It last only a moment before Kellan jumps in to do damage control. “What is this about, Noah? It’s only day two.”
I’m certainly not going to tell him the real reason. It’s difficult to say whether Kellan would get upset or make fun of me. I’m assuming the latter.
“I can’t keep pretending to be you. It’s too difficult.” The words burn my mouth. More fodder for Kellan—just what I need to give him. “I can hardly move my body. I’m going to bomb all of your practices—”
“Hey, hey, hey. Chill out for a second.” His voice, surprisingly, is soothing.
But I can’t. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to my body. Do you know how rare it is for me to connect with someone, to feel safe in their presence? And somehow I find that in Max after only two days of meeting the guy? And he thinks I’m someone else. Not Noah: lover of Zelda, hates mashed potatoes, still iffy on the kids front. Kellan.
“Call your Coach and say you’re deathly ill or something. Or get one of your teammates to cover you.” I lower the heat as I begin sweating beneath my coat. My eyes dart to Max’s window, but the curtains are drawn, thankfully. It’s dark as pitch outside.
“You can’t do that,” he says. Panic tightens his voice, shortens the words so they fling at me like small stones. “You promised, Noah. It’s too late to back out now. I already arranged my schedule and—”
“Well, arrange it back. Forget the deal.”
“No! No, no, no, no, no—”
He keeps going.
“—no, no, no, no—”
My hand tightens on the phone. “Kellan! Shut the hell up and listen to me.”
He mutters an oath. I can almost imagine his nostrils flaring, his fingers twisting around the hair atop his head. “I’ll tack on another day in the Lamb.”
I’m speechless. He’s so desperate he’s willing to give me an extra day in his Lamborghini? Something’s up and yet I have no idea what. I think back to those pictures he sent me of the beautiful beach and clear sky. Where the hell was he? Was he still even in the country?
“Tell me one thing. Are you in the United States still?”
His lack of response tells me everything I need to know. Kellan, my stupid twin, decided to take a vacation, the asshole.
“You know how sucky I’ve been at being you?” I say. “Your teammates think you’ve gone off the deep end.”
“It’s fine.”
“You keep saying that, but it’s not fine!” My assumption that Max is straight was wrong. Dead wrong. Max likes Kellan. I’m not Kellan. What if Kellan returns and Max actually kisses my brother, thinking he’s me, or I’m him? I’m starting to confuse myself now. The idea of those two kissing—I brush aside the prickling unease. If I hadn’t agreed to attend the birthday party, this never would have happened. “Are you going to tell me why the hell you left?”
Kellan sighs. It makes me want to kick him through the phone. “Sorry. No can do.”
“You’re not making this any easier on me.”
“You’re the one who wanted to drive my car.”
“I don’t care about your stupid car! It’s overpriced and has a terrible interest rate!”
“Just finish out the two weeks, okay? Then everything will go back to normal. I appreciate you, Noah. Have I told you that lately?”
He laughs when I swear at him, then hangs up.
I drop my phone onto the passenger seat. Part of me knew Kellan wouldn’t go for it. I want to say fuck it and bail on practice tomorrow, but I made my brother a promise. Even when I want to bash his teeth in, I’m still a man of my word. And the jackass knows it.
The next three days are utter hell. Practice is again being held indoors, which is nice, but taken up by scrimmage, which is not. In no particular order, here is a list of things I have to deal with: Coach Wheeler screaming in my ear, Sebastian’s insults, teammates shoulder-checking me or dropping threats, and lastly but most frustratingly, is that I have captured Max’s attention and now I don’t know what to do about it.
After arriving home from Max’s apartment the other night, I tried working on my video game, but after ten or fifteen minutes of staring at the lines of code, I gave up and took a shower. Except in the shower, my mind wandered to forbidden places. Things I shouldn’t think about. I remembered how alive I felt in that second our mouths had brushed, the nearness of him, his heat. My hands wandered lower on my torso.
Then I thought of what would have happened had I prolonged the kiss. What if I had deepened it further? If I had placed my hands on his chest, coasting them across his nipples, which I imagined would have been hard and pointed? If I had dared to look into his eyes and see the desire swirling there as it swirled through mine?
My hand had a mind of its own that night. Wrapped around my aching dick, I jerked myself slowly, the water pounding against my back, my other arm braced against the cold tile, head bent. I envisioned Max in the shower with me, his overwhelming masculinity, all that smooth, tanned skin. Water dripping down the grooves of his taut abdomen. Suddenly it wasn’t my hand wrapped around my leaking cock, but his. Strong, firm, in control. He deepened the strokes, squeezing lightly at the base. When he twisted his hand, it brought stars to my eyes.
