Chapter Eight
“Jamie! I have the perfect guy for you,” Bryan announced as he sat down across the table.
Jamie continued to chew his pizza and absolutely did not roll his eyes.
“I’m good, thanks,” Jamie said once he’d swallowed the bite.
They were at a good Italian place in Sydney on Cape Breton, and Jamie was enjoying his slice of pie, his nice cold beer, and the warmth of Olle pressed along his side in the undersized booth.
The team had taken to dragging a bunch of tables together, often with a booth, and packing themselves into as little space as possible. Jamie had never appreciated hockey players’ lack of personal space boundaries more, since Olle always liked the corner, and that meant Jamie had a perfectly innocent reason to be practically in Olle’s lap most of the time.
They still called these team bonding dinners, but more and more, it was about two-thirds of the team jammed together, including Jamie and Olle and their friends, and about one-third who sat at the other end of the table, or ducked out early, or sometimes didn’t come along at all.
No one, including Rupert, seemed concerned about that, so Jamie wasn’t either. It probably wasn’t a coincidence these were the same guys who often dressed and undressed where Jamie couldn’t see them.
“But he’s my cousin,” Bryan said, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm. “Super nice guy, I’ve known him my whole life and can totally vouch for him.”
Before Jamie could decline politely again, Olle put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “What makes you think he’s perfect for Jamie?”
Bryan blinked owlishly.
Jamie choked back his laughter. It was hard to tell if Bryan was more surprised that Olle had spoken up, since he was usually content to sit back and listen, or if the deer-in-headlights look was because now he had to come up with an answer besides “he’s gay”.
Bryan finally arrived at, “He’s really nice.”
Olle nodded. “And Jamie is really nice, too, right?”
“Yeah?”
“What else?”
Bryan shrugged. “I don’t know, man. He’s a good guy.”
“Good looking?”
Bryan blinked. “He’s my cousin.”
Jamie felt Olle tremble with silent laughter but nothing showed on his face.
“Does he play hockey?” Olle asked.
“No?” Bryan said, sounding confused.
“What does he do?”
Bryan shrugged. “Something to do with fashion, I think?”
Mike guffawed a few seats down the table. Jamie shoved a huge bite of pizza into his mouth.
“Fashion,” Olle repeated as if fascinated. “And where does he do fashion?”
“Uh…Montreal?” Bryan said.
Olle nodded again, as if this made sense. “So, only a ten-hour drive. What are his other interests?”
“He…ahh…” Bryan was clearly at a loss. Jamie almost felt sorry for him. “He has cats?”
Almost.
Now Alexei was giggling uncontrollably, too. Half the team watched him with varying degrees of alarm because goalies could be unpredictable.
“Jamie is allergic to cats,” Olle said flatly.
“Oh.”
“Bryan,” Olle continued, “does your cousin have anything in common with Jamie other than being gay?”
“Ummm…”
“Because, I don’t know if you know this, but just because two people are gay, it doesn’t mean they’re automatically compatible,” Olle said in the same voice a teacher would use with a small child who was going to have their world view blown apart.
Half the table was listening in, now, and a good portion of them were laughing too hard to eat.
“But…” Bryan started.
Jamie took pity. “It’s cool, Bry. I’m not mad and I appreciate you’re trying to do a nice thing, but Olle is right. It doesn’t sound like your cousin and I have a lot in common.”
“I guess not,” Bryan said, slumping. “I just…”
“What?” Jamie asked, curious.
“It doesn’t seem fair. The team always goes to places where most of us who want to can meet someone, and you don’t get that chance.”
Which was both really sweet and probably not entirely true. But either way, Jamie was touched Bryan cared at all, and that a bunch of the guys around Bryan were nodding their heads.
Jamie very carefully did not look at Olle. “I’m okay, though. I promise.”
“I know,” David said, as if a grand idea had struck him. Jamie was filled with dread. “We could go to a gay bar some night.”
Alexei’s beer came out his nose. Mike buried his face in his hands, laughing so hard he’d gone silent. Tim and Chris grinned like lunatics, while everyone else around them appeared to be varying levels of terrified.
But god love this fucking team, most of them were still nodding.
“There must be some of those bars in the cities we visit, right?” Dave continued, blissfully unaware of the reactions around him. “Bryan, maybe your cousin knows.”
“That’s really not necessary, guys,” Jamie said. “Really, I have a—”
“You have a what!?” David asked, leaning in. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I was going to say a full plate,” Jamie said blandly.
“Then why are you blushing?” Bryan asked.
“No reason. I mean, except how you all want to discuss my love life.”
“So, you’re admitting you have a love life?” Tim asked, flinching when Chris kicked him under the table.
Olle smirked and lifted one eyebrow. Jamie didn’t know what to make of that look, but it wasn’t, “Don’t you dare say a word” or “I’m freaking out here”. Olle, clearly, wasn’t about to say anything, and Jamie wasn’t going to out him, of course. But maybe he could get the guys to lay off with the constant attempts at matchmaking.
“So what if I do?” Jamie asked, feeling reckless.
A collective howl went up from the table, everyone ignoring Jamie’s flapping hands and requests to keep it down. They were going to make a scene, which was not what Jamie needed or wanted. It was one thing to be out to the team, and maybe even most of the league, but if anyone had leaked it to the press, the press wasn’t printing it, leaving the public blissfully unaware. Jamie would like to keep it that way.
He snuck a look at Olle and was delighted to see he was laughing at everyone’s reaction, appearing entirely unconcerned. Olle’s trust warmed him.
“The guy in the bathroom?” Dave asked.
“What? No! Not him,” Jamie said laughing. God, he didn’t even know that guy’s name, which wasn’t something he was going to admit aloud.
Jamie didn’t realize his mistake until he saw the calculating expressions on several of his teammate’s faces. Shit. He’d more or less confirmed a boyfriend did exist, and then either confessed to cheating on him, having an open relationship, or having taken up with someone since the bathroom incident.
His instinct was to clarify. He didn’t like the idea someone might think he was a cheater, but he didn’t want to go down the rabbit hole of questions that would follow. He didn’t have a doubt in his mind that his friends would hoard every clue he gave them and try to ferret out the truth.
“So, who is he?” Bryan asked. “Can we meet him?”
“He’s not out,” he said firmly, mentally preparing a lecture for his well-meaning and clueless teammates.
An unnecessary exercise, since they all accepted that without hesitation.
“Cool,” Bryan said. “We respect that.”
Jamie wondered if Tim and Chris noticed everyone studiously not looking at them.
Olle loved this team and the friends he—and Jamie—had made on it.
They were usually ridiculous, and sometimes ignorant, but always well-intentioned. It was so different from Edwardston, and, frankly, most teams he’d been on. He felt a remarkable amount of affection for these idiots, and, in turn, felt less lonely than he had since he’d started playing hockey professionally. But there was another feeling, one he couldn’t quite figure out.
He knew perfectly well who to thank for creating a team with a culture like this, but he wasn’t sure if anyone else did. If anyone else, except maybe Mike and Alexei, were aware Rupert had, at some point, started doing it on purpose.
He thought about that for the rest of their road trip, watching how Rupert handled all the guys on the team—gay, straight, or unknown, accepting, tolerant, or, well—there wasn’t anyone Olle would call intolerant, not outwardly, but there were a few who were…taciturn.
He also watched how they all played together, and it struck him how, with those few exceptions, the team played for each other. Olle liked to win, he always wanted to win—it was the nature of anyone who fought to become or stay a professional athlete, or they wouldn’t have made it this far. But this was different. Olle wanted to win for all the same reasons he ever wanted to win, but now there was something added to that. He wanted to win for Jamie. For Mike and Alexei and Tim and Chris and any other guy who’d been on a team that didn’t want them, wouldn’t welcome them if they knew the truth, who told them—overtly or implicitly—that there was something wrong with them. Who valued them less because of who they were, not how they played hockey.
And it worked. The Ice Cats were winning. Three out of four on their road trip, and the game the day they got back home. Their already strong season was getting stronger, building momentum. Instead of dragging his ass off the ice, waiting for his scolding, he was running down the tunnel, laughing and jostling with the guys, talking about what they were going to do after the game, complimenting each other on some slick play or another.
And all the while, Rupert and Callum watched over them proudly.
Not unlike how Rupert looked now, sitting at the dining room table with Eleanor in his arms, listening to all he’d missed while they’d been away. Oliver had a new bestie whose parents weren’t sure what to make of their daughter trying to develop an English accent, and Christian thought calculus was the devil—Olle didn’t disagree—and Callum had found a mechanic, at last, whom he felt he could trust to do an oil change on the minivan.
It was pretty mundane stuff, and Olle wondered what Jamie made of all this. He’d been invited over, again, for dinner. It hadn’t even been Olle’s idea—Jamie, along with Olle, Mike, and Alexei, had simply been included in the group text from Callum, telling them plenty of food would be waiting after the game, if they’d like to join the family for dinner that night.
Olle had laughed, sitting on the bus next to Jamie when they’d pulled out their simultaneously buzzing phones. Jamie had grinned, then asked, “Do you mind?”
Of course, Olle didn’t mind at all. Nor did he miss the not-so-subtle message Callum was sending his way.
Maybe that was why, when they had finished clearing the table and settled down on the couch to watch some TV, Olle didn’t slide his hand into Jamie’s under the blankets.
Nope. He did it right on top.
It felt good, and maybe a little scary, like the moment the rollercoaster lets go from its perch on that first high peak. He watched Star Wars Rebels, listening to Oliver’s detailed analysis of what each scene meant to the Star Wars universe, and refused to acknowledge the various smirks aimed their way.
It wasn’t like everyone here hadn’t known, but it still felt big. He thought about how often he’d wanted to hold Jamie’s hand over the past few weeks and how many times he had felt like he couldn’t.
But he didn’t feel that way in this house.
Here he was safe. Jamie was safe. And that, he realized, was the funny feeling he had around the team. The one that went beyond affection, and didn’t fit solely under friendship.
At its core, particularly with the men who had become their friends, the team made him feel safe.
Olle looked over at Rupert and thought he understood a few things better. About the family Rupert had built with Callum and their friends, and about the way he ran the team.
By the time the second episode ended, everyone’s long week was catching up with them, and the next day was American Thanksgiving, so no one proposed they try to watch anything else. Oliver mumbled a groggy goodnight and went toward the stairs, Christian staggering after him. Rupert stayed on the couch with Eleanor asleep on his shoulder.
Jamie and Olle stood. Jamie stretched his arms above his head, a huge yawn cracking his jaw, then went limp against Olle’s side. “I have to get going. This week has wiped me out.”
Olle was concerned when Jamie’s eyes fell shut and he leaned all his weight into Olle. He rubbed Jamie’s back and looked at Rupert and Callum. “Can Jamie stay here tonight? On the couch, or, umm…with me?” Jamie went still beside him and Olle cursed himself, looking at him quickly. He was wide awake now. “That is, if you want to?”
“Uhh…” Jamie glanced over at Rupert and Callum. “Yes, I would like that.” He seemed to be having a hard time deciding if he should smile or not.
Mike and Alexei had no such qualms.
Olle looked back at his landlord-boss-friends and found Rupert looking amused and Callum rolling his eyes. “Just try to remember there are children in the house, please.”
And now Olle’s face was on fucking fire, but that didn’t stop him from taking Jamie’s hand, towing him into the bedroom, and closing the door with a final goodnight.