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“I’m out,” I said. “Good luck with Dixon. You’ll never see me again, Jennifer.”
I turned on my heels, crushing what remained of that chocolate in my left fist. I was out before she could say a word. As the door shut behind my back, I heard a flurry of words that were designed to stab me. “If you could get your dick up, maybe I wouldn’t need to fuck a Tinder match.”
One time, I replied angrily and silently to myself. It happened one fucking time. It had been a stressful day. I’d had a heated conversation with my mom just twenty minutes before. I hadn’t been in the mood for sex. I had only wanted someone to hug me. But she wouldn’t get me back in there to fight. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of having that fight.
It was time for me to walk away. She had done her part. It was my turn to lick my wounds and heal if there was any chance to heal. But I wouldn’t do it in front of her.
As I walked out of her building, the entire world spun around me. I wanted to go somewhere where I would be accepted for once. Appreciated. But there was nobody who loved me unconditionally. There was nobody who could provide the comfort and safety for me to just let it out. Except Tyler.
I tightened the walls around my heart. All I had to do was get back to the team house, to my room, and into my bed. Then, I could let myself be a beaten dog, a pathetic door mat, and a useless sack of despair. Because Tyler would be there. And Tyler wouldn’t blink an eye at it.
He would know how to help me.
Tyler always knew.
TWO
Tyler
I watched my best friend’s back as he receded through the gathering crowd at the Thinker. He had spent his people tolerance reserves tonight. He needed the silence.
I couldn’t blame him. The beginnings were always busy. Warming up and getting back into the flow of things could exhaust anyone. Catching up with friends and teammates, slogging through a pile of work, and searching the crowds to make eye contact with a good agent were all the things one needed to do. And that was without actually playing.
Unlike me, Sebastian was an introvert. He loved people, he just didn’t love being around them for too long. There wasn’t a bad bone in his body, so when he needed his peace and quiet, I didn’t take it the wrong way.
Today, the team spent most of our time together. We’d gotten together before the game, played for the crowds, and had then gotten together for drinks. Rounds followed rounds, and Grayson Reed’s arrival promised another one.
I was sorry to see Sebastian sneak away, but it wasn’t like he would miss something important. Besides, that thing with Jennifer was so sweet and promising that I couldn’t do anything other than cheer him on. He deserved some happiness.
The last couple of years had been tough on him. Several relationships had fallen apart, gone up in flames, or sank to the bottom of the ocean. And that was all without the struggles back home. His parents were getting increasingly agitated with Sebastian’s participation in a team as rainbow-colored as ours. I’d stopped going there over the summer breaks for the looks his father was giving me and the wrinkling nose his mother couldn’t hide.
Sebastian knew. He just didn’t know how to deal with it.
It had started with Riley and Cameron. Our former captain and his long-lost lover returning out of nowhere. Last year, they had gone to hell and back, pushing and pulling and ultimately getting together. After winning the Frozen Four, Riley and Cam threw their helmets off, wrapped their arms around each other, and kissed so passionately that no historian would ever mistake them for roommates.
Then came the concerns. Sebastian’s mother slipped in a few comments and then his father doubled down on them. Was this a gay team? Was Sebastian not bothered that such people led him? Was it not against all his teachings to denounce it rather than stand by and watch those perverts and dandies represent him? Would people not think Sebastian subscribed to the same kind of mental twistedness if he didn’t stand against it?
That was when I left their home forever, my stomach turning. I’d grown up in the same neighborhood as Sebastian. We had been best friends since before we were born. Our mothers had been close until mine packed her bags and left town. Even then, the two women had stayed in touch, even if I hadn’t heard much from my mother in ages.
But the two of us? We were besties. We’d been born into those roles and it had been pure luck that we had grown into them, too. My friend was a beautiful person. His parents were his only weakness. However much he disagreed with them, he couldn’t push back. But he never called me out on stopping the visitations. Sunday lunches over summer breaks had always been a tradition in their home and I had always had a place at their table. Nevertheless, after the bullshit they had said — and the sneaking suspicions that I might be a corrupting influence on their least favorite son — I preferred eating canned soup with Dad.
That was another thing, I thought to myself as I finished my beer. Grayson’s order was coming in hot and my stomach was starting to bubble. It was my simmering rage. Sebastian had been dealt such a shitty hand. His parents couldn’t see why chasing a puck like a dog chasing a car meant so much to their little boy. Could he not become a priest like his eldest brother? Or a doctor like the middle one? What they had in store for their daughter, I didn’t know, but I dreaded to think about it. They would either exercise the same sort of pressure on her to accomplish what the elder brothers had accomplished, or they would make her small and invisible.
I knew it bothered Sebastian. I knew what a burden it was to think about his little sister’s future with the flood of indoctrination from their old man.
“…a mustache on him while he’s zoned out.” Laughter roared around me and I realized I had been transported to another world. Sawyer was pitching some unholy prank on me.
I smiled at him. “Do it. It’ll be the closest I ever get to growing one.”
Our goalie’s face went sullen. “It’s no fun if you’re in on it.” The guys laughed again and I joined in on the fun.
It was good to see Sawyer plotting pranks and laughing so easily. He had always been a bit of a broody soul. Not that long ago, the very guy paying for my beer tonight had broken our teammate’s heart. Avery had been a victim of a silly bet between friends. Grayson had vowed to take him out on a date as part of his bargain with a former friend; the two had fallen in love, but the truth caught up with Grayson Reed. Soon after, Sawyer’s fists caught up with Grayson Reed, too. And while Grayson and Avery managed to work out their differences in a weird stripping routine in the snowy front yard of our team house — an event that was still etched in my memory as the weirdest of all the things I had witnessed in my time as an Arctic Titan — Sawyer became known for his violence on the ice. Nobody was messing with him for a time and he had to sit out a couple of games until all the facts were assembled. Grayson, who not only felt he had deserved the punches, but seemed genuinely grateful for them, hadn’t pressed charges.
We were a good bunch. Just looking around the table from where I sat, I saw guys willing to risk their careers for their teammates. Sawyer could have gotten expelled had Grayson acted any differently.
I checked my phone while the other guys resumed their conversations. Courtney had left a couple of messages some time ago, but I didn’t have the mental clarity to chat endlessly. I was on my third beer. Even though it took much more to get me drunk, my vision wasn’t as sharp, and my thoughts were slowing down. I was tired, truth be told.
Asher and Phoenix were the next two to leave. Asher dropped a few terse words to his older stepbrother, Jordan, and the big guy pinched the bridge of his nose. I wouldn’t trade places with either of them. Their frustrations were reaching the boiling temperature.
