Tears sting my eyes. “I’m your only brother.”
“Which makes you my favorite by default.” He pauses. “Why are you telling me this now, though?”
“Everyone will find out soon anyway,” I say without thinking. “Even the hockey team knows.”
The words are out before I can stop them, and I immediately regret it.
“What?” Sasha’s tone changes abruptly. “The hockey team knows? What the hell happened? Did someone—”
“No, no!” I interrupt quickly. “The team itself has nothing to do with it. It was just a stupid joke, a prank for Valentine’s Day. Information accidentally leaked out, that’s all.”
“Val—”
“I’m fine, Sash. Really. I promise.”
We talk for a few more minutes, but I can hear the worry in his voice. When we finally hang up, I collapse onto my bed and stare at the ceiling.
“Stupid mouth,” I mutter to the empty room. “Too damn loud for my own good.”
* * *
The next day, under pressure to save the fundraising and prove to the administration that the athletic teams support the rescue room, I find myself at a hockey game.
My phone buzzes with a message from Devlin:
how are you?
where are you?
I don’t reply. If I tell him I’m at the match, he’ll know for sure that I’m head over heels for him. I’m sure of it for some stupid reason. And I’m not ready to admit that, not even to myself.
I watch him on the ice—powerful, completely in control. Every movement is precise, calculated. He’s magnificent.
“Val!”
Liz slides into the seat next to me, her cheeks pink from the arena’s chill. She’s bundled in a heavy coat, but as she settles in, she unzips it, revealing a flash of white and purple underneath.
“Hey! I didn’t know you were coming,” I say, trying to tear my gaze away from the game. “I thought you had that study group tonight?”
“Finished early,” she says, her eyes already darting back to the rink.
On the ice, the play shifts. Marcus Morin, the team’s lead defenseman, intercepts a pass with a brutal crack of his stick.
The crowd erupts, but Lizzy’s reaction is different. She stands up, her hands clasped over her heart, a look of pure pride on her face.
That’s when I see it. She’s shifted her coat just enough to reveal the jersey she’s wearing. It’s huge on her, the sleeves rolled up several times, and as she turns to sit back down, I catch the name on the back in bold, block letters: MORIN.
I blink, my brain stalling for a second. “Liz? Are you… wearing Marcus’s jersey?”
She freezes, then slowly turns to me. A shy, radiant grin breaks across her face.
“Dating him? Yeah,” she says, her voice dropping so the fans around us won’t hear. “For about two weeks now.”
“Two weeks?” I stare at her, stunned. “How? When did you even have time to—”
“Stats class, Val. We’ve been lab partners since the start of the semester. He finally asked me out after that midterm we pulled an all-nighter for.” She bites her lip, her excitement giving way to a small, apologetic shrug. “I tried to tell you on Friday, and again on Sunday, but you were so stressed about the rescue room… and then the thing with the letters happened. "
A heavy wave of guilt washes over me, cooling the adrenaline from the game. Two weeks. My best friend has been falling for a guy, wearing his clothes, and probably glowing like a lightbulb for fourteen days, and I hadn’t noticed a single thing.
