Sitting in the back of the charter bus, I could still feel Sal’s kiss on my lips, could still hear his words of encouragement, and could still see him waving at me as I pulled away from his apartment complex.
“Stay strong,” he’d said as we kissed for one final time right beside my car.
Any concerns I’d had about people knowing I was gay were dying off like summer flowers under the frosty fingers of fall. Coming out had been a good thing. Trying to find a silver lining in the hurricane of crap that was now my life, I pulled out my phone and connected to the Wi-Fi on the bus. Then I recalled that I had no earbuds, thanks to McGarrity. I’d meant to buy new ones, but shit had happened that had knocked shopping for earbuds down to the last rung on the importance ladder. So I opened up Virtual Light by William Gibson and started reading.
I won’t lie. When someone sat down beside me, a rush of excitement coursed through me. I glanced up, hoping to see Mario, but instead I saw Elliott Sawyer seated on my right. The big blond forward was sort of cute. He had pretty brown eyes. Not as deep or compelling as Sal’s eyes, but pretty.
“Hey, Miles, you think I could talk to you?” Elliott asked conspiratorially, his words whispered and soft.
I had to lean toward him to hear well. Elliott was a fourth line winger. He didn’t possess a tenth of the skill Dan Arou did, but he was decent. He looked troubled.
“Sure, what’s up?” I placed my reader on my thigh.
He gave the bus filled with men a nervous look. I glanced around and tried to ignore the sight of Mario’s fat head four rows up.
“I know you just came out and all,” he mumbled uneasily, his gaze flying all over the place. “See, I have this thing buried deep inside me. I want to come out too. Tell the world that I have this strange desire not to sleep with women.”
“Dude, if you want to sleep with men, that’s totally okay.” The fact that he was entrusting me with this made me feel great. “It’s not strange or weird.”
“No, Miles, it’s not men I want to sleep with. It’s sheep. I want to fuck sheep really baaa-aaa-aaad!” Elliott bleated loudly.
The four men surrounding me, Chris included, roared at the joke.
“Stupid ass,” I growled, and they laughed harder the redder my face got.
“Hey, asscracks, you think making fun of gay people is funny?”
My gaze met Mario’s. He was planted in the walkway. The laughter died like a doused fire. The younger players started falling over themselves to apologize. McGarrity glowered at the newest Cougars.
“So you were just kidding, right, Elliott? Or do you really like to stick your puny dick into farm animals?”
Elliott blustered and fumbled for words.
“Go sit next to Kalinski. He gets a boner for guys who like to ridicule gays.” Mario jerked his head toward the front of the bus.
Elliott slunk off like a whipped dog. Victor was already spouting off about how Elliott’s last lay was a real hog. Poor Elliott. He’d be flayed right down to the bones by the time we got to Toronto. He’d never want to hear a farm joke for the rest of his life. Served him right.
“Anyone else in the rookie section got something they want to say? Maybe someone has a cute comment they’d like to make about fucking a tranny? No? Maybe one of you has a shim joke to share?”
Heads shook meekly.
“You boneheads sure?”
The other newbies all shook their heads while studying their shoes. Mario tossed me a look, then spun around and returned to his seat. The rest of the long ride to Toronto passed in silence, aside from the loud and cutting cracks Victor rained down on Elliot. Not knowing where Mario and I stood, I slipped into our hotel room on the sly, or what I thought was sly. Guess a big Canuck can’t really be stealthy. Mario was on the phone. He ended the call as I lingered in the doorway, my bags in my hands, trying to feel the situation out.
“Don’t stand there like a teenager caught sneaking in after curfew—get in here and shut the door,” Mario said, then ended his call. He was propped up on the bed, his kilt spread over his lap, his thick arms folded over a purple T-shirt, and his sock-covered feet crossed at the ankle. I did as he asked. The room was thick with unease and that weird smell of old air being pumped through dusty air conditioning vents.
“Thanks for jumping into that shit with Sawyer,” I said while putting my bags on my bed. “I mean, I could have handled it, but thanks.”
“Punk kids like that knot my curly hairs,” Mario replied. I could feel his eyes on my back as I unzipped my travel bags. “You and me, we got some unfinished shit to work out, son.”
Hearing him call me that made me smile just a little. I laid my shaving kit on the bed before turning to face him. “Yeah, we do.” I pushed my hands into the front pockets of my trousers and lifted my shoulders, giving Mario a “Go ahead and talk” look.
McGarrity stared at me as if I’d sprouted another set of ears.
“You go first. Once you apologize and I accept, then we can get our minds on hockey and forget what a dick you were.”
“Apologize? For what?” Mario looked truly confused.
His question surprised me. “For storming out of your kitchen like a jerk when Sal told you guys he was positive.” Was he really that dense? Had he taken too many head-knocks off the ice, like Kalinski?
He sat up to see me better. “Look, Augie, I know you like this Sal guy, and I can see why. He’s a handsome man, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a damn ass for choosing to date someone that much older who has HIV. One busted condom, kid, just one.” He held up a slightly bent finger. “That’s all it takes. You want to die in some hospice, a skeleton of your former self, just because you let your dick do your thinking for you? Is it worth that kind of death just to get your cherry popped?”
“Look, first off his viral count is super low and he’s religious about his meds. The chances of him passing HIV to me is incredibly low, but he’s still cautious because he loves me that much. Doesn’t that hike him up a bit in your eyes?”
“Sure it does, but the facts are the facts. One drunk night and you’re positive as well,” Mario argued.
“So you think I should just dump him because he’s positive?”
“Yeah, I think you should break it off with him.” He threw his feet to the floor and stood up to look me in the eye. “I care about you. I know you like this man, I get that, but you need to think of yourself. Take care of you, August. Let Sal find a positive guy to date, and you find a negative one.” He grabbed my shoulder. I swatted his hand away.
“Fuck. You.” I spun away, grabbed my shaving kit and whipped it back into my duffel bag. “Fuck you, and anyone who thinks like you.”
“Augie, for the love of God, stop being such a fucking brat and just listen to reason,” Mario barked at my back.
I zipped my bag with a vengeance, then tossed the strap over my shoulder. I stalked to the door.
“So you’re just going to storm out?”
“Why not?” I looked back at him. “It’s what you do when you hate something.”
Out into the hall I went. Slamming the door felt good, but not good enough. Anger pulsed through me in hot, violent waves.
Mike was kind enough to dig up a room for me without asking too many questions. My head was not at all in a favorable place for three hours before a game. The next hour was spent stewing. And then game five arrived far too quickly. I knew when my skates touched ice that my head was not in the game. And I was so right. Everything in the best-of-five series would be decided in less than five minutes.
Overtime.
This would be my first playoff OT in the AHL. Oddly enough, I was strangely calm. Why is anyone’s guess. Where all the upset and angst had gone was a mystery. I should have been a basket of nerves. Yet when the horn signaling the end of three periods of scoreless hockey rocked the Toronto arena, I felt completely composed. I got a brief minute or two to switch ends, grab a fresh bottle of water, and get any last-minute directions from the coaches.
“Whatever you have in your head, Miles, keep it there. Lock that tranquility down tight.” Coach Dewey stared into my soul.
“Got it, Coach.” I tapped my brow with my blocker, took a fresh water bottle from a trainer, and skated casually to the away team’s net.
I studied the light behind my net, touched the pipes, and inhaled through my nose. When I faced the players gathering for the faceoff at center ice, I knew that whatever happened was going to be okay. We would win. We had to. We were the comeback team that everyone was talking about. Basement dwellers last season, Calder Cup contenders this year. I played ten minutes of hockey with the knowledge that a win would be ours lodged in my brain.
And then, with the flick of a wrist, a deflection off our captain’s skate, and a wonky bounce off my right shoulder, the Comets had stolen the glory. As Toronto celebrated five feet away from me, I slowly turned and stared at that frozen circlet of rubber resting against the netting behind me. How had I let that happen?
Even after the handshake line and the speech from Coach Dewey about being proud of what we’d accomplished, I was still numb. Everyone in that dressing room was blue. I knew I’d fucked us out of moving onward. Why had I thrown my shoulder up? Why hadn’t I used my stick? Why hadn’t I nudged Buttonwood out of my crease? So many miserable whys, and not one solid answer to any of them.
I sat by myself in the dressing room, running my failure around in my head. I had to pull it together. The question was how? How was I to get around it all? This trouble with Mario was leaving a gaping hole in the center of my chest. Just how much time was a person supposed to give another person? Was there a limit? When would he see the light? Or would he just refuse to give an inch? That seemed to be the way it would roll, because Mario was as stubborn as a Highland mule, to quote the rock-headed bastard.
The ride back to Cayuga was depressing. Seeing Sal waiting for me when we rolled in at eight p.m. the day after losing the quarter finals was the only uplifting thing about that road trip. I walked over to my boyfriend waiting beside my car. His arms surrounded me. Eyes closed, nose tight to the warm spot under his ear, I clung to him tightly.
“Sorry, Aug,” he said as his palms moved over my back, up to the nape of my neck and then back to my spine. “I know how bad you wanted this. You played great, though, baby. That goal—that was totally a freak thing. No way you could have blocked it.”
I pulled back so I could see his face. His beautiful, compassionate face. “Have I ever said how much I love you?”
He tipped his head as if he were now deeply contemplating my question. “Not today, no.” There was a spark of gentle humor.
I captured his mouth, dove deep, and didn’t release him until I was lightheaded.
“Take me home and tell me while I help you forget,” he said.
For a sweaty, sweet hour, I did forget how I’d lost my team the chance to advance. The dirty details haunted my dreams that night, though. The lowlights reel just kept running on an endless loop. Right around four a.m., I dropped off again. Sal’s cell phone alarm going off at six pulled me from a rocky sleep. The alarm ended as sharply as it had started.
“You’re the most beautiful man in the world,” I whispered, then buried my face in his neck. “Did you sleep okay?”
He wiggled around some, until he was on his side facing me, one arm resting on my hip, one long leg between mine, his other arm bent and serving as his pillow.
“Yeah. You?” He ran his hand over my side.
“Not really. My head’s a mess. I need to get straightened out.”
“Don’t get too straight,” he murmured, then kissed me softly. When the kiss ended, I pulled him so close it was hard to tell where he began and I ended. “I have to get ready for work, okay?”
“Okay.”
I dozed off and slept for eight hours. Eight. Hours. Straight. My bladder woke me up. After a piss and some water to the face, I slogged out to the kitchen. The coffee pot had cold coffee in it, so I poured a mug and heated it in the microwave. Sipping on the now bitter brew, I padded out to the living room in just my briefs and turned on the TV. The local station was on. Sal had probably watched the news while he got ready for work. The sofa caught me, and I fell back into the comfy cushions. Coffee sluiced up over the edge of my mug. I wiped my wet fingers on my underwear and watched two soap operas followed by a talk show. Then the news at five came on. I turned the TV off after the weather to avoid the local sports. I didn’t need to see them showing how we’d fucked ourselves in the ass. My dreams had been replay enough, thanks.
Sal coming through the door jarred me from another depressing dream. He gave me a long, sour look while chucking his keys, wallet, and hospital ID badge onto the TV stand.
“You look terrible.” His nose wrinkled as he got closer. “Did you even shower today?”
“Not yet.” I scratched my balls and yawned. “You look hot in your scrubs.”
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me. Wash your nuts. I’ll make dinner. Go—I’m not sitting down to eat with a man who smells as bad as you do.” He pointed at the bathroom door.
My stomach sounded off loudly at the thought of dinner. I guessed the cup of coffee four hours ago hadn’t filled me up. I scrubbed while he cooked. When I joined him at the table, I was dressed, more or less, in lounge pants and a tank top. Sal put a platter of haddock fillets broiled in lemon and butter on the table and sat down across from me. I gave the big tossed salad a bored look.
“I like the scruffy look on you,” he said. His sultry eyes met mine over the healthy meal he’d prepared. “You feeling any better?”
“Meh.” I scooped up two fish fillets and put them on my plate. Sal poured us two tall glasses of spring water. “I feel like I let everyone down. I should have had that goal. It keeps replaying inside my head,” I explained while grabbing a huge handful of salad and dropping it into the bowl by my water glass. “If I’d been just a second faster, I could have gotten my shoulder up higher and knocked the puck down to my chest.”
“You need to stop beating yourself up over it, Aug. You didn’t lose that series singlehandedly. Where were the guys who’re supposed to score? Where were the guys who get paid to protect you and block shots? Teams win and lose as a whole, right?”
“Yeah, I know. Still…”
“Still nothing,” he said around a mouthful of lettuce, cucumber and tiny tomato.
I took a bite and chewed, the fish flaking off on my tongue. I made a yummy sound, then stabbed a massive amount of iceberg with my fork.
“I put in for two weeks off starting Monday. I thought we could do the “meet the parents” trip. Elmira to Martens Bay and back in two weeks.”
I chewed quickly, my surprised gaze locked with his. Sal smiled sweetly and took another bite of his salad.
“We’ll probably have breakdown day Monday or Tuesday.” I put my glass back beside my plate and shoved more fish into my mouth.
“Then we’ll leave the day after.”
“You’re pretty bossy,” I grumbled, then wiped at my mouth with a napkin. “Do you think they’ll like me? Your parents?”
His sisters, I wasn’t too worried about. They were young and probably pretty cool. The twins had been surprises to the Castenadas, who’d thought they’d only have the one son, according to Sal. Imagine having your first kid at eighteen and sixteen, then going twenty-one years with nothing more in the baby department, only to find yourself expecting twins when your first child was an adult. Sal has said that his baby sisters were the apple of his—and his parents’—eye, and kept them all young.
“How could they not? Just look at you. You’re a beautiful, humble young man who loves their son passionately.”
“Yeah, I do love you a lot.”
He looked at me tenderly. “Oh, and check your phone. I tried to call you earlier to tell you about the vacation idea, but all I got was dead air. I bet your parents are trying to get in touch with you. And probably half the team.”
“When we get to Manitoba, will you make love to me out in the woods?”
“Gladly, August, gladly.” His brown eyes glowed sensually. Suddenly, going home without the Calder Cup seemed like an almost okay thing. Not really, but maybe a little less terrible.
Breakdown day is always tough. Everyone is down and disappointed. Cleaning out your cubicle is tough. Talking to the press even rougher. Saying goodbye to teammates the worst. We all know, deep down, that we might never see certain people again. We could be traded, or other players shipped off. Some may retire.
Working to shove a couple of Cougars parkas into a duffel bag, I shot a look in Mario’s direction. He seemed uncharacteristically subdued. He must have sensed my gaze resting on his broad back, because he looked right at me. I glanced back at the jacket I was shoving into my bag. I had no time in my life for anyone who thought I shouldn’t be with Sal.
I left the Rader twenty minutes later, feeling like someone had just run over my cat. I drove home listening to Imagine Dragons. Sal, worried about his tiny place being buried in hockey gear, started cramming my stuff into his bedroom closet.
“When are we leaving?” I handed him three composite sticks.
He took them, popped out a hip, and studied the closet intently. “There is no way these are going to fit in here.”
“I can store them at my place.” I sat on the edge of the bed.
Sal shook his head and mumbled under his breath. “Why do you even keep that place?” He took one stick and wiggled it in behind some boxes and two sets of leg pads. “You’re always here.”
“Are you asking me to move in with you?”
His attention moved from the overflowing closet to me. A nice breeze tickled the drapes. “Yeah, I guess I am.” Sal continued studying the closet.
“We’ve only known each other for something like two months. Don’t you think that’s rushing things?”
He glanced over at me. His smile was nothing short of amazing. “You sound like Mario.”
“Ouch,” I mumbled, and leaned back on the bed, arms locked behind me. “He didn’t say a word to me today.”
“Did you say anything to him?” Sal enquired, then turned his thoughts back to hockey stick placement.
“No, and I’m not going to.”
I let my arms slide out to the sides. My head bounced off the mattress. I could hear Sal muttering under his breath about what he’d like to do with all the hockey gear. That made me snicker.
“You two are never going to get over this if neither of you is willing to talk,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, well, then that’s just how it will roll. So, are you asking me to move in with you?” My gaze lingered on the ceiling, but my ears were finely tuned to Sal. “I mean you are storing my gear in your closet.”
“We could spend three days with each of our families, then come back to move you in,” he suggested from across the room. I pushed up to rest on my elbows. His gaze rested on me. “If you want.”
“Yeah, I definitely want.”
Sal’s expression grew sultry. He tossed the sticks to the floor and strutted over to the bed. I shuddered as he crawled over me, his weight pushing my shoulders back onto the bed.
“You just made me the happiest man in this whole building.” He lowered his head, his lips playing over mine until I swiped deeply into his mouth.
I thought about arguing that there were two equally happy men in the building, but then he rubbed his hard dick against mine, and squabbling over who was happiest seemed unimportant.