Fran needed to know. I understood her guilt and her dilemma. Out there somewhere was a family we knew nothing about with their own life stories. I recalled filling out a form for my health insurance that asked several questions about the health of my relatives and known health issues in my family. My twins would be at a disadvantage as they’d only have one half of the picture. The more I thought about it, the more curious I was about these mystery people who shared a portion of my children’s DNA. Genetics played a larger role in our lives than many of us cared to admit.
“Okay, what could it hurt? How do we do this?”
“I took the liberty of sending for kits. They’re on the desk.” She smiled gratefully at me, and the guilt lines on her face softened. “Mark would want this.”
I nodded agreement. I didn’t know what Mark would want, but he wasn’t here to tell us.
Chapter 2—The Puck Brothers
~~Easton~~
We were the young guys.
The guys with our entire NHL careers ahead of us.
We were cocky. We had the world by the tail, and nothing and no one could stop us. Our mutual love of partying and women had brought us together, along with our complete and total disinterest in long-term relationships. It was safe to say that every one of us had been burned before and learned our lessons. I knew I had. I might’ve been a one-woman man before, but now I played the field, didn’t stay with one woman more than a week, and didn’t get attached.
We were also wasted drunk and worried as hell about who would make the final cuts tomorrow, but none of us expressed our doubts. After all, we were invincible.
The regular season started the first week of October. We’d battled for a spot through the last two weeks of preseason games in September. Now it was showtime.
Axel raised his glass and grinned at us. Half of his beer sloshed over the side and soaked our nachos. We didn’t care. We raised our glasses for our tenth toast of the night.
“To the”—Axel paused, deep in thought, mostly because his inebriated brain was soggy with alcohol—“the Puck Brothers! Long may we puck and fuck and have lots of luck.”
“Hear! Hear!” we said in unison.
“The Puck Brothers. I like that.” Ziggy burped and bumped fists with Axel. “And as the first official meeting of the Puck Brothers”—Ziggy held up his right hand, and the rest of us followed his lead—“we’ll hit our pucks in the net, keep our dicks well exercised, and live life to the fullest.”
“Hear! Hear!” I slurred.
Steele, who rarely said much, raised a hand like he was in fucking grade school. All heads turned to him, because raising his hand was just plain weird, even to our alcohol-muddled brains.
“What?” Axel, our self-appointed leader, asked over the rim of his beer glass.
“We might not all make the team.”
Axel frowned and narrowed his eyes. “We’re making the team. All of us. We’re inseparable.” His gaze swiveled to two women walking by in tight dresses so short a guy could see the bottoms of their delectable asses.
Steele blinked a few times, as if confused, and shook his head. “If you say so.”
“I say so.” Axel’s eyes stayed glued to the blonde’s ass.
“Skate and party till we drop. We’ll play the field and enjoy every minute of it. We are the Puck Brothers,” Kaden shouted and raised his glass. Answering shouts of agreement and clinking glasses solidified our Puck Brotherhood.
“Let’s sweeten the pot. First one to bite it, we’re gonna take it out on their ass.”
More drunken shouts of agreement, even though most of us had zero idea what we were agreeing to.
Steele raised his hand again. “Bite what—monogamy?”
We all stared at each other and roared with laughter. Was this guy for real?
“Yup,” Ziggy said.
“How will we determine if someone has bitten it? And who chooses the penalty?”
More eye-rolling and groans and snickering.
“Don’t know. We’ll decide when we need to.”
“But—” Steele still took issue with our lack of clear rules.
Kaden emptied the last of the pitcher into his glass and took a long swallow before answering, “Whatever. We don’t need rules. We’re having fun here.”
“Hear! Hear!” Axel raised his glass, and we did another toast. Steele didn’t ask any more dumb-assed questions, so I guess he was mollified.
We toasted one more time. I guzzled the last of my beer and looked to the future. Life was fucking good.
Chapter 3—A World Turned Upside Down
~~Caroline~~
The first week of October, Fran called me over to her house. The results had arrived.
When I got there, Fran was pacing back and forth in front of the desk in the den, and Howard was seated in front of the monitor. The screen was dark. He had the patience of a saint and was solid as a rock.
He winked at me and indicated one of the chairs placed in a semicircle in front of the monitor. “Are you ready for this?”
I nodded and slumped into my seat. Fran sat next to me, fidgeting. I clasped my hands in my lap so tightly my fingernails dug into my palms, but the pain didn’t distract me. I was edgy and nervous for reasons I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know Mark’s biological relatives, and there was nothing to worry about, but worrying was my middle name.
“Did you peek?” I asked them.
Howard gave me one of those looks that said, I can’t believe you’re asking me this. Fran shook her head.
“He wouldn’t let me,” Fran said.
“All right then.” Howard woke up the computer and navigated to the home page of the genealogy app. He logged in. “I took the liberty of reading through their instructions. Let’s jump right to the meat of the matter. We’ll review the closest DNA matches to see what we can find. Everyone ready?”
I chewed on my lower lip, and Fran gripped the arms of her chair. We both nodded.
Whatever was inside had the possibility of profoundly affecting my twins’ lives, and I hoped we were doing the right thing. As my grandmother used to say, sometimes it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. What if we awoke not just a dog but a monster? What if my twins’ grandfather was a criminal? Or even worse, a serial killer? My imagination took hold and threatened to run wild. I forcibly tamped it down.
“Let’s do this,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
Howard clicked on the menu option for viewing possible DNA matches. We held our collective breaths, and even Howard’s hand shook ever so slightly. The list was somewhat long and arranged by highest level of DNA shared to lowest.
The first name on the list hit me like a punch to the gut. I blinked several times as the screen swam in front of me. I stared hard at the top name, certain I was hallucinating or having a bad dream or needed to be locked up in the psych ward. All those options were preferable to the truth screaming through every brain cell in my skull. The room was so hot, so very hot. I was being smothered by the heat.
I’d expected to see a list of names I didn’t recognize. That wasn’t the case.
The room spun around me. I tried to focus, but I was looking down a long tunnel of blurry images from my past. My spine turned to mush, refusing to hold up my body. I leaned to one side, leaned more, and more. The chair tipped, and I fell into a black abyss of blissful nothingness.
I woke on the couch with Fran sitting beside me and Howard hovering in the background. Pillows elevated my feet.
“What happened?” I heard a shaky voice ask the question and looked around for the speaker before realizing that’d been my voice.
“You fainted, honey.” Fran ran a warm washcloth over my sweaty forehead.
“For how long?”
“Less than a minute. Just lie here and don’t try to get up just yet.”
I fainted? I’d never fainted in my life. As my body functions returned to normal, the reason behind my incident became all too clear.
&nb
sp; I knew that top name on the list.
Rosalee Black.
Oh, my God.
“Honey, are you going to be okay? Do we need to call 911?” Fran and Howard leaned over me, both their faces lined with concern.
“No, no. I’ll be okay once the shock wears off.”
“You saw something. What was it?”
I closed my eyes to buy time, faking that I was resting. I didn’t want to tell her. She’d hate me. So would Howard. How could they not hate me? I’d lived a lie for six-plus years and hadn’t realized it. But my ignorance was no excuse for a cold, hard fact I should’ve seen. Neither child looked like Mark.
They looked like…
Him.
I’d never given it much thought. Never once questioned how Mark and I had the athletic ability of a slug, while the children were insanely talented athletes, even at their young age. And they were both natural-born skaters.
Of course they were.
“Caro, honey, are you okay?”
My eyes fluttered open, and I focused on those two worried faces in my line of vision. I had to tell them before they did their own research and figured it out. I wouldn’t let that happen. This was my story to tell, my transgression to admit.
“That summer I graduated a year early from high school, and Mark went to Europe, we broke up for a few months.”
“Yes, we remember.” Fran’s gaze darted quickly to Howard and back to me.
“I met someone when I was working at the skating rink. He was there for a summer hockey program for talented junior players. His name was Easton Black.” My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for their reaction.
“Black?” Howard’s voice cracked slightly, and he sat down hard on the coffee table. Good thing he was a slight man, or he’d have broken the thing in two.
“The first name on the list was Rosalee Black.” Fran stated what we all knew, but I was relieved I didn’t have to explain further.
“His mother.”
“Mark isn’t the father of the twins?” Fran stood and backed away from me as if I were carrying a highly contagious disease. She held her hands over her mouth and stared.
“It appears not.” I sat up slowly, needing to face these two people from a sitting position. “I am so sorry. I never knew. Mark and I got back together within a week of Easton leaving, and I…I didn’t know. You must think I’m a horrible person.” I buried my face in my hands, and the tears came and wouldn’t stop. I cried with huge sobs shaking my body. At some point in time, Fran sat next to me, and Howard sat on the other side of me. Fran rubbed my back, and both said nothing.
“Do you hate me?” I asked finally. These two were all I had in this world except for my kids and my best friend, Juniper.
“No, honey, we don’t hate you,” Fran insisted, but her gaze was full of confusion and uncertainty.
“You made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we stopped loving you. We’ll get through this together.” Frank was in his take-charge mode, and I was fine with that.
I didn’t deserve the love of these people. They’d already forgiven me for passing my children off as their son’s children, not that I’d intentionally done it, but in my mind, ignorance was no excuse.
“What do we do now?” I said.
“Easton needs to know. It’s the right thing to do. He’s their father.” Howard looked to Fran for confirmation, and she nodded. Despite the shock of a few minutes ago, they’d both recovered remarkably and were already looking to the future.
I was stuck in the present and the past.
I had to tell Easton. I didn’t have an option.
It was the right thing to do.
Chapter 4—Holding All the Cards
~~Easton~~
That next morning, Coach Gorst called me into his office. It was a typical rainy day in Seattle. Leaves were turning colors and covering the sidewalks, soon to give way to an oppressive gray that would dominate the next several months. In a few days, the regular hockey season began, and I wanted to be on this team so badly I could taste it.
As I was going into the coach’s office, Axel walked out. His head was down, and he didn’t glance in my direction, but he mumbled, “Good luck.”
I grimaced and braced myself for the news. Up until I’d seen the devastated expression on Axel’s face, I’d been confident I’d made the team, but that very confidence eroded with every passing minute. My preseason play was as good as any rookie’s, and better than many of the veterans’ performances. I’d done everything asked of me by the coaching staff, laying my heart and body on the line to make this team.
Getting sent down wouldn’t be the end of the world and only meant a player needed more development time, but I’d wanted to be one of those guys who didn’t have that happen. Besides, in my way of thinking, I was already behind most of my peers. I’d played four years of college hockey and had sat out an additional year for an injury, which equated to more development time than most of the players in rookie camp. Five years spent at the college level. In some ways, maybe I’d been stupid to go that route, but at the same time, I knew in my heart I’d done the right thing for me. The injury had shown me I had what it took to come back and deal with adversity.
Drawing in a deep breath, I steeled myself for whatever was to come and opened the door.
Coach Gorst glanced up from his computer monitor and waved me toward a seat. “Be right with you, Easton.” He tapped on his keyboard for a very long, excruciating minute. I studied his face, but he gave nothing away.
Gorst was relatively young in the world of NHL coaches. I doubted he was even forty yet. When he’d been hired by the Sockeyes four years ago, his coaching methods had been progressive and unorthodox. With the success he’d had, including winning the Cup last season, many other teams duplicated his approach to coaching.
He was fiery, tough, and had high expectations. He was known for his ability to get the best out of his players by capitalizing on their strengths and improving on their weaknesses. He emphasized basics, such as good skating and using your edges like a figure skater did. He even employed figure skaters to teach the finer points of skating.
I’d been the model student for Gorst’s teachings, never complaining and always giving 100 percent, yet here I was, worried I might not make the team. I clasped my hands in my lap, gripping them so hard that I was cutting off the circulation. Loosening up the viselike hold, I took a few deep, calming breaths.
And waited.
Gorst looked up and pushed his chair away from his desk. He rose and crossed from behind the desk to sit next to me at the small conference table in his office. There were a few short raps on his door, and he shouted, “Come in.”
Team captain Isaac “Ice” Wolfe entered the room and took a seat next to Gorst. His face wore its usual stone-cold expression. He’d earned his nickname. I couldn’t recall him smiling once during our entire training camp. Usually, he was scowling.
“Easton, your stats are some of the best in the nation for a rookie. Hell, even for a veteran.” Gorst’s words almost seemed rehearsed.
Did I hear a but in there? I tamped down my growing excitement and forced a neutral expression on my face. Now my fingernails were digging painfully into my palms, but the pain didn’t distract me from this man who would set the course for my future with his next words. I glanced at Ice, who scrutinized me intently, as if gauging any signs of weakness. His scrutiny only amped up my nervousness. I was sweating now. If they kept me in suspense much longer, sweat would be trickling down my brow.
“You’ve become a valuable member of this team in a surprisingly short time,” Gorst continued, then gave Ice a nod. Being valuable had to be a good thing, didn’t it?
Ice cleared his throat. Was I hallucinating, or was there a ghost of a smile on his face? “I’ve watched you develop throughout training camp. You keep your head down, work hard, don’t cause any problems. You’re a good teammate, and I’d be proud to play beside you.”
�
�Thank, uh, thank you.” I was fucking going to faint. I put my hands, palms down, on the table to steady myself as my world began to tilt and lurch like a carnival ride badly in need of repair.
“Welcome to the Sockeyes.” Gorst ended my torture and stood. He held out his hand. I hauled myself to my feet and shook his offered hand. They were smiling, both of them, and all the tension poured out of me.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” I was gushing, but neither man appeared to mind.
Ice shook my hand next. His grip was strong and sure. “Congratulations, Big E. You earned it.”
I opened my mouth to say thank you again and snapped it shut. Ice was a man of few words, so I nodded instead.
“Do you have any questions for us?” Gorst asked.
“Uh, not right now. I can’t think of any.”
“Good then. Stop by personnel and fill out the necessary paperwork. We’ll be seeing you on the ice.”
I’d been dismissed, and I wasn’t about to overstay my welcome. I hurried for the door, tripping over a chair leg in the process, and flailed my arms to get my balance. Reaching the door, I let myself out without looking back. I was too elated to be embarrassed.
I wanted to race down the hallways shouting out my good fortune to the rooftops. Instead, I forced myself to walk slowly to the elevator. I hadn’t planned it, but seconds later, I stood in the empty locker room in front of the stall with my name on it. My stall. I was a Sockeye. I was a professional hockey player.
The first thing I was going to do was make an appointment for one of those fish tattoos all the guys sported. Then I was calling my mother and my two hockey-playing brothers.
Tonight, I was celebrating.
For a moment, my joy was dampened when I realized my best buddy on this team, Axel, wouldn’t be celebrating with me. I’d still invite him, of course. He was young. He’d make it. Guys got traded, or injuries prevented them from taking the ice. Not that I’d wish an injury on anyone, but that shit did happen.
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