Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

by Kate Willoughby

  Darkroom

  A Moo U Hockey Novel

  Kate Willoughby

  This book was inspired by the True North Series written by Sarina Bowen. It is an original work that is published by Heart Eyes Press LLC.

  Copyright © 2021 by Kate Willoughby. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  In memory of Lisa B. Kamps

  Forget about resting in peace.

  I hope you're up there enjoying a giant margarita!

  I miss you, my friend.

  Contents

  1. Indi

  2. Hudson

  3. Indi

  4. Hudson

  5. Indi

  6. Indi

  7. Hudson

  8. Indi

  9. Hudson

  10. Indi

  11. Hudson

  12. Indi

  13. Hudson

  14. Indi

  15. Hudson

  16. Indi

  17. Hudson

  18. Indi

  19. Hudson

  20. Hudson

  21. Indi

  22. Indi

  23. Hudson

  24. Indi

  25. Hudson

  26. Indi

  27. Indi

  28. Hudson

  29. Hudson

  30. Indi

  31. Indi

  32. Hudson

  33. Indi

  34. Hudson

  35. Hudson

  36. Indi

  37. Hudson

  38. Indi

  39. Hudson

  40. Indi

  You Will Also Enjoy…

  Acknowledgments

  The best mirror is a friend's eye.

  --Scottish proverb

  1

  Indi

  Even though the first day of fall semester here at Burlington University wasn’t until tomorrow, I was in serious study mode. I wanted to become a doctor and planned to take the Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT, in January. The MCAT is one of the hardest standardized tests known to man and I was supposed to spend between three and four hundred hours preparing for it, in addition to all my regular college coursework.

  Unfortunately, I’d been so engrossed in my studies tonight I hadn’t realized the time. It was almost eight o’clock, my stomach was painfully empty and I had nothing in my Carter Hall apartment but a pack of sugarless gum.

  There was one campus cafeteria still open—The Marketplace—but I’d already taken off all of my makeup.

  For most people, this would not be a big deal, but I was born with a large, irregular reddish-purple birthmark, called a port-wine stain. It covered the upper left quadrant of my face and made it look like I lost a no-holds-barred game of paintball. My white parents adopted me from the Chinese orphanage where I’d been abandoned, presumably because of this birthmark. My mom assures me there was a time when I didn’t care what people thought about my face, but I don’t remember it. I only remember being teased and stared at and eventually deemed too different to include in the group.

  Until I started wearing makeup.

  These days, my normal beauty routine took a half hour. Tonight, I didn’t have that kind of time. The Marketplace was going to close soon.

  I put on an oversized Mickey Mouse hoodie and wrapped a scarf over my nose and mouth. When I added sunglasses, virtually none of my face was visible. Hopefully, I’d be able to go in, grab something—anything—check out and leave without anyone noticing me.

  I was good to go all the way to the dining hall, keeping to the shadows like a thief. But once I got to the brightly lit building, it was a different story. I checked my reflection in the glass double doors before entering and almost didn’t recognize myself. Dressed as I was with my arms wrapped around myself and a slightly hunched posture, I looked timid and afraid, like I was the victim of a bad home situation. This wasn’t me. Not anymore. I hadn’t looked like this since I was thirteen, about to face another day of teasing and bullying.

  Appalled, I immediately straightened my posture, lifted my chin and entered the building with my normal amount of confidence.

  In an effort to make a healthy choice, I perused the array of salads. There was one chicken Caesar and one Greek. They both looked a little wilted, so I headed over to the pizza by the slice area. My family owned a successful pizzeria, Slice of Heaven, back home, so I was a bit of a pizza snob, but given the choice between wilted salad and pizza made with substandard dough in a less than ideal oven, I’ll pick pizza every time.

  The pepperoni looked like a safe bet. Even though they were generous slices, I got two—one for tonight and one to save in the fridge for tomorrow. Thinking I was home free, I was turning toward the cashier when I collided with someone.

  A tall, very solid male someone.

  The bowl on his tray upended as it hit the floor, detonating with a spectacular splash of hot chili. A large helping of cornbread bit the dust, too, as his spoon and my pizza slices skittered several feet away. Worst of all, he had a large drink that slid into his chest with quite a bit of force, enough to cause the contents of the cup to geyser up into his face.

  People turned and gasped. I stood there, horrified, speechless.

  As our eyes met briefly, my heart rate tripled and my mouth went dry.

  Shit. I knew this guy.

  He was Hudson Forte, darling of the hockey team. Tall, with blue-eyes and sun-kissed blond hair, he looked like he’d been plucked off the beach at Malibu. Freshman year, I caught him and my ex-roommate, Blair, just finishing a nooner in the dorm room she and I shared at the time.

  He was just as ripped now as he was then.

  His root-beer-drenched shirt clung to every muscle on his rock-hard torso. A pool of soda swirled around on the tray he was still holding. People were gaping at the spectacle. His friend had his phone out and took a picture of him as he set the tray of root beer aside.

  “I’m so sorry,” I exclaimed, my voice muffled by my scarf. “I didn’t see you.”

  “Hey, accidents happen,” he said, giving me a concerned smile. “No harm done. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  “Me? I’m fine. Just embarrassed.”

  As he peered more closely at my face. I realized my scarf had slid down a little and I jerked it back into place, hoping he hadn’t noticed my birthmark.

  Unfortunately, what he said next confirmed he had.

  “You’re absolutely sure you’re okay?” he asked in a low voice. “Because if you need, um, support or protection or anything, there’s a confidential victim’s advocacy program on campus. I could get the number for you, if you need it.”

  This used to happen all the time. People would see my purple, moon-surface birthmark and think I was being abused by one or both of my parents. Even people in the medical field were sometimes unaware that port-wine stains existed. My dad always tried to joke around and say, “You should see the other guy,” and my mother would usually try to explain that it was a vascular birthmark, but I used to get angry and defensive. Thanks to them, I’d grown up in a loving home with parents who barely even raised their voices to me, let alone their hands, and I wasn’t about to tolerate anyone suggesting otherwise.

  And yet, I had to forgive this guy. Now that I was an adult, I was more able to see things from a stranger’s point of view. He was coming from a place of concern, not accusation.

  I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m not being abused.”

  “I didn’t
say you were.” But he didn’t look convinced. I couldn’t blame him. On TV and in the movies, the victims always denied it, saying they fell down the stairs or ran into a door.

  “But you’re thinking it. I can tell,” I said. “I swear to you I’m not being abused. I know the number for Campus Advocacy. It’s on a poster in my dorm and I promise, if I ever need it, I will call. Honest.”

  One of the cafeteria workers came with a mop and started cleaning up the mess.

  “If you’re sure…” he said, still frowning.

  “I’m one hundred percent sure. Do you want me to pay for your clothes to be cleaned? Or buy you a new shirt? Because I’d be happy to…”

  He shook his head. “No. This is probably the oldest T-shirt I own. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay, cool. See you around,” I said and left.

  But I felt his eyes on me all the way to the exit.

  2

  Hudson

  “So, that was interesting. Do you believe her?” my roommate AJ asked.

  AJ and I both played hockey for Burlington University and at the start of each year, every athlete, male and female, had to listen to a serious lecture about what constituted sexual harassment and how to get help on campus. Apparently, it had been a problem sometime in the past, so now they made sure every athlete was well informed.

  “I don’t know,” I said, watching the girl walk away.

  She sure was dressed weird. From the shoulders down, she’d looked like any other co-ed, but her face had been covered up like she didn’t want anyone to recognize her. At first, I’d wondered if she was a celebrity wanting to get her degree after she was already famous, like Emma Watson or Natalie Portman, which would have been cool. But then, I noticed the purplish mark on the side of her nose and my thoughts took a more sinister turn.

  “Well, if she doesn’t want to be helped, there’s not much you can do about it,” AJ said. “You did what you could, buddy.”

  “I guess,” I said. He was right, but I was still troubled. I really hoped she was telling the truth. I resolved to keep my eye out for her in the next few weeks, even though I didn’t really know what she looked like.

  “So, I don’t know if you noticed,” AJ said, “but while you were trying to be her knight in shining armor, they closed the place.”

  “What? Really?” I looked around and every one of the food counters was dark. “Damn it.”

  “I didn’t want to eat here anyway,” AJ said. “Want to go to the Biscuit in the Basket?”

  The Biscuit in the Basket was the unofficial, on-campus hangout of the hockey team. We went there after every home game to either celebrate a win or drown our sorrows if we’d lost.

  “No. There’s no way I’m showing up there like this.” I reeked of root beer and the right leg of my jeans was a chili-infused abstract painting. “Let’s just go home. I’ll change clothes and we’ll grab something in town.”

  We’d gone to The Marketplace because I was starving and it was close to the ice rink, but the neighborhood where we lived had a lot more dining choices there than here on campus. AJ and I shared a two-bedroom place on Lake Street in a historic building that was originally a railroad warehouse from the 1870s but had been converted a few years ago into apartments. Downtown Burlington was only a ten-minute walk away.

  As we drove up to our place, AJ said, “Hey, your dad’s here.”

  Sure enough, there was my father, just getting out of his cherry red ’67 Camaro convertible. He was a big man who, at four inches over six feet, stood like a mountain. When he was playing for the NHL, he weighed two-twenty. Now, he had to be close to two-fifty. He still had most of his hair but was missing one tooth—a point of pride with him. The hole in his smile was a badge of honor.

  “Dad, what’s going on? Is Mom okay?” I asked as I got out of my car.

  “You’re mom’s fine. AJ, Good to see you.”

  “Mr. Forte.”

  My dad and AJ shook hands.

  “I told you none of that Mr. Forte shit,” my dad said. “Call me Dom.”

  AJ had met my dad several times, but he still went starry-eyed around him. To me, he was just Dad, but to everyone else—especially hockey fans—he was D-Day Forte, the man who won the Calder Memorial trophy as the rookie of the year, the Hart Memorial trophy as most valuable player, and earned almost 1300 points during his colorful nineteen-year NHL career.

  “Why are you covered in food?” my dad asked.

  “I had a little run-in with someone in the cafeteria.”

  “Then you haven’t eaten yet! Perfect. Let’s grab some dinner. Is there a good steak house around?” my dad asked. “It’ll be my treat. I’m in the mood for a porterhouse with all the fixings.”

  “Yeah,” AJ said enthusiastically. “The Blue Spruce has steaks.”

  “Great,” my dad said. “Why don’t you ask some of your teammates if they want to join us? The more the merrier.”

  “The whole team?” I asked. “I don’t think the Blue Spruce has a table big enough.”

  While this was true, the main reason I said this was because my dad was a bit of a braggadocio with a wealth of anecdotes drawn from his career, and if my teammates came with us to dinner, it was sure to turn into the Dominic Forte Hour, starring Dominic Forte.

  “I’m sure the restaurant will accommodate us. Money might not buy happiness, but it can usually get me a table.”

  Resigned, I sent out a group text…

  Hudson: Who’s up for dinner at the Blue Spruce? My dad’s paying. You have five minutes to reply or you’re out of luck.

  It didn’t take long for the replies to start rolling in. No one likes a free steak dinner better than a college hockey player. We’re always hungry and usually broke. When the five minutes were up, I’d changed clothes and we had eight RSVPs.

  “…this place fairly clean,” my dad was saying to AJ. “That must score you a lot of points with the ladies. You boys getting plenty of action?”

  AJ coughed.

  “Cut it out, Dad,” I said.

  With a head tilt, Dom just held his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just sayin’, hockey is king in this town and I know women appreciate little things like neatness, no matter how hot and bothered they are to nail a hockey player.”

  “Dad.”

  “Okay, okay, I get the message.”

  Squeak squeak squeak.

  My dad cocked his head. “What’s that noise?” he asked.

  “That’s Deke, working out.”

  “You got another roommate?” he asked, looking around.

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said, gesturing toward Deke’s elaborate two-story wood veneer abode. The top floor was for food, drink and exercise. The bottom floor, accessible by a plastic cylinder, was filled with soft bedding material and the occasional paper towel tube. Below that was a storage cabinet. The whole thing looked more like a piece of furniture than a pet habitat.

  “What the fuck?” My dad drew closer, bending at the waist to see inside. “What is that?”

  “It’s a hamster.”

  Deke was a golden, or Syrian, hamster. Larger than most pet store hamsters, he had soft fur the color of honey that lightened to blond on his stubby legs. He was currently running on his exercise wheel, something he did for a long time every evening.

  My dad turned to me with a comically horrified expression and I just smiled back at him. This was a familiar point of contention between us. Dad was an old-school manly man who believed everything he owned, wore or ate should have the appearance of masculinity. I, on the other hand, always had a soft spot for cute animals, even stuffed toy animals. This bugged my dad like nothing else. When we went to the zoo, as a kid I gravitated toward animals like the koalas, red pandas and the baby version of anything. My dad, of course, encouraged me to look at the lions, the gorillas, the crocs—anything that could potentially maim you.

  “Jesus H. Christ. I hope this is yours, AJ.”

  AJ laughed. “N
ope. Deke belongs to your son.”

  My dad dragged a hand over his face with a muffled sound of pain.

  “Hey, this is your fault, Dad. You wouldn’t let me get one when I was little, so here we are.”

  “Surely your landlord has rules against pets.”

  “Not hamsters. I checked.”

  “What an idiot,” Dom muttered. Then louder, he said, “Well, just don’t…don’t post pictures of him on social media. Okay? Will you do that much? I don’t want it getting around that my son…” He shook his head dejectedly.

  “No promises, Dad. I am who I am. No apologies.”

  He gave a long-suffering sigh, which was more for show than it was from any true pain. As long as I was still on the pathway toward NHL greatness, that was all that mattered.

  “We’d better get going,” AJ said. “Dom called the restaurant while you were changing and they’re going to have a table ready.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ll drive,” Dom said. “Unless you want to, AJ.”

  AJ’s eyes went wide. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “You have a license?” Dom asked.

  “Sure, I have a license.”

  Dom handed him the keys to the Camaro and AJ looked happier than he had when we accidentally bumped into Billy Crystal in town last autumn. And he’d been pretty damned ecstatic because Billy Crystal was in AJ’s favorite movie of all time—The Princess Bride. He was such a fan, he bet me once he could recite the entire movie, word for word. I stupidly took that bet. I say stupidly because not only did he win, I had to watch the entire movie with him talking over it the entire time.