1. Cole
Cole
Two Years Later
“All right, I’ve got popcorn, soft pretzels, nachos, French fries, every kind of candy known to man, and an assortment of soda. Who wants what?”
Crew dropped down beside me with a sigh.
I eyed the tray on his lap, which was overflowing with junk food. “What’d you do? Clean out the concession stand?”
He smirked. “Pretty much. We might spend almost every day on the ice, but it’s been a long time since we were verified rink rats. The snacks and arcade were the best part!”
“What’s a rink rat?” Maisie, our teammate Levi’s thirteen-year-old daughter, asked from my other side.
My twin leaned forward to speak to her around me. “A kid who spends their entire life at the rink.” He jerked his chin toward the ice in front of us. “If Austin sticks with this long enough, you’ll be initiated into our super-exclusive club.”
Austin was our teammate Levi’s stepson, a bonus kid he got when he married my former realtor, Arizona. And today was his first-ever hockey game. Hence why we’d found ourselves at the local rink at 9:30 PM on a weeknight.
Damn, I’d almost forgotten how much it sucked that the older kids got stuck with the latest ice times.
Crew held out the tray to Maisie. “You get first pick.”
She pursed her lips, eyeing the spread before extending a hand to snag a soft pretzel. “Thanks, Uncle Crew.”
He tossed her a wink. “You got it, girly pop.” Craning his neck around to the row behind us containing Levi and Arizona, he asked, “Anyone else?”
Levi took the basket of French fries and a soda, but Arizona shook her head, hugging her waist. “I’m too nervous. Anything I try to eat is gonna come back up.”
There was an audible cringe from my brother. “Thanks for the warning.” He leaned toward me, stage-whispering, “Might be a good idea if we vacate the splash zone.”
I merely rolled my eyes. Crew fully leaned into his role of younger brother—by two minutes—living to annoy the shit out of me.
Levi wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “He’s gonna be fine.”
Crew scoffed. “’Course he is. He learned from the best.” He pointed between himself, me, and Levi. “Us.”
“Oh, you’re taking credit now?” Levi huffed out a laugh. “Because what I remember from our ‘training’ sessions is you goofing off, doing trick shots into an open net. Or was that someone else?”
I inwardly groaned. That was the absolute last thing you should ever ask an identical twin.
My brother didn’t let the opportunity pass him by, claiming, “It was Cole.” He patted our teammate’s knee. “You haven’t been here that long, so I’ll forgive you for getting us mixed up. Happens a lot. You know, since we’re identical and all.”
Levi wasn’t fooled for a minute. “Does Cole also wear the number fourteen now instead of twelve?”
Teeth sinking into my lower lip, I bit back a smile.
Crew, having been caught, lifted both hands in surrender. “Okay, it was me.”
Levi hummed. “Mm-hmm. Thought so.”
“But I was just trying to motivate Austin. Figured he’d work harder to nail down the fundamentals if he saw all the cool moves we get to do at the professional level.”
“When’s the last time you, a defenseman, had the opportunity to shoot between his legs or attempt a lacrosse goal?
” That second one was when a player lifted the puck onto his stick and curled it around the back of the net to score over a goalie’s shoulder.
My brother’s position demanded that he stay up higher in the offensive zone, making a goal like that next to impossible.
Regardless, that was something rarely seen in a pro hockey game.
“Never,” he admitted in a sullen tone. “But just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it won’t ever.”
My snort couldn’t be contained, earning me a sharp elbow to the ribs from my twin.
“Look! The teams are taking the ice!” Maisie exclaimed, drawing all our attention to the rink set before us.
Watching the players skate a few warm-up laps before grabbing pucks and working on either stickhandling or shooting on their goalie brought back memories of my own youth hockey days.
They’d been some of the best of my life. When I’d gotten to play with my brother and my best friend. When every game propelled me toward my goal of getting drafted. When my number one fan was in the stands, but no one knew except the two of us.
Back before everything changed. Before I fucked up the best thing that had ever happened to me, and Russ was taken from us too soon.
Eyes tracking Austin, who wore his stepdad’s number nine on the back of his jersey, I remarked, “He looks good.”
Levi hummed. “No doubt he’s a great skater. But the real test will come when he takes that first hit.”
Austin was just shy of fifteen. His late-November birthday made him one of the youngest on his team, since hockey grouped kids by birth year rather than grade level.
Being new to the sport, Levi signed him up for a recreational-level team, but at 14U, checking was legal, and there was a noticeable size disparity amongst the players—some boys had fully gone through puberty, resembling grown men, while others were still very much kids.
Our boy was at a disadvantage, not having years to learn the game before body contact took it to the next level.
Arizona was restless behind me. Her knee bounced so frantically that it shook the aluminum bleachers, and her shallow breathing punctuated the air. It would be a miracle if she made it through the whole game without having a panic attack if she was this worked up before it even began.
Crew, who had never been one to know how to read a room, stood, placing two fingers into his mouth before letting out a wolf whistle so loud that everyone in the stands and on the ice turned to stare.
Then he proceeded to jump up and down, acting like a teenage puck bunny who came to see her crush play. “Oh my God! It’s Austin Cleary! I know him!” He waved a hand wildly. “Hi, Austin!”
I dragged a hand down my face. The secondhand embarrassment was so fucking real.
Even through his facemask, you could see the kid had gone as red as a tomato, and he sliced a hand in front of his neck, signaling for my twin to knock it off.
“Sit your ass down and stop making a fool of yourself,” I hissed.
Crew plopped down, pushing his lower lip out in a pout. “Party pooper.”
Maisie giggled. “I thought it was funny, Uncle Crew.” Her eyes darted to the ice. “But don’t tell Austin I said so.”
They might have only met a little over six months ago, but Austin and Maisie connected instantly, becoming each other’s person.
I dared to say they were a closer pair of siblings than me and my twin, which was saying something, considering we’d shared a womb and even as adults spent every day together.
There was no doubt in my mind that Maisie would be commiserating with her stepbrother over Crew’s mortifying public display later this evening.
The buzzer sounded, indicating warm-ups had concluded, and both teams huddled up at their respective benches for a pre-game speech from their coach.
One of the two referees blew his whistle at center ice, calling the teams to line up for the opening puck drop.
He wasn’t even my kid, but still, my chest puffed up with pride when Austin was named the team’s starting center—my position on the Surf.
Over the summer, we’d covered all the bases, preparing him to play as both a forward and a defenseman, and I had personally been in charge of teaching him how to win a face-off.
The ref checked with both goalies to ensure they were ready before another whistle sounded, and he bent his knees, holding the puck over the ice.
Time slowed down, and I held my breath, anticipating the moment that black disc would drop.
It clattered to the icy surface, and Austin was lightning quick with his stick, sliding the puck backward to his defenseman.
Atta boy.
While I agreed with Levi that it wouldn’t be appropriate to throw Austin into the deep end by having him try out for a travel team when he was just starting out in hockey, it quickly became apparent that he was too skilled for this level of play.
He was able to outskate almost every other kid on the ice and, within the first few minutes, had already scored a goal.
By the time he netted the hat trick, he’d become a target. The other team was double- and triple-teaming him in an effort to slow him down. And when that didn’t work, they got physical—aggressively so.
Austin was cutting through the neutral zone when a defender laid a heavy hit in open ice, knocking him off his feet.
I knew from experience that it looked worse than it was, but Arizona didn’t. She let out an ear-splitting scream, burying her face in Levi’s chest with a muffled “I can’t watch.”
While consoling his wife, my teammate hissed, “Goddammit,” before shouting to his stepson, “Keep your head up!”
Austin got to his feet, giving a quick shake of his head as he regained his bearings.
His coach called him over to the bench, sending out another player as his replacement, before going through a quick concussion screening.
Our boy must’ve passed because the volunteer bench boss flashed Levi a quick thumbs-up.
When the buzzer sounded at the end of the second period, I noticed someone sliding closer in my periphery. Turning, I saw it was a little boy, probably no older than five or six, a mini stick clutched in his tiny hands.
A smile tugged onto my lips as I gave him my full attention. “Hey there, bud. Enjoying the game?”
He gave a shy nod.
“Do you play hockey?” I gestured to the stick he held.
“It’s my first year,” the boy confirmed.
“Let me guess. You’re a Junior Surf mini-mite.” I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right if whoever he came to see play tonight was on Austin’s team.
His eyes grew large. “How did you know?”
I leaned in conspiratorially. “Because I play for the Surf, and we can always tell when someone is one of our junior teammates.”
“You can?”
“Mm-hmm.”