All of it.

  Terry Fischer, and wanting to get back at Jonah for my dad’s punishment.

  Jonah driving buzzed to get my mother because I’d refused to.

  The young mom of two little girls he killed in the accident when he crossed the median strip.

  The way my mom became frantic in the driveway that day when she realized it was Jonah in the accident and not me.

  My dad’s heart attack when he found out about Jonah.

  And then life after.

  The endless hours on the ice where my dad tried to make me be my brother. How I felt—and probably still feel—like it’s the only way we survived from the drastic change in our lives.

  But did we heal?

  My mom hasn’t lived a day since then. Her every waking moment is for Jonah. My dad lives for him too, but also for me to actualize the dreams I robbed Jonah of.

  And me? I’ve lived, but every accomplishment, every defeat, every critical text has been to reach my one goal, to win the Stanley Cup, because that’s what was expected of Jonah.

  Not of me.

  Not for me.

  But for them.

  For him.

  Because as stupid as it sounds, it’s all I’m good for, and it’s the only amends I can make.

  DEKKER

  WHEN HE’S FINISHED WITH HIS story, with the guilt that owns him and has owned him for sixteen years, tears are on my cheeks and so much sadness is in my heart.

  There’s also a healthy dose of anger too, but not at him. No way. His decision that day was of a young kid lashing out at a harsh father’s favoritism. It was his way of rebelling for being made to miss a teenager’s rite of passage. While consequences are consequences, the ones his father put on him that day, and Hunter’s decision to refuse to collect his mom, are in no way worthy of a lifetime of devastating guilt and a life sentence of penance.

  And he’s borne the burden daily. Bullied to believe he must attain the things his brother may have achieved, because who knows? Jonah may have had an injury. He may have gotten into a different car at another time with alcohol in his blood. Who knows? But to be made to feel less than when he, Hunter Maddox, has achieved nearly every accolade possible, is the captain of an NHL team, is one of the highest paid hockey players in the US. It’s . . . it’s criminal.

  The hardest thing to process though, is how to make Hunter see and comprehend the reprehensible injustice. It was Jonah’s choice to get behind the wheel and drive drunk. No one knows what the future held for Jonah, so how could he be responsible for robbing him of something that hadn’t happened yet?

  But his words were so powerful. A life led with guilt and regret. Wanting to take back something that happened so long ago, when there’s no way he can know what would have happened if he were the one in the car that day either.

  “Hunter.” I shake my head. “There is so much to say, so many comments I want to make; I don’t know where to start.” I reach out and lace my fingers with his, the tears on his cheeks dried long ago, but the pain they leave behind so very visible.

  “Don’t say anything. Please. I don’t deserve any sympathy. I don’t deserve to feel better or to rationalize it all away. I’ve spent years doing that. I’ve spent nights slamming the puck into the net as hard as I can to help and it doesn’t, because when it all comes down to it, look at me and the life I have, and then look at Jonah and the life he’s been left with.” He goes to pull his hand away, but I hold on tight to it. “I definitely don’t fucking deserve it.”

  “Survivor’s guilt is real.” My voice is a whisper, a small offer in the giant chasm that one incident left.

  His chuckle is hollow. “It’s so much more than that.” He shoves up off the couch and moves to the windows to look at the morning outside. The city as it comes to life. His hands are shoved in his pockets and his shoulders are squared, as if he’s about to go on the defensive after everything he’s confided in me.

  “You didn’t make Jonah drive drunk that day, regardless of what happened before he grabbed the keys. You didn’t steal his career, because who knows what could have happened—I mean, professional athletes are injured all the time. And you sure as hell don’t deserve to live a life paying for things you had no control over.”

  My words hang in the air. My only hope is that they somehow cling to his soul and add some balance to the harrowing grief and guilt and gravity that have domineered it for so long.

  “Maybe I hated him because he was better than me at everything.”

  “Siblings hate each other as much as they love each other. That doesn’t mean you wanted or willed this to happen. That rivalry is a normal thing. There’s jealousy one minute and horsing around the next. There’s tattling to your parents one second and then sneaking into her bed the next to giggle and tell ghost stories when you’re supposed to be asleep. It’s a yin and yang that no one else understands unless they have a sibling.”

  “I was jealous of him. Plain and simple. Of the girls who fell at his feet. Of the constant praise he got on the ice. Of the grades that came easily, while I studied all the time . . . of fucking everything.”

  “Of the things your father pitted you against each other over.” I’m quiet when I speak, afraid I’ve overstepped, but I heard the animosity when he shared his story. “That doesn’t mean you’re at fault. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have a life. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to love and be loved. To laugh and have someone to laugh with.”

  “It’s the fact that he was better than me,” he says with a shrug, as if he didn’t hear me. I don’t take offense, because maybe he didn’t want to hear it yet. It may be background noise to his thoughts right now but when the emotions settle, he’ll remember what I said, and I hope he’ll know it’s true. “Maybe that’s why I resented him. He was always perfect, and I was always the one who needed more work. Hell, maybe I secretly wanted the spotlight and was sick of being in his shadow.” He chuckles, but there’s so much sadness in the words. “Christ, that sounds stupid. We were the same in every way, but that he had more talent in his little pinkie than I did in total played a part.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” I murmur.

  “Go dig up our high school records. He still holds a couple that were made through our junior year. Could you imagine what he would have done if he had one more year?” He turns to look at me now, the city and morning sunshine at his back.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Hunter, but these are all normal things kids go through. I can tell you athletes peak at different times. Some people have natural talent while others have more heart and have to work harder to get it. But none of this”—I point to the space between us where the reasons I’ve pointed out are hovering like neon signs—“is why Jonah is paralyzed.”

  “How can you say that?” He raises his voice, but it loses its gusto on the last word.

  “Because you didn’t make Jonah get behind the wheel,” I say so he might hear me again. “Sure, you were pissed at him and didn’t get your mom like you were supposed to. Yes, you were duped by his girlfriend, who apparently wanted to brag she’d slept with both twins, but you, Hunter Maddox, didn’t cause this. You didn’t make him slide behind the wheel. He was already drinking, knowing he was picking up Terry Fischer and taking her to the dance. He had your mom’s car, yet he was drinking.” I pause, watching him contemplate something it seems he never considered—or rather, let himself consider. “And,” I continue quietly, “you sure as hell aren’t the reason your parents can’t seem to step away from being Jonah’s caregiver and be supportive parents to you.”

  Because that’s the other crucial part of this he’s not addressing. He not only lost his brother that day in the everyday sense he was used to, but he also lost his parents. They became so busy taking care of and cruelly coronating Jonah, that they forgot they had another son living and dying for the affection and approval any kid craves from their parents.

  And the look on his face says I just hit the nail on the head with the other part of this whole tragedy—the little kid in him deserves love and affection instead of expectations and blame.

  “But—”

  “You didn’t give your dad the heart attack, and you sure as hell don’t deserve to live your life trying to make up for something you had no control over.”

  “Stop. Please, just stop,” he says to me, covering his ears to prevent my words from hitting them.

  “No, Hunter. No.” I step toward him, toward his disbelieving eyes and shaking head. “I’m not going to stop, because you need to hear this.” I reach out and grab his hands from his ears so he can hear me and whisper, “You need to hear you’re not at fault. You need to stop drowning in guilt and burning in anger that’s not yours to bear.”

  His eyes well and his chin trembles, and every part of me wishes I could convince him of the truth in my words. “You don’t understand. No one does.” He jerks his hands out of mine as his anger takes hold as his moment of vulnerability and need give way to self-loathing and fury. “It’s like every time I see him there in that goddamn prison of a chair or bed, I hate myself even more. Do you know what it’s like to sit there and know what he could have been? The incredible things he could have done? I do. I know a fraction of what he feels because it was like that when I was a kid. Sitting by while your brother did everything you were dying inside to do, but couldn’t. No one was ever as good as Jonah. In our house, at our school, at our church. Not a single fucking person was.”

  “Is that why you’re always angry?” I ask, trying to connect dots on a chart I can’t see.

  “You’re goddamn right, I’m angry.” His voice thunders around the small space, his hands fisting and his shoulders tensing. “Don’t you get it? I’ve been running so damn long trying to chase the ghost of who he could have been, that it’s the reason I’m burned out. That’s why I hate the game I used to love but can’t say a damn word, because who the fuck am I to complain? I make millions a year. I have records I’m chasing. I’m living the damn dream. All that’s left is the Stanley Cup, and I’m going to win it if it kills me, because it’s the least I can fucking do for him.”

  “But what about you? When do you get to have a life? When do you get to have someone to go home to at night? To wrap your arms around her and then lose yourself in when shit gets too tough? To laugh with, to fight with, to live with. When do you get to live, Hunter?”

  HUNTER

  SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND.

  That’s all I keep thinking as she watches me and says things to me I don’t want to hear.

  As I reject what I know are truths that she keeps saying, keeps repeating, keeps trying to rewire in my head.

  When do you get to live, Hunter?

  But there is so much anger, so much sadness, so much goddamn everything, it’s hard to hear anything through it.

  “You know the irony in this? I have all of this”—I throw my hands up—“to thank my dad for.” I laugh, but there’s no humor. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him and his punishments. That’s the fucking blessing and curse, now isn’t it?”

  “It’s whatever you want it to be. Make what used to be your curse, now be your blessing.” They’re words meant to fix but nowhere near as easy as they sound.

  I know it.

  She knows it.

  And yet she says them anyway.

  “If it were only that fucking easy.”

  “It’s not easy. You’re right. But it’s also bullshit you’ve been made to feel like this life of yours isn’t for you.”

  “I got out as fast as I could.” I switch gears as the thoughts hit me. As if I need to purge everything at once. Maybe once they’re out in the open they won’t fucking hurt as much. “I love my brother more than the whole goddamn world. Hell, the twin thing is real—the connection, the feeling each other’s pain—but looking at him is like a torturous, never-ending slap in the face. One minute I’m pissed at the fucking world, the next minute I’m pissed at myself . . . so the easiest thing for me was to get out, to not go back home. He’s their world, and I’m just the fucking mistake.”

  “How can you say that?” I refuse to see the sympathy that fills her eyes even though it’s sincere. “Look at the man you are, at the accomplishments you’ve made. Look at—”

  “All they see is the one decision.” I’ve never spoken truer words. Saying them out loud feels like a burden has been lifted from my chest. “All I see is him slowly dying, bit by bit, day by day, infection by infection. Christ, he’s barely a shadow of who he used to be. He can’t talk or eat or fucking do anything without my mom doing it for him. What kind of life is that, Dekker? What kind of fucking fate did I hand him?” My voice breaks and my shoulders shudder. “Like I said, all they see is the one decision.”

  “That’s not true,” she says, but I can see her struggle with wondering if it is. “You leaving them to have an NHL career made Jonah become their world. He’s who they think about first and last . . . so it’s natural for them to put him first now, but don’t think they’re not proud of you. Don’t think they don’t watch your games on TV and smile knowing that’s their son. Don’t—”

  “Stop,” I shout. I hate the tears that burn in my eyes. Tears I can’t hide. I hate the silent hope her words are offering, but more than anything, the lifting of the weight that has been so damn heavy on my shoulders. That I’ve carried alone. I don’t . . . I don’t know how to stop believing. “Just. Stop.” Please.

  “Stop what?” she shouts getting in my face. “You have to learn that it’s okay to be loved. You have to learn that you’re not to blame. Winning a Stanley Cup is not going to take away the sting of what happened. It’s not going to—”

  “But Jonah will know that I didn’t fulfill my promise to him and time is fucking running out.”

  When she reaches out to lace her fingers with mine, it takes everything I have to accept the gentleness of her touch. It was so much easier last night with the darkness around us to accept it versus now that she knows the truth.

  But I crave it. And hate it. And feel like I don’t deserve it, but all I want is to pull her into me and lose myself in her . . . but this time, not to forget. Not to use sex to numb the pain. This time it’s because I want to feel. I need to feel. I need to think that for the smallest of seconds she’s right, and I’m not to blame. That I deserve this.

  That I deserve her.

  “Dekker.” Her name is a whisper on my lips, her touch a balm to my soul.

  She frames my face and stares at me as she leans up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to my cheeks, kissing away the tears I wasn’t aware I’d shed.

  “Dekk.” Gruffer.

  Her eyes on mine. Her hands on me. Her words for my soul.

  Our foreheads are pressed against each other’s as her exhale is my next inhale, and her fingers tighten in the fabric of my shirt. The realization hits me.

  All I want is her.

  All I need is her.

  She quiets the demons.

  She sees me—the real me—and that scares the ever-loving shit out of me.

  I lean forward and press my lips to hers. “Let me lose myself in you. Please. I need you.”

  They’re the toughest words I’ve ever spoken. They’re also the most honest.

  And when she kisses me back, when she opens herself up to me after I bared every demon I have and she didn’t back away, I’m overwhelmed.

  She lets me set the pace. She lets me take what I need. Every sigh, every touch, every moan. She lets me evoke them from her.

  She lets me be in control when I’ve felt out of control for so very long.

  My hands slip inside her pajama bottoms to find naked skin. The strip of curls atop her pussy, the wet heat when I slide between her lips, the arousal that coats my fingers as I tuck them inside her. My groan is swallowed by her kiss.

  How can I still turn her on even though she knows the truth? How can she still want me?

  The thought is like a vicious eddy in my mind but with each touch, each sigh, each tightening of her fingers on my skin, it becomes more of a possibility. More of a reality.

  The dance to undress is slow. There is no seduction needed. There is no desire needing to be awakened.

  It’s me as I grab her hips and sink down on the couch.

  It’s her as she lowers herself painstakingly slowly onto my cock and stills so I’m forced to feel everything about her. The warmth. The wetness. The tightness.

  It’s us as our eyes meet, fingers entwine, and Dekker leans forward to kiss me ever so slowly before begging to rock her hips over me.

  Pleasure builds within. My balls tighten. My cock swells.

  It’s the shame that I’m now setting free.

  Her tits bounce with each grind. Her teeth bite into her bottom lip. Her juices begin to cover wherever she touches.

  It’s the hope that I can believe them.

  I reach out to touch. My thumb and forefinger over her nipple. My fingers bruising into her hips. My cock hitting the very depths within her.

  And it’s the knowledge that someday I might be able to.

  Our pace is slow and sensual, her giving me everything I need, and God, she’s so fucking sexy. Sitting atop me, working me out, with those innocent eyes and those vixen lips.

  There’s a connection I want to shy away from but she doesn’t allow that. When I break my eyes from hers—to take in her fingers as she slides them between her lips and begins to rub slowly, to watch the pink of her flesh as it stretches to accommodate me, to watch her back arch as I run my fingers up the crack of her ass and tease the tight rim of muscles there—she moans my name and brings me back to her. To the emotions swimming in her eyes and the connection the two of us have that is so much more than the physical.

  Hell yes, I need to lose myself here, but she’s also showing me that I feel so much more.

  She’s showing me how to be found.

  She’s demonstrating that it’s possible to find more than simple sexual gratification.