Off-Ice Collision: A Grumpy Sunshine Hockey Romance (Wyncote Wolves Book 8)
Off-Ice Collision: Chapter 12

As I sit in the family room, waiting for Maverick to come back, I can’t help but feel like I overreacted last night. For whatever reason, my emotions got the better of me and I really let it mess with my head. Not only is Mav my twin brother, but he’s my best friend above everyone else. It really hurt me last night when I found out that he’d been hiding something and specifically asked our parents not to tell me about it.

Maverick walks back in with a glass of water for each of us. He hands it to me, a solemn look on his face, before he drops down onto the couch that is across from where I’m sitting.

“I want to start off by apologizing to you,” he says, his voice soft as he sets down his untouched glass of water. “It was never my intention to hurt you. I shouldn’t have kept anything from you, but I didn’t want you to feel like you needed to fix my problems for me. You’ve been doing that our entire lives and I was really ashamed by my most recent fuckup.”

I stare at him for a moment, processing his words, yet I’m still not sure what to even say to him. I should apologize for how I acted last night, but I want to wait and see what he has to tell me first.

“Last year, I got involved with one of my professors.”

My eyes widen with pure shock. “What? Like in what way?”

“Like every way that you can imagine,” he grimaces, regret laced in his irises. His expression is consumed with shame. “It started with harmless flirting after class, and then one thing led to another. We were sneaking around because she didn’t want to lose her job. At first, we would meet up at random places or rooms on campus. It was fun, there was a thrill with the thought of being caught.”

Maverick pauses for a moment and I’m in utter shock from his confession. I’m completely blindsided by all of this. I wasn’t expecting anything remotely close to this scenario.

“Until it finally happened…”

I stare at him. “What happened?”

“I fucking fell in love with her, London,” Maverick admits with nothing but defeat and pain in his voice. “I fell in love with her like a fucking fool and it blew up in my face.”

My heart breaks for him, but at the same time, I feel my own pain. This was going on for months and not once did he come to me about any of it. We were supposed to be best friends and he didn’t even feel like he could confide in me about it. He didn’t bother to tell me anything and it made me wonder what else he kept from me over the years.

“I kept it a secret from everyone, except for my one friend. And she turned around and stabbed me in the back in the end. She and my professor,” he winces at the mention of her, “they both betrayed me.” Maverick stops and his jaw clenches. I watch the anger wash over him and he exhales it all at once. “I didn’t know she was married until her husband walked in on us one night when I showed up at her house. I told her everything, professed my fucking love for her, and she took me up to her bedroom.”

I’m still silent as I wait for him to continue, but my mind is running wild with this secret life my brother had been living. He got involved with his professor who was married. My brain feels like it’s going to explode with this information.

“She claimed she felt the same way. She had these elaborate plans for when I graduated and we could actually be together. Fuck, I even considered transferring schools.”

“Jesus, Mav,” I murmur as the pit of my stomach fills with dread. I can’t help but feel sorry for him. If anyone was going to get into this type of situation, it would be my brother. And he was blinded by his feelings for her. “She was married?”

Maverick nods. He closes his eyes for a moment and shakes his head before looking back at me. “I didn’t pay attention to anything while I was in her house and the bedroom was dark. We went up there and were in the middle of having sex when he walked in. He wasn’t happy…”

“I would imagine not.”

“We ended up getting into a physical fight, but none of that really mattered. His fists weren’t actually hurting me, but her words were while we fought.” He stops for a second, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. “The entire time we were fighting, she was yelling at us to stop and telling her husband how much she loved him. How I didn’t matter and it was all just a mistake.”

My heart breaks for him as I watch the pain and torment wash over his expression. He really did love her and she did nothing but deceive him.

“It was all a lie, London. She never felt anything for me but the excitement of fucking one of her students.” Maverick lets out a deep sigh. “The cops ended up being called and I got arrested.”

I stare back at him, my eyes widening again. How the hell was all of this going on and I never knew about it at all?

“Mom and Dad came and bailed me out. My professor got her husband to not press any charges, so thankfully I got out of that without an issue. But then the school found out.”

“Oh no…” I frown, feeling an immense amount of guilt and sadness for him. “What happened?”

“That friend I was telling you about… she found out about the fight and everything and took it to the fucking chancellor. They launched an entire investigation and fired my professor. It was a whole ordeal and a huge scandal. Since it was consensual and we’re both adults, there was no legal repercussions. I was fucking pissed, but I didn’t want her life to be completely ruined.”

I stare back at my brother, feeling a little detached, like there’s been some distance growing between the two of us. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The thought alone hurt. He was supposed to feel safe with me. “I thought we tell each other everything, Maverick.”

He’s silent for a moment. “How the hell could I tell you, London? This was the biggest fuckup I had ever made in my life. Do you think it was something I wanted the entire world to know about?”

“No, but I thought we were each other’s person. You don’t remember the pact we made?”

“Jesus, London,” he mutters, shaking his head. “We were fucking children when we made that pact. Some things are better kept as a secret.”

“Must not have been that big of a secret if you felt you could tell your one friend.”

“Okay, that was the biggest mistake of my life,” he growls, the anger instantly washing over him again. “I only told her because she called me out on it and I wanted her advice. She’s fucking dead to me now.”

I stare at my brother, feeling like he’s a bit of a stranger to me now. There’s more to him that I didn’t know and something about that thought cuts deep. We’ve shared our whole lives together. We came into the world together. And now he had just spilled the biggest secret of his life that our entire family kept hidden from me.

“I’m sorry that you went through all of this, Mav,” I tell him, my voice filled with sympathy and a mixture of sadness. “I’m more sorry that you didn’t feel safe coming to me about it and you went through it alone instead. I would have never judged you.”

“I was embarrassed, London. And I knew you wouldn’t approve of me fucking my professor. I didn’t want to hear your hard truth that you would have given to me.”

“I would have and will always support whatever decision you make without any judgment. I understand the embarrassment and you feeling ashamed, but I wish you would have come to me.” I pause for a second, swallowing over the emotion that is thick in my throat. “I wish you wouldn’t have told Mom and Dad to keep it a secret from me.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” he says, the frustration growing as more distance is put between us. In a way, I feel like I’m staring at someone who isn’t even my brother. “I didn’t want you to know about it.”

Letting out a deep breath, I stare directly into his eyes that are an exact replica of my own. “You wanna know what hurts the most?”

“Not really,” he mumbles, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway.”

A frown forms on my lips. “I was never supposed to know about this, was I?”

Maverick shakes his head and a frown pulls his lips downward, mirroring mine. “I never planned on telling you.”

His words cut deep and I feel the sting from the wound across my heart. I’m not sure what to do with all this information. I appreciate the fact that he confided in me, but it’s not because he wanted to. He’s only telling me because I accidentally found out there was something he was keeping from me.

“Why though?” I can’t conceal the emotion that’s laced heavily in my words. “Why wouldn’t you tell me, of all people?”

Maverick lets out a defeated sigh. “Because you love fixing everyone’s problems. This is one that can’t be fixed. If I would have told you when it happened, you would have made things worse by getting involved. I told you I don’t want to get you into trouble with me anymore.”

I’m conflicted. Completely torn in two. I feel sad for him and sorry for my brother for going through something like that. I’m also broken and feel betrayed that my own best friend would keep such a secret like this from me.

Abruptly, I rise to my feet and watch Maverick’s eyes as they grow wide.

“Where are you going?” he questions me, his voice laced with worry as he jumps up. “I don’t want this to come between us, Lon. I just need you to understand where I was coming from.”

I nod and offer him a small smile, although I feel everything and anything but happiness inside. “And I just need some time to process. I’m a little hurt and feeling betrayed right now. Give me some time and space to understand.”

“Whatever you need, little sis,” Maverick whispers with sadness laced in his words.

I don’t argue with him about us being twins like I normally would. Instead, I leave the family room without another word. He doesn’t follow after me as I walk through the house and out through the back door. I don’t stop until I’m standing on the edge of the dock, staring blankly at the water.

I don’t even hear his footsteps when he approaches.

“Hey.” Vaughn’s voice is soft as it floats through the air and slips into my ears. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Slowly turning around, my gaze collides with his as I face him. He’s shirtless with just a pair of swim trunks on. My eyes travel across the planes of his golden skin before meeting his eyes again. “Oh yeah?” I question him.

His blue eyes glimmer under the sun from above as he nods. “You want to go out on the boat?”

I shouldn’t leave right now, not with him and definitely not after last night.

Fuck it all.

The corners of my lips lift as I smile at him. “Your boat or mine?”

He’s silent for a moment and the waves crash against the shore in his ocean eyes.

“Mine.”