“Undies got himself a girlfriend!” Vinny shouted through the changing room, causing me to look up from my phone.

“What?” I asked, startled. My reaction must have been proof enough for them because the boys immediately started laughing.

It was only our second week back since winter break, and they had already figured out that I was dating somebody. I hadn’t thought I’d been acting any differently, but apparently I was. The whole thing made me feel uneasy and watched.

“Tell us about her, man,” Farmer said. “You’re practically glowing. We’re all dying to know the details.”

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and glared at him.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I insisted, which was true. What I did have was a boyfriend. A cute and lovely official one who was sweet and sexy and still had no idea that I was on the hockey team. It had already moved past the appropriate window of time in which to tell him and besides, with the boys already sniffing around, I didn’t want to add any fuel to the fire

Shawser scoffed.

“You mean to tell us that you’re just keeping your hair cleaned up, constantly checking your phone, and dreamily staring off into the distance for no reason?”

“Not to mention, he’s been leaving practice on time for once,” Onti interjected. “He’s only stayed late one time this week.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I’m allowed to have other friends besides you guys.”

“Especially a super-hot lady friend with really big tits,” said Stole.

A couple of the guys laughed and then Sal came to my rescue by throwing his towel across the room at them.

“Leave the kid alone,” he said sternly, with his hands on his hips. “He doesn’t owe us an explanation. Just be happy about his point streak, girlfriend or no girlfriend.”

I tried to meet Sal’s gaze to thank him for sticking up for me, but he had already turned back to his cubby and was staring into it with a distant and concerned look in his eye.

“Yeah, man,” Matty said. “You do you, but seriously though. Keep it up, whatever it is, because I want to make it to playoffs for once.”

The other guys laughed and expressed their agreement.

I breathed a sigh of relief, happy that they were letting me off of the hook so easily. They were right about one thing though, I was playing extremely well since Mark and I had gotten together. You’d think that my first serious boyfriend would be a huge distraction, and it was in some ways, but I was finding that games went down so much easier when I played them with a clear head and a full heart.

I turned away from my teammates and finished getting ready for the game, all the while thinking about Mark and how difficult it was going to be to keep the two most important parts of my life separate from one another. I wasn’t a defenseman, but now my existence was all about keeping the line, and if I failed to do so, I knew it would mean giving up much more than a good scoring opportunity. I also knew that the guilt was going to catch up to me and bite me in the ass one of these days, but today was not that day.

We lined up on the ice and listened to the national anthem. We actually had a pretty decent crowd for an early afternoon game on a Sunday. We’d caught the students right in that sweet spot during which they had nothing better to do than take advantage of our criminally cheap ticket prices and cheer on what was quickly becoming the highest ranked sports team this school had.

We were facing off against the Albuquerque Wasps who, despite the name, weren’t very much of a threat. We had Gibbs in goal tonight and he looked deadlier than I’d ever seen him. I knew without saying anything that he was going to block every shot thrown at him tonight. He was a backup goaltender with a vengeance.

The game started off slow. The Wasps were outshooting us by a little bit, but we were winning almost all of the face offs. Aside from a couple of good looks on either side of the ice, the first period concluded with nothing of note happening.

At the start of the second, Recker took a minor on a tripping call and ended up in the box. It was a really tough kill seeing that their excellent power play percentage was the only thing the Wasps had on us, but thanks to Gibbs’ steadfast defending of the goal, we were able to kill it off, and ten minutes later I scored on breakaway, giving us a tentative lead.

It wasn’t until the middle of the third period that we really hit our stride. Stole got us another goal by standing in front of the Wasps’ goaltender and letting the puck be deflected off of his shoulder. Then Matty batted one in with an assist from Farmer. Finally, in the last minute, I passed up the ice to Sal who took the puck all the way into the empty net, sealing the game at four-nil and extending my point streak. A nice easy shutout win at home on a Sunday afternoon. Doesn’t get much better than that.

The atmosphere in our changing room was giddy and excited. Everyone was happily riding our wave of victory. Well, everyone except Sal. After we’d finished our post game briefing, I slung my bag over my shoulder and went to go find him in the hall. Everyone else had pretty much cleared out by now so it was just the two of us.

“Hey, man,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You seem a little bit off. Is everything okay?”

Sal smiled tiredly.

“Funny, I was about to ask the same thing about you.”

“Is this about the whole girlfriend thing?” I asked. “Because I swear to God...”

Sal shook his head.

“No, it’s just...you know you can talk to me if you need to, right?”

My heart started pounding immediately.

Red alert! He knows about the gay thing! My brain started screaming. Quick, say something straight!

“Yeah…” I said carefully. “Uh, what exactly are you getting at here?”

Sal sighed.

“Nothing, Carter, really.” He adjusted his gear bag and cracked his neck in what I could only assume was an attempt to appear nonchalant. “Just that I care about you. And you can count on me if you ever need something. Hockey or otherwise. That’s all.”

I turned away from him, uncomfortable with the sincerity of his words, but appreciating them nonetheless.

“Thanks,” I said. “I, uh...I’ve gotta get ready for a thing. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I could feel Sal’s eyes boring into me from behind as I hightailed it out of the arena. I didn’t know why I was so paranoid about him knowing my secret. There was literally no way that he could have. Was there?

This double life was going to be even harder to manage than I thought.