The first period passed without incident, both teams feeling each other out. Drew played his usual solid defense, but strangely, he wasn’t working with Liam like he normally did.
They’d been best friends since they were kids and playing hockey together forever. They’d always been in sync on the ice, covering for each other when necessary and teaming up to annihilate the competition. But tonight it was like they were playing two separate games.
Drew slammed into the boards after a particularly aggressive check, and when he got up, his helmet was askew and his face was flushed with more than just exertion. That dread that had been bubbling in my gut spread through mylimbs, and I knew what was coming before it even happened.
Call it twintuition or whatever, but I knew in my bones this was all about to blow up.
It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Liam skated over to check on him, the way he’d done thousands of times before, but instead of accepting his hand, Drew shoved him away.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Liam’s voice carried clearly through the glass, a hint of his Irish accent that always made me weak in the knees coming out.
Anger radiated from every line of Drew’s body as he screamed at Liam. “You fucked my sister!”
My jaw dropped along with my heart as I stared at my brother and the guy I’d fallen so hard for. How had Drew found out? We’d been so careful, or at least I thought we had.
But worst of all was the devastation that I knew was coming.
Liam was going to deny it.
He wouldn’t claim me here in front of this crowd of people who’d all come to a standstill at Drew’s accusation. He’d made it clear he didn’t do relationships.
Not even with me.
I couldn’t look anymore. I couldn’t watch as Liam pretended like I was nothing.
My heart hurt enough knowing he’d never really be mine.
I buried my face in my hands and whispered, “Oh, shit.”
My worst-case scenario was coming true, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
And no one I could blame but myself for being incredibly stupid to go and fall for my brother’s best friend.
TWO
7 MONTHS BEFORE
“Seriously, this is insane,” I muttered, scanning the rows of heads bent over glowing laptop screens. The silence in the main room of the campus library was oppressive, broken only by the squeak of a chair somewhere or the aggressiveshushing of a librarian who seemed to view human speech as a personal affront.
Liam chuckled beside me, the low sound vibrating through the air—and right through me, which was a ridiculous and annoying reaction to have to my brother’s best friend. I’d learned long ago to ignore the way my body reacted to Liam. He was built like a Greek god, a fact the entire student population was aware of—particularly the female population—but his movements were surprisingly quiet, almost stealthy for a six-foot-three hockey player. His dark brown hair was damp from the rain we’d just walked through, curling slightly by his ears. And he somehow managed to look both ruggedly handsome and boyishly charming.
“Told you it would be packed,” Liam said, his voice a low rumble. “We should see if one of the private study rooms is open. Odds are slim, but maybe we can catch someone leaving and then we can review notes without getting dirty looks.”
Liam and I were both marketing majors which meant we shared a lot of classes together. We’d quickly gotten into the habit of studying together, especially as our classes got harder.
We moved past the main floor, taking the stairs to the second floor and navigating the maze of bookshelves that led to the private study rooms in the back. There was no point bothering to check the first floor, considering those were always taken, even when people weren’t stressed from midterms. The second-floor rooms were full, so we moved up to the third floor.
“If we can’t find a room, do you want to head back to your place to study?”
I shook my head. “My roommate called dibs and threatened to murder someone if we interrupted her.”
“Doesn’t she want to be a doctor?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Seems like threatening to murder someone might go against her Hippocratic oath.”
