Page 11 of Something to Prove (Smithton Bears #2)

TY

We scheduled the interview for the following Thursday afternoon.

According to Walker, now that I was a willing participant versus a flight risk, promoting my appearance was paramount—his words, not mine.

He tagged me on a zillion social media posts featuring cringy headlines like “Chat With Ty the Hockey Guy” or “Smithton’s Hockey Hero Tells All. ”

My friends thought it was hysterical.

“Is that ‘tells all’ or ‘bares all’?” Langley joked, scrolling his cell after practice.

I threw a roll of tape at his head, then sauntered to the showers buck-ass naked with my towel draped over my shoulder as our teammates hooted with laughter.

Good. My acting abilities were my unsung superpower. It was best if everyone thought I was mucking up my local celebrity moment.

Truthfully, I felt squicky as fuck about the interview, and not because I’d basically done a one-eighty by agreeing to it.

No, my weird exchange of secrets with Walker weighed on me like a burden.

Add that impromptu, impossible-to-explain kiss, and I just wanted to close this chapter as fast as possible.

Too bad, ’cause if we hadn’t ended up in each other’s dish in all the wrong ways recently, I would have been stoked to be on his channel. Now…not so much.

But the lead-up press was a hit. Maybe that wasn’t surprising. Smithton loved its athletes—especially hockey players.

The storefronts on Main Street were a riot of blues and reds on game days.

Pennants were taped in the windows, Bears flags flew proudly, and some shop owners even wore our jerseys.

I’d been spoiled with complimentary treats and freebies for three solid years, and I loved it.

My job, win or lose, was to do Smithton proud, and I’d embraced the challenge wholeheartedly.

I wasn’t shy. I had a healthy ego, and I didn’t mind playing up to the hype.

It didn’t take much—grandiose entrances with big smiles, fist bumps for everyone waiting in line at Coffee Cave or scarfing pancakes and bacon at Bear Depot—but this upcoming interview added an uneasy element.

Sure, I could talk about hockey all day long.

It just would have been nice not to be thinking twenty-four-seven about the guy doing the interview.

Days later, I was still thinking about a kiss that could have been chalked up to heated tempers and a whole lot of nothing.

But damn, it had been enough to inspire some fantasy material that would have made his red hair stand on end.

One little taste and I wanted more. I wanted to lick Walker all over, push my tongue into his mouth, touch him… everywhere.

Screwing around with closet cases like Carson was all well and good, but I hadn’t kissed a man in…geez, a year? I hadn’t held a man, savored the feel of hard planes and a stubbled jaw in even longer.

See, the bombshell Valentine Day kiss cam that had accidentally outed Jett scared the shit out of me. I’d been two years behind Jett in college, and I hadn’t wanted to fuck up my shot at the pros. My agent had said a few things about that episode too.

“Whatever you do, don’t get caught with your dick where it shouldn’t be, Czerniak. Be fucking smart,” Toby had warned.

The irony of my current situation wasn’t lost on me. My version of being “careful” had led me straight to Walker. And then I’d gone and kissed him like a real dumbass.

It was one time. Not the end of the world. I could still get out of this mess. I just had to get through this interview and…do my fucking research.

You couldn’t tell someone your childhood hero was their dad and not expect them to launch a full-on investigation, right?

Fact: I was a mediocre student at best. My ability to play hockey was the only reason I’d been offered a place at Smithton.

I’d had a few offers out of high school, but a free ride at a well-respected private college had been my version of finding a golden ticket in a chocolate bar a la Willy Wonka.

As one of six kids, there was no fucking way my parents would have been able to contribute to my tuition.

I would have been saddled with student loans that would have taken a lifetime to pay off. Assuming I’d passed the entrance exams.

But I had issues with concentration and mild dyslexia. Sitting in classrooms for too long made me feel itchy. However, like most of my generation, I excelled at the art of online sleuthing.

Ketchum Clomsky was a fucking legend who’d played for Ottawa for over a decade and had quietly retired twelve years ago. I’d loved his tenacity before I’d understood what the word meant. He never gave up, he never backed down. He was fearless and lithe, and according to my mom, very handsome.

Maybe so, but even after I’d figured out I was bi, Clomsky’s looks had never been on my radar.

To me, he embodied what hockey was all about—physicality, unpredictability, and crazy speed.

I used to watch him skate, memorizing the way he held his stick and seemed to float on ice.

Every tic and mannerism had been noteworthy to my younger self.

I knew his stats, kept records of his goals and assists, and could still vividly recall some of his finest plays.

But…I couldn’t remember much about his personal life. Ten-year-old me hadn’t cared if he was married and had a kid. That was shit I’d associated with my parents. Clomsky was a hero, not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill boring dad.

Or maybe he was. I hadn’t cared then, but now…I really wanted to know.

I scoured Google and Wikipedia for personal information and damn, there wasn’t much.

Dwight “Ketchum” Clomsky was forty-nine years old, originally from Nova Scotia.

He’d married D.W. Clomsky and had one child.

The pair divorced a year later. Clomsky retired with a record of blah, blah, blah, and now resided in Toronto. That was it.

Deeper digging netted a name for his ex—Deanna W. No surname. There were no photos of them together online at charity functions or in magazines for PR.

I ignored the paper I was supposed to be writing for my Euro Civilization class and switched my focus to Deanna.

Jackpot.

I knew Walker’s mom was a journalist, but I’d had no idea she was so famous. Like really famous.

Her Google entries made Clomsky’s look cute.

She was everything Walker had claimed and more—a brave journalist with an impressive pedigree, a patriot, an educator, a human rights activist. The list went on and on.

She’d graduated from Harvard, gotten a PhD from Yale, lived in New York City, Chicago, Toronto, London, and Kabul.

There was a page dedicated to the awards she’d amassed and her contribution to the legacy of the Woodrow family. But no mention of a husband.

Her son got a shoutout in her obituary, though. Deanna Woodrow, age forty-four, killed in the line of fire in Afghanistan, survived by her brothers, Ansel and George, a slew of nieces and nephews, and her son, Walker.

That was it.

I searched through images and found a ton of Deanna. A fuckton.

There were pics of her as a child, posing with her famous ancestors, playing tennis with her brothers, protesting at rallies with college classmates, and later as a no-nonsense journalist who’d taken on a cause to fight for women’s rights in the Middle East. I hit paydirt when I stumbled across a photo of her holding a small boy who couldn’t have been more than three or four.

Christ, Walker looked just like her. They shared the same keen eyes, determined jawline, and flaming red hair. Huh.

I double-checked the obit, but there was nothing about an ex-husband or a former partner.

No connection whatsoever to Clomsky other than the almost throwaway line I’d found on his page.

Seemed strange. They were both noteworthy individuals with major accomplishments.

Surely somebody somewhere would have referenced their combined story.

Fuck knew Hallmark would have made a movie about them in a heartbeat… with a happier ending.

Next up, I researched Walker, who had the kind of online presence that guaranteed page after page of information.

The gist…age twenty-three, born in New York City, occupation: influencer and student.

Nothing I didn’t know. His mother and the rest of the famous Woodrow clan were mentioned, but nothing on dear old dad.

There had to be a reason. Of course, it was none of my fucking business, and I’d have been completely clueless about the connection if Walker hadn’t shared it.

But now that I was aware, I was curious to the point of obsessing.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And as much as I’d like to claim that I was only interested because in a twist, his dad was my childhood hero, that wasn’t true.

I hated to admit this, but I had all the telltale signs of a small crush on Walker.

Super small.

Microscopic, tiny, minuscule, so little it wasn’t worth filing in my brain.

I chalked it up to begrudging admiration. It had nothing to do with his smart mouth, sassy attitude, and boundless energy. No way.

Sure, Walker had pretty, plump lips and a tight bod. And maybe I’d noticed his pert ass, but his khakis were snug and I was only human, so…whatever.

It wasn’t a thing. Seriously.

But that sort-of kiss had happened and I was under water, trying to make sense of this “non-crush” crush who’d somehow slipped into my subconscious. I wanted to believe it was the result of a newfound connection to Clomsky, but that wouldn’t explain my brain’s X-rated sidebars.

One second I’d be jacking off to visions of some beautiful girl with a talented mouth sucking me into oblivion and the next thing I knew, she was a redhead with tawny eyes and…

facial hair. Walker on his knees, his tongue circling my crown, his hands on my ass, kneading my cheeks as he swallowed me whole.

I’d come to, blinking wildly, my heart beating like a thousand hummingbirds had taken residence in my chest, wondering what the fuck was wrong with me. Walker was off-limits. Period, end of sentence.

Tell that to my fucked-up head. Please. I mean, it. ’Cause now I was thinking about Walker watching me get blown in the alley and holy shit, it was happening again.

I turned the water to cold, hoping to jolt my thoughts to neutral. Thank God it worked.

I got dressed in a hurry, agreed to meet up with a few of the guys at the Depot after class, then hightailed out of the locker room with my eyes on my cell.

I moved on autopilot, occasionally looking up to high-five a fellow student and make sure I wasn’t about to walk into a tree.

I was in a zone, intent on not letting my mind wander in a porny direction, which was probably why I didn’t register the large dude who’d fallen into step with me.

“What are you doing?”

Shit. I stopped abruptly and growled. “What the fuck? Where’d you come from?”

Carson chuckled. “The gym. You?”

“Practice. I have class in”–I glanced at my watch—“ten minutes.”

“Come over after. My roommate is out of town and?—”

“I can’t. I have plans,” I intercepted quickly. Too quickly.

Not that Carson minded.

He nodded and held his fist up for me to bump. “Next time. I got the place to myself all weekend.”

He was gone before I could reply.

I stared after him for a moment, confused all over again.

Since when did I turn down no-strings sex with a “safe” queer man?

Since never. I liked Carson. We weren’t friends, necessarily, but we understood each other.

There was no worrying he’d misconstrue anything we did as meaningful or with romantic intent.

Nope, it was only sex. In my current Walker haze, a little stress relief was exactly what I needed. I’d text Carson later. Or I’d hook up with one of the puck bunnies who hung out at Bear Depot with us.

With any luck, my “Walker” phase would pass as soon as the interview was over.