Page 37

SHAWN

The smell of chlorine clings to my skin as I step out of the rec center into the damp evening air, my duffel bag slung over one shoulder and water still dripping from my hair. Collins is waiting for me in the parking lot, leaning against my car with the kind of smug grin that can only mean trouble.

Collins is one of those guys who thrives on chaos. Tall, wiry, and strong with a head of messy blond curls and a permanent devil-may-care attitude, he lives for the drama off the ice as much as on it. If there’s dirt to be found, Collins will dig it up, and then laugh about it while shoving it in your face. He has enough gossip to run Perez Hilton into the ground.

“Shawny-boy,” he calls, pushing off the car as I approach.

“Collins,” I mutter, adjusting my duffel.

He pulls out his phone, the smirk on his face widening as he swipes the screen. “Thought you’d want to see this little gem.”

He thrusts the phone toward me, and it takes me a while to squint at the screen and work out what I’m looking at. When I do, I freeze.

The image on the screen is... well, let’s just say it’s not PG. There I am, sprawled out on a hotel bed, naked, with two girls draped over me like accessories. One’s kissing my neck, the other’s straddling my lap, and the whole thing screams bad decisions.

The timing couldn’t be worse.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, yanking the phone closer to get a better look. “Where the hell did you find this?”

Collins snorts. “You know me. I follow all the bunny sites so I can identify the most rabid fans.”

Gross. I mean, I’m no stranger to casual sex, but hunting down the girls who fuck around with your teammates or competitors the most. That’s a new kind of low.

“You’re trending, buddy. Some puck bunny must’ve been holding onto this for a rainy day. Found it on Playing with the Puckers. You know, that R-rated bunny forum?”

I groan, rubbing a hand over my face, and Collins laughs, unbothered by my mortification. “Don’t sweat it, man. You’re in good company. At least half the team’s on there.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better?” I snap, but his grin doesn’t falter.

“Relax. Nobody takes it seriously.” He scrolls through the page. “It’s all just trashy fun.”

But then he pauses, his expression shifting as his thumb hovers over the screen.

“Uh, okay, maybe not all of it,” he mutters. I peer over his shoulder at the screen beneath a search for my name. The top result is ‘Shawn Drayton’s double pucking luck,’ an article on a high-profile hockey site with some censored, but still obvious, photos and some commentary on how I enjoy double dipping.

My stomach drops.

“Looks like someone decided to share the love,” Collins says, his tone losing some of its humor.

“Someone other than me,” I say dryly, tipping my head to the sky. Stars fan out overhead, and a moon that looks almost too perfectly round, a big face staring down at me, judging. I remember how it felt to be between those two women like I was king of the world. Pathetic that I was thinking, ‘fuck Lucy’ with each thrust, like having two girls willing to be half my focus made up for the one girl who dumped me for my best friend.

It’s worse than pathetic. It’s pitiable.

Collins makes a troubled sound that reverberates in the empty lot. “This one’s making the rounds on Insta. Got a couple thousand likes already.”

“Fuck.” The word comes out with all the sharpness of a dagger, and Collins raises an eyebrow.

“What’s the big deal, man? It’s not like you have a girlfriend.”

I pale at the thought of Riley looking and judging. It’s not like she doesn’t know I have a past. Jacob, too. Only Hayes is wearing a halo right now. But it’s different to compartmentalize something that happened before you came along and have to deal with it rearing its ugly head in the present.

I look debauched, like a man who doesn’t give a fuck about propriety of any kind. I look like an asshole.

“This is bad,” I say, knowing Coach is going to flip the fuck out. He grilled us about our public personas and their importance to the school and our future careers. This is going to follow me forever. People get nicknames this way, and I don’t want Double Pucker to be mine.

Collins shrugs, scrolling through the comments beneath the images and article summary. “Kind of a mixed bag. Some people think it’s hilarious. Others are tearing you a new one. Got a couple gems in here calling you a disgrace to the team.”

“Great,” I mutter, my jaw clenching. “Just what I need.”

Collins hesitates, his usual cocky demeanor faltering. “Look, man. It’ll probably blow over in a few days if it makes you feel any better. People love a scandal, but they’ve got the attention spans of goldfish.”

“No one knows the attention span of a goldfish,” I say, my tone flat. “It’s a fucking myth.”

“Yeah. Right. Okay.” Collins rubs the back of his neck, his blue eyes darting over my shoulder like he’s already thinking about the next place he can drift off to share my shame.

But this isn’t about me. Not really. It’s about Riley and the team and everyone who will look at the picture and think they know me. Shawn Drayton, a player on and off the ice.

“Well, thanks for stopping by to fill my world with good news,” I say in my usual careless tone. He grins, appeased.

“Yeah.” He claps me on the shoulder, which is bro code for ‘see you around, bud,’ and I watch him amble off to his own vehicle.

By the time I get back to the house, my head’s spinning. I toss my bag onto the floor and collapse onto the couch, staring at the ceiling like it might give me some answers.

Should I call Riley to give her the heads-up? Explain myself? Make sure she knows this was a while ago, and I’m not an extra-large cheating fuckboy. Hope she hasn’t seen it yet? Pretend it’s not a big deal and act like my usual charming self?

Contemplating coming clean makes my stomach churn but not telling her and risking her finding out from someone else and potentially getting the wrong idea fills me with a level of dread I haven’t felt since Jacob sat me down and told me what he knew about Lucy.

I don’t want to be like my ex best friend, Harris, hiding my indiscretion and leaving the hurt to find Riley like it found me. But the truth is, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to be the guy Riley deserves, and she’ll find it out sooner rather than later. She’s going to know me for who I am and want someone else, the same way Lucy wanted Harris.

And it’s not like I don’t have competition for her heart. She has Hayes, the man who gave her his friggin’ virginity and is as loyal as a labrador, and Jacob, who would go to the ends of the Earth to defend her honor. What’s my role in her life, even? The joker. The add-on. The spare brother, in case something goes wrong with one of the others.

My phone buzzes, and I grimace at the message congratulating me on bagging two girls with awesome tits. It vibrates again, and I don’t even bother looking. I already know what it’s about.

The front door opens, and Jacob walks in, bringing the cold with him like a cloud of disapproval. His expression is dark, and he shakes his head.

“Why the fuck did you let someone take a photo of that, Shawn?”

“I didn’t know,” I say.

He closes his eyes, tips his head to the ceiling, and then fixes me with a narrow gaze. “What was it? A fucking orgy? How many people were in that room?”

My lack of a response must answer this question because he growls. “Didn’t Coach’s little chats sink into your thick skull,” he says. “If you can’t keep it in your pants, keep it discreet. It’s a damn clear message.”

“I can’t change the past, Jacob, or I’d just hop in my time machine and tell past me to keep my pants firmly on and my dick out of those women.”

I was drunk isn’t an excuse that’s worth airing. Telling my brother I needed something, some human contact, a way of exorcizing Lucy and Harris from my system, a way of feeling like a man.

If I told him, he’d understand, but admitting that I still carry around such an old hurt would only lower his opinion of me.

“You’re gonna have to deal with Coach… and…”

“Riley?”

Jacob leans against the doorjamb, folding his arms across his chest, looking so much like our father that I almost expect him to yell at me with spittle flying. “It was before her, but sometimes it doesn’t matter.”

“The damage is done?”

“Exactly. If it sews a seed…”

“I wouldn’t,” I blurt. “Not now. Not with Riley in our lives.”

“She doesn’t know that, Shawn. That’s the point.”

He drops his arms and straightens, shrugging. Then he turns and makes his way up the stairs, leaving me stewing in his disapproval. For the first time in a long time, I’m unsure if I can charm my way out of this one, which scares me to my core.

I can’t be on the outside of this relationship. I can’t expect my brothers to give up Riley if she no longer wants to be with me.

If hell had a soundtrack, it would be the incessant ping of my phone right now. Another text is another reminder that my past has come back to bite me square in the ass. “Shawn, dude, WTF?”

As much as I don’t want to look at more, I need to know if any of the messages are from Riley.

They’re not, and it’s late. I can’t do anything tonight and maybe speaking to her in person will be better. If she hasn’t already seen the pictures, I can warn her not to look. If the situation were reversed, it would kill me to see her pictured with someone else, even if it was in the past. The image would remain embedded like a splinter for life.

Just as I’m about to put my phone down, another message lands. It’s from Malik. “Nice moves, Shawneo. Hope you stretched first. Who was tighter? Left or right?”

The truth is, I don’t even fucking remember. They meant nothing to me but now have the power to bring my whole life crashing down around me.

***

The team’s PR rep is waiting for me before practice, with Coach looming behind like a Halloween ghoul. Her face is pale and serious, underlining that this isn’t just about me. It’s about the team.

I must look like shit based on the few hours of sleep I managed after tossing and turning. And Coach’s expression says it all.

“This is exactly what I was talking about. Indiscreet behavior leading to a fucking shit storm. Clean your act up, Shawn,” Coach barks. “We don’t need distractions.”

Distractions. That’s what I am now. Not the guy who can charm the media or defend the goal like a gladiator. The guy who whips up a shitstorm of unwelcome attention, some dude who can’t keep his dick in his pants, a reputation buster, a fucking diversion that could cost us.

I blanch under Coach’s scrutiny, and the PR—Abbey, I think her name is—clears her throat.

“You’ll need to make a statement,” she says. “If we get in early, there’s an element of damage control. The social media team can work their magic.”

The social media team?

Fuck. It’s all I can do not to groan and bury my face in my hands.

Riley. Riley’s the one who’ll have to craft the statement to excuse my indiscretion. She’s probably already been briefed, and I’ve missed my chance at damage control.

Coward.

I should have messaged her last night with a request to talk. I should have faced up to what I did before she was a part of my life. I can’t lose her, but I don’t deserve to keep her. How fucked up is that?

Throughout practice, my teammates are grim-faced, giving me supportive looks when Coach’s attention is elsewhere, but that almost makes it worse. They all understand my predicament because they’ve all done things they wouldn’t want splashed all over social media. Hell, it’s a normal part of life for a man in his early twenties, so why do I feel so shit?

I dwell for longer than normal in the showers, avoiding conversation and even my teammates’ attempts to be supportive. Hayes and Jacob wait around for me, but my face must say it all, and they eventually leave while I take a hundred years to dress.

Riley needs a quote from me for social media. A quote about my threesome with two puck bunnies at an orgy. And somehow, within that, I need to make her believe I’m a changed man worthy of her affection and her love. Maybe even one day, her respect.

I just want to go home and bury my head in the sand, but my sheets smell like Riley, and my room is saturated with memories of her. And if I do go home, I’ll be waiting for her to come to me, and that’s such a dick move. Bracing my hand against the wall, I type a message on my phone.

Shawn : Can we talk?

Her response comes faster than I expected.

Riley : I’m working. Give me twenty minutes.

That’s enough time to get to her building if I hurry. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I stride out of the training facility, only pausing for a quick conversation with the janitor, who’s always so friendly and appreciates a quick exchange about our plans for the next game.

I toss my bag in the trunk of my car and speed-walk across campus, wanting to arrive early so Riley’s not waiting around for me. Sex photos are bad enough, but combine them with lateness, and that’d be like rubbing salt into the wound.

Waiting is torture, and the cold bites at my skin like it’s holding its own grudge against me. Three times, the door opens, and I brace myself, and three times, other students, startled at my strange response to them, exit the building. When Riley eventually appears, she spots me immediately and makes her way over. She’s wearing a casual blazer over a fitted top with her hair pulled back into a smart style that makes her look older and more professional. Despite the anxiety churning in my gut, I think she looks incredible.

“So,” she begins, folding her arms across her body, already hostile. “Do you want to tell me what’s happening, or should I just Google it like everyone else?”

She knows. Shit. I didn’t even have the foresight to think through what to say, and my nerves force my default mode to the surface. My face twists into a grin, and accompanied by the shrug, I know I’m flying toward a disaster I can foresee but can’t stop. “I don’t know what to tell you. Some old hookup got bored and decided to make me famous.”

“Shawn.” Her tone is sharp, cutting through my facade. “This isn’t a joke.”

“I never said it was.”

With her grim expression growing grimmer, my smile fades.

“Do you know how humiliating it was to have my colleagues discussing your body and brainstorming all the ways we could deal with this terrible exposure? Shawn Drayton scores more off the ice than on. He’s so used to being a triplet, he didn’t realize he wasn’t seeing double. Bench him for the chaos, or applaud him for scoring twice? He’s great at stopping pucks. Stopping his own loins? Not so much.”

She reels off the quips with a high, clipped voice, and I don’t understand why I have to bite back laughter. Jesus. What’s wrong with me? This is so serious, but my default has always been to lighten the mood. To play the joker. To hide my real feelings behind humor.

“I’m sorry,” I say eventually, but her expression remains dark.

“You don’t seem that sorry.”

I cover my mouth with my hand, squeezing to force away my nervous smirk.

“It was before,” I say. “Before us.”

“I know that.” She takes a sideways step and a break from looking at me before she turns back. “And I can’t even be mad because by being in a relationship with you and your brothers, I’m you in that picture but with an extra dude.” She’s not laughing, but keeping a straight face is killing me. “It’s just that you found out the picture was viral last night and didn’t call me. You didn’t even try to check on me. You left me to make this grim discovery and deal with the fallout alone… imagine if the roles were reversed. How would you feel?”

That chastens me because the thought of Riley in bed, touching, kissing, fucking anyone else levels me like a bulldozer. She’s ours. Mine and my brothers’. No one else’s. The words come out easily and with the seriousness they deserve. “I’m sorry.”

She blinks, then nods. “It matters how you handle things that can affect other people, Shawn. It isn’t something you can laugh off.”

“I know.”

“You don’t take anything seriously.”

“I do.” I run my hands through my hair, struggling to keep it together. Is she going to tell me she’s done? I’m too immature and thoughtless, and she’s not interested. Panic grips me with icy palms that chill enough to send a ragged shiver through me. I look away, the knot in my chest tightening. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to doubt everyone you ever get close to because you don’t believe you’re worthy of their loyalty. She doesn’t know what it’s like to want a connection but have to push it away the moment it takes root. “You deserve better,” I mumble.

“Damn right, I do.”

I jerk back my head like she slapped me, hearing what I feared she’d say. Instinct drives me to seek distance, step back, and harden my heart before she can slice into it like Lucy did.

“I deserve your honesty, Shawn, even when it’s hard. I deserve for you to put me first in a situation like this, not yourself.”

“How was I putting myself first?” Not the point, Shawn. Not the fucking point. I cringe at my own stupid question.

“By avoiding confrontation, you took the easy way out, the path of least resistance, and you left me floundering.”

I take a deep breath and shove my hands into my pockets, needing to ground myself in whatever way I can. There are so many things I could say, but nothing’s right. We’re past denial. Past making jokes so the issue slides away with laughter. Past arguing that she’s making a big deal about nothing because, of course, she isn’t.

“It’s okay,” I say. “If you want to end things between us.” If I get in first, at least it won’t hurt as much. I can lie to myself that it was what I wanted, anyway.

She stares at me, really stares, like she’s trying to look past my flesh and blood shell to the core of me. “That isn’t what I’m thinking, Shawn.”

She touches my arm, sliding her fingers down to where I’ve buried my hand in my pocket. I free it and take hers, staring at our joined fingers, wanting to grip hard so she won’t slip away.

“But I need you to hear me. If we’re going to make this work, you can’t keep pulling this ‘nothing matters’ act because I know that’s not who you are.”

“Oh yeah. Who am I?”

She sighs, her eyes drifting to the side where memories wait to be recaptured. “You’re the kid who found the bird half dead in our yard and nursed it back to health in a box in the garage.”

I cock my head, shocked. “You remember that?”

“Yeah, I remember. You’re the kid who tried so hard to get your mom to show Jacob some attention. You kept telling her about the goals he scored, and you never even mentioned your own success.”

Did I do that? It’s so long ago. Just a dusty memory in a box nobody looks in anymore. Riley saw me before I molded myself around hurt and pretended nothing could touch me.

“I’m not good at this, Riley,” I admit, and my voice is so low it barely registers as sound. “I don’t know how to be…”

But I can’t finish the sentence because that’s the crux of it. I don’t know how to be the version of myself who isn’t trying to please. Who would I be without that part of myself?

Her expression softens, and she moves closer, tipping her face to mine, keeping me trapped and exposed with her pretty, brown gaze. “I see you, Shawn,” she says. “Just be the man I know you to be.”

Her hand slides around my waist, and she lets her body rest against mine. There’s nothing sexual about the contact, but even so, it’s so good.

I could tell her about everything behind the mask I wear, but now’s not the time. She’s more perceptive than I ever would have given her credit for, so maybe she already knows.

Instead of pulling away, she holds on tighter. “I’m not going anywhere,” she murmurs, and I nod, swallowing.

It’s not perfect. It’s not fixed. The damage is done, but she’s willing to put it aside for me to learn a lesson about what she expects from me in the future.

The future.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Riles. But you… you’re the one thing I’m trying to get right.”

“That’s good, Shawn,” she says. “That’s good.”

And in her embrace, our connection, although a little battered and bruised, is restored.

She pulls back, fixing me with her warm, open smile. “Now, what the hell am I going to say about these damned photos?”