“You sure you don’t want to save this for Kaitlyn?” I asked him.
“No, Keller hates it when we sit together. You know how he is.” At the mention of his girlfriend, he smiled the same goofy smile he’d had on his face since he’d fallen for Kaitlyn last year. She was abrasive and rude at the best of times, but the girl did know her hockey, and she was one hell of an equipment manager. Like Naomi, her dad was also hockey royalty. Moo U had quite a few alums who’d gone on to be hotshot pro players. Our program was one of the best in the nation for turning out professional-caliber athletes, and I hoped to be one day added to the list.
I checked my phone for the hundredth time, hoping for a message from Naomi.
Nothing.
Lex nudged me with an elbow. I glanced up and did a double take. A petite, curvy female with a face so delicate it should be carved of porcelain followed Kaitlyn toward the bus. My eyes widened, unable to believe what I saw.
Naomi?
I still had a hard time with Naomi as a blonde. I loved her caramel-colored hair. But the blonde about to board the bus was definitely her.
“What’s she doing here?” I wondered out loud.
“You didn’t hear?”
“Uh, no,” I said with my eyes glued to Naomi’s beautiful face.
“Her dad got her an internship with the team. She’ll be traveling with us, helping with stats.”
“This could get complicated.” I was overjoyed and concerned at the same time, not knowing what was going on with us.
Lex frowned at me, puzzled. “Complicated? Does this have to do with you two making out on the couch last week?”
I snapped my head toward him. “You saw that?”
“Oh, fuck, are you dense? Everyone saw that. Except your brother and a few others who were already too wasted to notice or indisposed.”
Of course we’d been seen. I’d be stupid to think otherwise. Oddly, no one had given me shit or brought it up until just now. My gaze slid to the bus door as Naomi climbed the steps and stopped at the top. She surveyed the bus, looking for a seat. Our eyes met, and her smile was slow and inviting. I welcomed the sight of her, and I grinned back. She glanced away as if not wanting to call attention to us, but she was too late. Lex noticed. I could tell.
She took a seat next to Kaitlyn near the front.
“You and Naomi?” Lex’s eyes were wide with curiosity. “I thought that was just a drunken make-out session that didn’t go anywhere.”
I forced my hungry gaze from Naomi to Lex, and he must’ve noticed my misery.
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
“You can tell me. I’m one of your biggest fans, and I’d never betray a confidence.”
I took a moment to check for possible eavesdroppers. Hockey players could be the biggest gossips. The bus buzzed with separate conversations and debates as the team embarked in its first road trip, and no one paid attention to us.
“This is beyond humiliating.”
“Go ahead. We’ve all had our share.”
“Nothing like this.”
Lex cocked his head. I’d aroused his interest, and there’d be no backing out now.
“She came on to me. We were both pretty drunk, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. You know I’ve carried a torch for her for a while.”
Lex nodded. He did know. I’d confided to him on occasion.
“We were making out, and she suggested we go to her dorm room. I won’t give you the details, but the next morning, I noticed her staring at my number fifteen tattoo. From the stunned look on her face, I knew the mortifying truth.”
“Truth? What truth?” Lex scratched his head and squinted at me.
“All night long she thought she was with Patrick.”
“Fuuuucckkkk. Oh, man, that’s brutal. Beyond brutal.” Lex let out a long, low whistle. His expression was one of sympathetic horror.
“Tell me about it.” I sank down in my seat so I was no longer able to see the top of her head.
Lex’s eyes filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry, man, but she’s stupid if she’s disappointed you weren’t your brother. If I was so inclined, I’d do you in a heartbeat.”
I laughed, grateful for Lex’s humor. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You get my vote any day of the week.”
I’d spent a lot of time helping Lex out last year, and the guys joked we had a bromance going. I was glad they didn’t hear his latest vow of loyalty.
“Being mistaken for my brother is normal, but being mistaken to the point the girl didn’t know who she was fucking has never happened to me before. It’s pretty demoralizing.”
“If she still wants Patrick after that, she doesn’t deserve you.”
“Thanks. We talked and agreed to be just friends, then last night, I ran into her at the library, and we were more than friends.” I didn’t give him the details. He knew enough to understand my dilemma.
“Did she know which twin you were?” When he saw my grimace, he said, “Sorry, I had to ask.”
“Yeah, she knew. I was late getting on the bus because I was hoping to catch her after class. I don’t know what’s going on with us, if anything.”
“Well, sounds like something is. If she’s confused, it’s not right for her to lead you on.”
“I don’t know that she’s purposely doing that.” I appreciated his support even if I didn’t agree with him. Everything with Naomi was too raw, too up in the air. Talking about her might give me a little relief, but this conversation also made my stomach clench in frustration.
“Can you keep another secret?” I asked in an attempt to change to a safer topic.
“Buddy, I am your secret keeper.”
I told him about my deal with Coach Garfunkle and his quest to make me the best player on the team.
“I’ve been telling you that you sell yourself short. He sees what I see.”
I shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. “I don’t know. We start on Sunday afternoon. I have no idea what to expect.”
“I’ve got your back. If you need an extra stick, I’m there.”
“I appreciate that. The last person I’d ask is my brother, and I don’t want the other guys to know I’m getting special attention. I feel weird about it.”
“Why is Patrick the last person you’d ask?”
“I don’t know how he’d take it. We’re tight, but we’re also uber-competitive.”
“Sibling rivalry?”
“Yeah, twin rivalry. That’s even worse.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Hey, Pax, get your ass back here! We need another player for poker,” Patrick shouted from the back of the bus. I looked at Lex, reluctant to desert him when he’d been so good to me.
“Go ahead. I hate poker. I’ll stay here and lust after Kaitlyn.”
I laughed, feeling better now that I’d gotten a load off by telling him my two secrets.
I got to my feet to make my way to the back of the bus, not able to resist one more glance in Naomi’s direction. She was half-turned in her seat and our eyes met briefly. I swallowed hard and looked away.
Cal, Tate, Jonah, and Josh hunkered over a deck of cards sitting on a suitcase. I joined them, keeping my back to Naomi so I wouldn’t obsessively stare at her, but I wasn’t as successful at keeping my mind off her.
9
Choices
Naomi
I stared at Paxton’s fine ass as he walked down the aisle to the back of the bus. I knew what that ass looked like naked with all those tight muscles and—
OMG, last night. I still didn’t know what to do about that. We shouldn’t have, or I shouldn’t have done that. But the look of ecstasy on his face when I made him come had made my misgivings worth it. Still, what was I doing? Did I see Paxton as a surrogate for Patrick, or were my feelings more complicated than that?
“Oh, my God, it is true,” Kaitlyn declared. Startled, I jerked my attention away from Pax’s ass. Heat rose up my collar to m
y neck and cheeks, causing Kaitlyn to snort with amusement.
“What’s true?” I adopted my best innocent tone, but I’d already blown my cover, what little cover there was.
“You have the hots for Pax, don’t you? And here I thought you wanted Patrick all this time. I was so wrong.”
“Shhh,” I whispered, glancing around to make sure no one heard her.
Kaitlyn snickered, totally entertained by my discomfort.
“I don’t know why you say that.” I made a feeble attempt at denial. Guilt was written all over my face, and Kaitlyn was a smart cookie.
“I saw you two playing tonsil hockey on the couch of the hockey house a week ago. I can’t believe you were sitting on that couch. Do you know what kind of biological material is on that ratty old thing?”
“I was drunk, and I don’t want to think about that couch.”
“That makes two of us. I’ve spent a few drunken nights on it myself. Soooo, do we have a twin love triangle going on here?” She waggled her eyebrows and drew a scowl from me, which delighted her all the more.
“No, we do not. Paxton and I are friends. We were just drunk, that’s all.” I hadn’t been drunk last night, but I squashed that thought.
“Really? So you’re still wanting to get into Patrick’s pants?”
Did everyone on campus but Patrick know about my long-time crush on him?
“I don’t know. A girl can’t graduate from Moo U and not have a piece of that, can she?” I made fun of my entire sticky situation and hoped she’d drop the subject.
Kaitlyn lowered her voice. “I haven’t.”
“You haven’t?”
“Nah. And then Lex came along, and nobody measures up to him, but if I were forced to choose between the twins, I’d choose Patrick for a one-nighter and Paxton for an every-nighter.”
“Really?” Now she had me intrigued.
“Really.” She winked at me conspiratorially but didn’t elaborate.
“My dad’s pushing me to date Patrick, like Patrick doesn’t have a say in it. He’s already got me married with kids while he sits in the stands and tells everyone Patrick is his son-in-law.”
Kaitlyn was taking a drink of water and almost spit it out. She swiped her face and gaped at me. “You’re kidding? And I thought my dad was bad.”
“Mine got me this job.”
“They’re so much alike.”
“Tell me about it.” Most people didn’t like Kaitlyn, but we’d bonded last spring over our mutual experiences having fathers who were hockey legends. I wished my dad had a business like Kaitlyn’s dad, though, because lately he’d spent too much time focusing on me and my personal business.
“What is your job exactly?”
“I’m interning with the statistician. I’ll be doing some advanced stats and stuff like that.”
Kaitlyn screwed up her face. “Sounds interesting.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.
“It actually does to me. That’s my area of interest. There are so many stats that aren’t tracked by most teams and tell a more complete story about a player.”
She waved me off with a hand. “Now you sound like my dad.”
“Sorry. Not sorry.”
I liked it better when my own dad was neglecting me and letting a series of girlfriends and nannies take care of me. Not that I didn’t have a good time, especially with some of his twentysomething girlfriends. One of them had taken me to get breast implants at seventeen. He still didn’t know about that.
Speaking of breasts, Paxton had loved my tits. He’d been completely mesmerized by them and had worshipped them with his clever mouth and sensuous tongue.
Oh, God, I was getting wet thinking about sex with Paxton while surrounded by a team of hockey players, coaches, staff, and Kaitlyn.
She raised a perfectly sculpted brow. “I know what you’re thinking.”
She couldn’t possibly know, but my face flamed from embarrassment.
“It’s okay, I think about it all the time. Frankly, there’ve been a few times when I’ve made myself feel better late at night when the bus is heading home, and it’s dark inside.”
“You didn’t?”
Her smile was sly and wicked. “Maybe, maybe not.”
I wouldn’t put it past her, nor would I put it past her to go into the bathroom and have a quickie with Lex. None of my business, and I banished those thoughts from my head. I had enough sexy thoughts of my own without allowing others to enter into the weird-enough metrics flying around in my jumbled brain.
“Back to your twin dilemma,” she said.
“I don’t have a twin dilemma.”
“Bullshit. You have a big twin dilemma. So, how was he? Paxton’s the quiet type, and I’ve found more often than not they’re the best lovers. In fact, hotter than fuck in most cases. All that quiet intensity focused on you and you alone.”
“That about sums it up,” I admitted, dropping all pretense of how much we had or hadn’t done.
“I knew it.”
“Then you understand my dilemma.”
She nodded with a superior smirk. “Pax is a great guy. He’s done so much for Lex’s confidence and his game. He should do as much for his own game.”
“You think?” I knew hockey, but Kaitlyn really knew hockey. She’d actually played some hockey, while I had an ice-skating phobia. And I do mean full-blown, panic-attack-generating phobia from a childhood trauma on the ice.
I’d long thought that Paxton had the stuff to be an even more exceptional player than he was. He was a hard, powerful skater, but he needed to show the same aggression when it came to taking more chances at the net.
“Don’t get me wrong. Patrick is going to take the NHL by storm, but Paxton might do the same thing only in a quieter, less flashy manner.”
“I hope so,” I whispered, because I cared about Paxton, and I wanted the best for him.
“The best thing that could ever happen for Pax’s career is to get out from under his brother’s shadow.”
“Really? But they’re so close.” I didn’t disagree with her necessarily. I’d thought so myself a time or two, but I wanted to hear her reasoning.
“They lean on each other, and taking away that crutch will make them better players.”
I nodded. I’d watched them play for two years, and I knew exactly what she was saying.
“So when are you guys hooking up again?”
“We aren’t. It was just a drunk fuck.”
“Maybe it didn’t mean anything to you, but I’m positive it does to Paxton.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because he’s had a crush on you for a long time, and you’ve been oblivious.”
“You noticed that?” I felt like an idiot for being in the dark about Pax for so long. How had I not seen it until last weekend? Maybe I hadn’t wanted to see it?
“I notice everything when it comes to this team.”
“I didn’t realize he was”—I paused to find the right words that wouldn’t reveal Pax’s drunken declarations of love—“uh…interested, until we slept together. I guess there were signs, but I didn’t want to see them. I’ve always been more attracted to Patrick.”
“Really? Why?” Kaitlyn cocked her head and regarded me as if I were a foreign species she wanted to study.
“I guess because everyone thinks he’s the better player, and I’d score more points with my dad.”
“That’s as good a reason as any.”
I narrowed my gaze and studied her, trying to discern if she was being sarcastic or not. She was unreadable at times, and this was one of those times. She merely smirked at me.
“If I were you, I’d be taking Pax up on what he has to offer. At least you’ll know he won’t be sharing that same offer with half the female student body, because he’s a one-woman man. At least when he’s dating someone.”
“He doesn’t really date much.” I craned my neck to look to the back of the bus. Paxton was staring at me, and our eyes met. He
ducked his head and concentrated on the cards in his hand, refusing to look my way again.
I was so confused.
10
Good Game
Paxton
I played a good game Friday night, inspired by Coach Garf’s faith in me and Naomi’s presence. Her presence inspired me, and that blow job last night didn’t hurt. I skated that much harder to impress her, wanting her to see I was every bit as good as Patrick in more ways than one.
I even slanted a few looks her way and did catch her staring at one point, giving me an even bigger boost. We hadn’t had a chance to talk about what was going on between us, and part of me avoided that conversation. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.
A few minutes into the third period, Patrick and I took to the bench after our shift.
He slanted me an odd look. “You’re playing differently.”
I shrugged.
“I mean what’s up?” He wasn’t altogether comfortable with my increased aggressiveness. I’d taken a few shots I’d have normally passed to him. I got that. My play messed with our twin mojo, and we weren’t reading each other like we normally did.
“Just trying to help us win.” I turned away from him to shout encouragement to Lex, who streaked down the ice after he’d stolen the puck.
Lex scored. The bench rose as one, pounding our sticks on the boards. The score was tied. Except for a few perplexed glances, Patrick didn’t say anything else about how I was playing.
With a few minutes left, I was on the ice with my line, and we desperately wanted to put this game away. Patrick had the puck and passed to me. It was one of those plays we’d done a thousand times. He’d pass to me. I’d give the impression I was going to shoot, then flip it right back to him, and he’d shoot. Only this time, I didn’t pass to him. I saw an opening in the goalie’s stance, and I lasered one toward the net. The puck hit the top of his pads and bounced in for a score.
A minute later, the final buzzer sounded, and we won. My teammates flooded the ice with backslaps and shouts of victory. I clambered over the boards to celebrate.
Gametime: A Moo U Hockey Romance Page 5