice shook, taking on a more frantic tone. He knew something had gone wrong, horribly wrong.
Finally, I raised my head to meet his gaze.
And the excruciating truth of what I’d done was mirrored in his horrified blue eyes.
He realized I’d thought he was Patrick.
I’d banged the wrong twin and loved every moment of it, while giving him the courage to pour out his heart. I’d bludgeoned his pride and irreparably harmed one of the nicest guys I’d ever known. Shame crashed over me, mortification for what I’d done to him.
I’d been in hot messes before but nothing that’d so humiliated someone I deeply cared about.
And I had no one to blame but my drunken self.
3
Damage Control
Paxton
Adequate words didn’t exist that did justice to my soul-deep humiliation. My pride had been laid to waste by a nuclear explosion of massive proportions, and my ego had been slammed against the boards with a hit so monumental it should’ve been shown repeatedly on all the sucker-in-love highlight clips. If only the earth would open up and swallow me, never to be heard from again.
I had to come up with a plan to save face by wiping the pity and absolute mortification off Naomi’s face. That’d happen later. Right now, I was too raw to devise a plan beyond being buried alive, which really wasn’t a viable option.
After wandering aimlessly, I sought refuge on the ice that afternoon. Skating had been my personal therapy whenever life was more than I could handle, such as when my dad was being a bigger asshole than usual. The night my mother died in a car accident, I’d gone to the rink and skated until I almost passed out from exhaustion. Being on the ice was healing, and I desperately needed to heal my fractured heart right now.
Only this time, my dad hadn’t crushed the joy out of me, Naomi had.
I took to the ice, glad that no one else was around. Even though Sundays were our days off, sometimes guys showed up to skate. Not today. Most likely too many hangovers after the victory party last night.
I tortured myself by running back through the events of the prior night. I’d played a mediocre game. Patrick had been the star. My dad had been present for the first game of the season, and he’d barely acknowledged my presence while raining criticism down on Patrick. I don’t know which was worse—neglect or verbal abuse. All par for the course.
After the game, when he wasn’t tearing Patrick’s performance apart, he’d disgusted us both with his bootlicking of Naomi’s dad, Gene Smith. Mr. Smith was an NHL legend and Moo U grad, and my dad craved his attention like a small child craved the last cookie in the cookie jar.
His cruel indifference had driven me to get wasted drunk that night. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I only knew I needed someone to show I mattered. Naomi had, or I thought she had.
The most epic sex I’d ever experienced was followed by the single most demeaning experience of my life. Naomi had tried to cover it up, but one look at her, and I knew. I’d laughed it off, claimed it was all drunken nonsense and didn’t mean anything. Then I’d gotten my ass out of there.
I’d avoided going home to the apartment I shared with my twin. Patrick would see the devastation in my eyes, and I couldn’t tell him the truth, even though we told each other everything.
Well, not everything. Patrick didn’t know how much I hated being in his shadow or how much I hated being the forgotten, insignificant brother. He also didn’t know there were times I was insanely jealous of him. If I had anything to say about it, he’d never know. Patrick was one of the good guys, and he’d be ruined if he knew some of the shit rolling around in my head regarding him.
I skated around that rink like a demon with his ass on fire. I skated until my lungs burned and my legs threatened to give out. I skated until I didn’t have any gas left in my tank.
I coasted to the boards and leaned over, hands above my knees, gasping for breath.
Only then did I get the feeling I wasn’t alone.
Shit.
Someone had witnessed my crazy-assed insanity, which would be all anyone who was watching would be able to call it.
I closed my eyes for a moment and willed my brain to remain calm. Slowly, I straightened and met the gaze of assistant coach Magnus Garfunkle. He was an odd duck, and though his methods were effective, they were a little too new agey for me. I was more of a see-it-to-believe-it guy.
I’d pretty much flown under his radar last year, his first season with the team, but by the intense look on his face, my obscurity had ended. He’d given a few of the guys crystals and rocks and talked to them about auras and chis. I’d been hoping to escape that particular insanity.
“Paxton, that was quite an impressive display out there. I knew you were a powerful, fast skater, but I had no idea how fast. I’ve seen flashes of brilliance, but nothing like you demonstrated just now.” If only he knew what had driven me. He wouldn’t be so impressed.
I shrugged, embarrassed by his words. Essentially, I was being called out
for not giving 150 percent, whether Coach Garfunkle meant his words that way or not.
“Skating helps me work through problems.” Skating had always been my solace from a father who considered me expendable, the bone-deep ache of losing my mother at ten years old, and being smothered in the shadow of my uber-talented twin.
“Did you?”
I frowned. “Did I what?”
“Did you work through them?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughed. He was an intense guy with moments of joy. Coach lived by his instincts and emotions, and he loved his hockey. He’d played college hockey but didn’t have what it took to go to the next level. Now he poured his heart and soul into teaching. I suspected he’d be our next head coach after Keller retired.
If he ever retired.
Our head coach was an institution. He’d been here forever, and he was a star maker. Patrick and I wouldn’t have gone to school anywhere else. Moo U was the college hockey mecca and our ticket to a career in professional hockey.
“Got time to talk?” Coach Garfunkle’s smile was contagious, and I found myself smiling back, lifting a bit of the weight off my shoulders.
“Yeah, sure.” I didn’t know why the sudden interest in me, but in my current state of mind, I assumed he wanted to discuss my brother. That was usually the only reason my dad or coaching staff singled me out. Okay, probably not true but I didn’t want anything raining on my pity party.
“Get changed and meet me in my office in ten.”
I nodded and headed for the locker room, took a quick shower, and dressed. In nine minutes, I was in his office.
He gestured for me to sit on the couch stacked with mounds of magazines and papers. I moved some aside to sit, while he rolled his desk chair to a spot in front of me.
“Coffee?”
“I’d love some. Black, please.” The coffee would give me something to do with my hands rather than fidgeting. I’d never been comfortable being the center of attention. Patrick did those honors.
Garfunkle sat back, studying me as if he was stripping away all my protection and saw deep into my soul. He steepled his fingers on his chin. “I watched you all last year, waited for you to mature and come into your own, but you never quite met my expectations. The ability is there, but you’re not consistent,” he began.
I squirmed, uneasy with the direction this conversation was taking. He was focusing on me, not on what I could do to make Patrick be a better player, and I was caught a little off guard.
I sipped the hot, nasty brew. Coach didn’t have good taste in coffee, but it was better than nothing. I stayed silent, uncertain how to respond and figuring zipping my mouth was my best shot.
“Last night’s game wasn’t an improvement over last year.”
Oh, shit, was I being kicked off the team? Or even worse, moved off the first line? Patrick and I had played on the same line together since we were toddlers. We were in each other’s heads. We knew each other out there on the ice.
He met my gaze, as if waiting for a response, so I gave him one. “I wasn’t feeling it last night. I was off,” I offered lamely with a shrug.
“I see great innate talent in you, and it’s squandered. You have a confidence problem. Not only do I want to fix you, I want you to become the best player on the team.”
I started to laugh, but he was dead serious. “My brother is the best player on this team. In fact, he’s one of the best college players in the country right now.”
“And you’re his identical twin. The talent is there. The confidence is not. Your brother plays hockey balls to the wall. He’s aggressive, constantly on the attack. He’s easy to coach because we just let him play his game. He’s used to being the go-to guy when a score is needed, and he expects to be. What do you expect, Paxton?”
“I, uh, I do my best to be a team player.” By the look on his face, he didn’t appreciate my answer.
“And how do you do that?”
I felt like I was being grilled for a final exam and didn’t know the subject of the test. “I watch for the best scoring opportunities for my teammates. If they have a better shot, I pass the puck.”
He nodded as if he’d expected my answer. “And you often pass that puck to your brother.”
“He’s our top scorer.”
Garfunkle nodded sagely and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet on an end table and crossing his arms over his broad chest. I was six foot three of solid muscle, but he was stouter and shorter.
“What do you want out of hockey, Paxton? Do you want to make a career out of it?”
“Yeah, I want to give it shot.”
“You want to give it a shot?” His brows crept upward.
“I…uh…I, yeah,” I finished lamely. “I want to contribute.”
“You’ll have to up your game now to make it in the pros. You aren’t there yet, and you’re going to be older than a lot of those hungry rookies. How hungry are you, Paxton? How badly do you want it?”
“I love hockey.”
“The Sockeyes will expect you to be ready to play, not have to go back down to a minor league for a few more years. College is your minor league preparation.”
I nodded. I knew all this.
“Did I ever mention that I know the Sockeye head coach? We’re good friends.”
“You do?” I hadn’t heard this before.
“I do. We played some hockey together and kept in touch over the years. Were you surprised when the Sockeyes took you in the first round? It wasn’t expected.”
“Yeah, really surprised. So was my family.”
Garfunkle rubbed the goatee on his chin and nodded like a sage Buddha. “I’ve had a few conversations with Coach Gorst since they drafted you. Gorst is an out-of-the-box thinker. He took a chance drafting you as high as he did, considering your stats. He sees in you what I see. I won’t lie to you. They wanted your brother and didn’t get him. They picked you because Gorst and I both think the only thing holding you back is your own perception of your abilities and perhaps others’ perpetuating that belief.”
He spoke the truth. I swallowed hard and wished the knot in my stomach would lessen. I had no idea Garfunkle had been speaking with Coach Gorst. In hockey a lot of guys were drafted at eighteen like Patrick and I were. Then they played in the minors or went to college. Being drafted wasn’t a guarantee you’d make it to the NHL. In fact, I’d guess most guys didn’t. Yet the Sockeyes might have a slot for me if the timing worked out. No hockey player in their right mind turned down an opportunity like that.
When I didn’t offer any excuses or explanations why I wasn’t living up to my potential, he continued. “The Sockeyes want you at the end of this season. They predict they’ll have a few offensive holes to fill next season, and Gorst thinks you’d be a good fit with their current roster.”
“Next season?” I’d been toying with going pro at the end of this year. I had enough credits to graduate early.
“Yes, next season. Do you see a problem with that?”
“No, Coach Garfunkle.”
“Call me Coach G or Coach Garf. Garfunkle is a mouthful.”
I nodded, surprised the team hadn’t awarded him with a nickname previously. I guess we were still trying to figure him out. “Okay, Coach Garf.” Coach G seemed more impersonal, and Garf fit him.
“Now that we’ve settled that, are you willing to go for what you want? Make some uncomfortable changes?”
“I’m not a slacker. No one works as hard as me on the team. I—”
“This isn’t about working hard or playing harder, this is about taking risks during the game because you believe in yourself and your abilities. This is about confidence, not talent. The raw talent is there.”
“Okay,” I said. This was too much to absorb at once and went against everything I’d been programmed to believe about myself over the years by my family, coaching staff, and friends. Fuck, even unintentionally by my brother.
“Your brother won’t b
e around to lean on when you go pro, which might be the best thing that ever happens to you.”
“You think so?” To me, it was the worst thing to be without him skating by my side.
He nodded, and his eyes were full of intense determination. “You’ll be contending with a bunch of other rookies for a few spots on a team, and no one holds back, no one lets another teammate have all the glory at their own expense.”
“But I’m a team player,” I insisted.
“Plenty of time for that once you have a spot on the team.”
“Okay, sure, but I have a spot on this team.”
Garf sighed as if I was too dense to understand, and so far, I was.
“Do you want to be the best player you can be or to merely be a good player?”
“The best I can be.” That was a no-brainer.
“Is that what you really want?” He was pushing me out of my comfort zone, and we both knew it.
“I work my ass off for hockey. I love hockey. Hockey’s my life, even if I don’t express my enthusiasm as clearly as some of my teammates do.”
“Good. We’re going to make you the best you can be, and if my instincts are correct, you’re going to be the premier player on this team.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it.
“You have to really want this, Paxton. You have to get beyond your doubts and believe in yourself and your ability. When you see that shot, you have to take it. I never thought I’d ask a player to be selfish, but when it comes to you, you need to be a little more selfish. Don’t always pass to your teammates. Trust your instincts; if you have the shot, take it. Your shooting percentage is quite good, you just don’t shoot enough.”
“I’ll try.”
“No, you will. I believe in you, Paxton. Has anyone ever believed in you before?”
Our eyes met, and he saw the tragic truth written there.
Gametime: A Moo U Hockey Romance Page 2