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“What are you doing here?”
“Hiding,” Vic responds, as if it makes perfect sense. As if it’s normal for him to show up in my space unannounced. As if we spend any amount of time together. A long time ago it might have been normal, but it’s been over a decade now. We used to understand each other without words. Now it feels like I’m looking at him through a steamed-up shower door. His shape is there, but it’s hazy, hard to make out under the steam and water. “What are you doing here?”
I lean back to check the number on the door of my room. I was under the impression that it was mine. Vic has his giant house he lives in, but I could be wrong. Except there’s my suitcase and my things. I jut my chin towards the dress shirt draped over the back of one chair. Vic follows my look and shrugs.
“Yeah, yeah, but I thought you had a date tonight,” Vic gestured around the room, “So I figured I’d come house sit.”
“It’s a hotel. It doesn’t need to be house sat, and what if I brought my date back here?” I hadn’t been counting on sex with Quinn. I’d never assume sex with any woman, but I had purchased a box of condoms on the off chance that she might be interested in that rain check. A rain check that would not have included Vic, even if it had happened.
“Eh, I was going to leave before then anyway,” Vic drops onto the end of the bed and restarts Netflix.
Except that still doesn’t answer why he’s here. Or how he got in. Unless…
“Did you pretend to be me to get a new room key? You’re leaving it here when you go.” Because I’m not about to look like the idiot who’d lost his key more than once.
Vic rolls onto his side and fishes a slim white card from his pocket before tossing it on the comforter.
“That little concierge has a crush on you,” Vic says. “Didn’t even ask for ID and knew exactly who you were.”
Or she assumed I was him.
“Go take a stab at her, then.” I drop into the chair near the window. “I’m not interested.”
“Because of the redhead.” It isn’t a question, and Vic levers his body up on his elbows. “What time are you going to pick her up?”
It is because of the redhead, but also because immediately chasing pussy after one woman turned me down is a dick move. It’s not like I’ll never have sex again, but for now, if I can’t have Quinn, then I’m okay with an evening alone. That might sound surprising, considering the speed at which we moved. It probably looked like random hook ups are on the regular menu, but they aren’t. That’s one thing I don’t think Vic understands.
Yes, we have the same face, and Vic can pull partners with just a glance in their direction, but Vic isn’t living with the lower half of his leg gone. He doesn’t have a stump and a dark bump of a scar tissue along the top of his chest. Not that I mind my port scar. Most of the time I don’t mind my stump, either. Both are just a part of who I am. A tangible reminder of what I’ve gone through to survive, but that doesn’t mean that the world is as understanding.
Cancer didn’t just take my NHL dreams, or my leg. At sixteen, I’d been a top tier flirt, but my experience with girls was pitiful. Who had time for dating? For stolen kisses? I was too busy working on puck control, sharpening my passes until I could connect with my teammates with my eyes closed. Who had time to cop a feel in the backseat? I was at the rink until they threw me out. I spent my free time coaching preschoolers to march across the ice so I could pay for more ice time. And when hockey disappeared like a cloud of smoke, I’d been sick. Hockey had been attractive to girls my age. Cancer was not. And after that… after that I was too angry, too hurt, to learn how to reel in women.
I’ve been to enough support groups to know that men tend to do better with amputation and prosthetics. Lower rates of depression, lower rates of pain and discomfort with fit, lower rates of mental-health challenges, lower rates of phantom limb issues. And lack of real-world experience aside, I’ve been a guy long enough to know that in hetero-normative relationships, women are significantly more understanding about appearance than men. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t faced my fair share of horrible experiences while courting women I wanted to date or sleep with.
With a below-knee amputation, it’s pretty easy to go through my daily life incognito. The right pants can hide my prosthetic almost entirely unless someone is staring at my ankles. Young Erik had set out to hide my leg any chance I got, but I’ve grown out of that over the years. I don’t try to hide, but I don’t shout it from the top of the Willis Tower. If I think sex is on the table, I prefer to tell my prospective partner right away. Everyone has insecurities about their bodies, even Vic, but my leg is a class all its own. It’s not so much that I’m insecure, as it is that other people can balk at the idea. Even with sex off the table, anyone who will run from who I am is not worth a spot in my life.
That’s why I’d shown Quinn. It hadn’t been about sex—not just sex—not with her. I’d been too happy sitting there, chatting about a game that had once broken my heart into infinitesimal pieces. Too comfortable poking fun at her and being ribbed in return. It didn’t matter that we have no future. I needed to confirm my suspicions before I let myself even imagine anything else. My suspicions that she wouldn’t be phased beyond a general sadness for my loss. And maybe, maybe I prepared myself for the tiny sliver of a chance that she’d take it poorly. Look at me with enough thinly veiled horror that it would be easy to leave the game and not think about her again.
What time am I picking her up? I clench my jaw.
“I’m not.” I lean into the hard back of the chair.
“But you were super into her.” Vic frowns. “People haven’t stopped talking about it.”
Of course Vic would have seen just how much I liked Quinn. I may have put distance between us over the years, but Vic is still my brother. My twin. One of the best gifts Vic has ever given me was understanding. He’s never forced me to talk about any of it. He went off and signed his contract and never pushed me to go to his games or make any appearances. He’s steered interviews away from our formative years and our relationship. He didn’t cry or coddle me during any of my hospital stays. When he did show up, he squeezed my hand, and treated me the same as before.
“People?” I know our mother had screen shots, but after a few searching questions—that I’d refused to answer—she’d stopped pushing for information. Who else was discussing my love life?
Vic flushes and reaches for the remote, turning the volume up even though neither of us is watching.
“Vic?”
“The media might have gotten wind of you two canoodling at our game against Chicago.” Vic says with a wince. “And Tris might be pushing me to get you to come by the head office and do some sort of promotional feature.”
Tristan is the tiny brunette in charge of the team’s social media pages. Vic had once described her as pushy, brilliant, and beyond terrifying. Given the things the barely five-foot-tall woman could talk seasoned hockey players into doing on camera for her, I’m glad we’ve never met in person.
“So that’s why you’re hiding,” I say, and my brother nods.
“I’m avoiding her calls, texts, and emails, which means there is a better than zero chance that she’ll call the house and show up. She’s obsessed with the idea that people will care about your romance since we’re twins. I told her no, but the woman’s a barracuda.”
