He clicked on the story, and a photo of him and his dad standing next to each other, matching crooked grins on their faces and the same waves in their dark-brown hair that both men hated. Right next to that photo was a years-old picture of Christensen that had been taken in the weeks before he’d been drafted. Unlike now, his light-brown hair was longer and wavier. He was smiling, but it was straight across, not crooked. How had he never noticed that Christensen and his dad had the same green eyes, the same butt-chin dimple, and the same nose right down to the pointed tip? Probably because he hadn’t ever seen the two of them in the same room together, let alone in photos right next to each other. It was a weird coincidence, sure, definitely something to give a hungry reporter looking for a new angle to run with. No doubt the Post was going for clicks not truth when they’d written that headline.

He chuckled to himself and clicked out of the story, shoving his phone into his bag as he turned the corner to get to his assigned locker. Christensen was already there, early for once, sitting on the wood bench.

“Well, if it isn’t my long-lost brother,” Ian said, dropping his bag on the bench with a loud thunk. “Did you see that shit story in the Post? Man, you think they could have made up that we were going out or something?”

For once in his life, Christensen kept his mouth shut. Just sat there looking down. The first hint of unease creeped in, making him aware of the inside of his ears. It was always like this before a check he barely caught out of his periphery or before the puck came sailing his way. It was like his sixth sense and the common cold were unlikely twins.

“Dude.” He stopped in front of Christensen. “No one is going to believe we’re actually brothers.”

“Ian.” His best friend looked up, the muscle in his jaw working overtime. “I asked Lucy to buy me some time.” Christensen rubbed the back of his neck, hard, his movements jerky. “I figured for sure she could make it happen. She always fixes everything.”

A bone-deep survival instinct shoved away most of what had just come out of Christensen’s mouth, as if it were radioactive. Instead, he focused on the rest, grabbing hold of it and refusing to let go.

“Petrov,” he said, his voice harsh. “You always call me Petrov. You’ve never called me Ian.”

Christensen rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “That’s what you want to focus on right now? That I’m using your first name?”

“Yeah,” he said, squaring up in front of his friend—and that’s all he was, a friend.