Page 271 of Faking the Goal

Liam scoffs loudly enough for the entire house to hear.

"Bro, if you're running off to jerk off to another one of that masked girl's videos, you seriously need help."

That finally earns Luke a reaction.

He throws his twin a middle finger over his shoulder without looking back.

"Mind your business."

"Oh, it's my business when I have to listen to you talking about her every damn day."

"I'm not talking about her every day."

"Dude, you literally told me yesterday her eye color looked 'mysterious.'"

"It is mysterious."

Liam looks at the rest of us, completely deadpan.

"You hear this? He's in love with a woman whose face he has literally never seen."

The room erupts in laughter.

Luke just shakes his head, muttering something about us being uncultured before disappearing upstairs with his phone.

Liam sighs dramatically.

"I swear, one day we're going to find out she's actually a forty-eight-year-old dude named Gary."

More laughter breaks out around the room, and I'm still smiling when Cody walks in from the kitchen carrying a bowl of cereal. He drops onto the empty end of the couch, takes a spoonful, then glances over at me as if he's only just remembered something.

"Oh, T, a package came for you earlier." He gestures toward the dining table with his spoon. "It's over there."

The smile slips from my face.

"A package?"

Cody nods, already turning his attention back to his cereal. "Yeah. It was sitting by the front door when I got home."

I stare at the brown cardboard box on the table, and the uneasiness that followed me through the Student Media building returns so quickly that my stomach tightens. I didn't order anything. No one I know would send something here without telling me first, and barely anyone even knows I've been staying at the hockey house.

Kentaro looks at me at the same time I look at him.

The warmth disappears from his face, replaced by a sharp, guarded look as his eyes move toward the box. His fingers close around mine and give them a firm squeeze before he lets go, then he crosses the room toward the table with me following close behind. The easy atmosphere in the living room disappears as the others begin paying attention, and even Cody lowers his spoon when Kentaro turns the box around to inspect it.

There's no return address, no shipping label from a store, and nothing that tells us who delivered it. My name is the only thing written on the outside, the letters drawn heavily in black marker as though whoever wrote them pressed hard enough to nearly tear through the cardboard.

Kentaro studies the package for another moment before carefully sliding a finger beneath the edge of the tape, and I become painfully aware of how hard my heart is beating while I watch him pull it away.

When Kentaro finally opens the box, his whole body goes rigid.

He doesn't flinch or make a sound, but I see the change in him immediately. His shoulders lock beneath his shirt, his jaw tightens, and the expression on his face hardens into something I've never seen before. There's fury in his eyes, but beneath it is something colder, something that makes the fear already curling through me sharpen into panic.

"What is it?"

He closes the flaps before I can step around him and lifts the box from the table. "You don't need to see it."

His voice is too controlled, and that frightens me more than if he had shouted.