A moment later an onslaught of pictures is filling up my screen again, all of them trusted favorites from our chat history. Even though I have never seen big_teddy_m’s face, he wasn’t exactly shy about advertising his other features.
The one with the bulge in low riding sweatpants—explicit but still leaving the best part to the imagination—is one I come back to especially often. Right now, I’m scrambling for the delete button.
“What are you doing?”
I let out an embarrassing squeak at the low rumble. Next to me, Hart snorts as I press a hand onto my mouth. Some of the guys curse in our direction, but thankfully none of them bothers to raise their heads.
“Asshole!” I hiss at him.
Hart only chuckles, his voice rough from sleep. The sound makes the fine hairs on my underarm stand and I shudder in my seat, pulling the sleeves of my hoodie further down.
“Why are you checking out guys online?”
Okay, so he saw. Great. Just fucking great. Nate, you stupid idiot.
“I wasn’t! Nicko sent those to me.” I grind my molars as I stare down at the locked screen, silently cursing my brother. “He’s talking to this guy on Grindr and–”
“Your brother is onGrindr?”
I wince when he says the last part loud enough for some heads to raise around us. The sleepiness is gone now, and Hart is sitting up straight in his seat.
“Why wouldn’t he be?” I huff defensively, just as Taylor is turning around in front of us.
“Who’s on Grindr?”
“Van der Second,” Hart provides flippantly, my stomach clenching at the nickname. I fucking hate it when he calls me that. It makes me feel interchangeable, like in his eyes I’m the cheaper version of a product. I really wish he knew he capitalized on the spare’s work today.
“Yo, your brother’s gay?”
I hold my breath, my knuckles turning white from how tightly I grip Nate’s phone as I brace for a snarky comment. That’s all, though; nothing more is coming as Taylor blinks at me in question.
“He’s bi,” I answer hesitantly. My sexuality isn’t a secret—and yet I’m not fully out, either. I never planned to get stuck halfway in the closet, one foot out the door, the rest trapped inside. But unlike Hart, who never shuts the fuck up about it and uses every chance he gets toadvocate, I also don’t want to blow it up into a big thing.
I always figured I would deal with this once it really mattered—if I ever meet a guy I plan on introducing to my family. I don’t want everyone to focus on my private life instead of my game. I don’t want teams to shy away from signing me just because they’re afraid I might date a man one day and stir up a big media circus.
“Uhm. Okay. But he’s not out?”
Taylor puts his chin onto the backrest of his seat, apparently settling in for a conversation.
I gnaw on my lower lip as I try to come up with the right answer to this question. This is so awkward—talking about my sexuality from my brother’s point of view while two pairs of eyes are resting on me. The worst thing about this is that I know Nate would have done a better job of it.
“Well…” I draw out the word to stall for more time. “He’s not firmly in the closet. It’s more like...sort of an open secret? Like who knows, just knows? But he doesn’t want it to become…” I gesture with my hands, as if that will help me find the words I need.
“But he doesn’t want to be featured in a media special of his future NHL team about LGBTQIA+ athletes,” Hart jumps in. There’s a note of bitterness in his voice and I flinch.
This again.
“Everyone has the right to come out on their own time,” I quote Hart’s social media posts, but the words sound hollow and empty. My heart is thumping so heavily in my chest, I feel light-headed. I don’t want to talk about any of this. Not as Nicko and not as Nate, either.
“Sure. But no one has the right to portray another player’s coming out as a popularity campaign,” Hart argues. His words are calm, but I can see the muscle in his jaw tick as I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. For a moment, my gaze lingers on the sharp outline, trailing it to his neck, before jerking my head in the other direction.
Only that’s what it was, I want to tell him.You sold yourself out to save the Rebels’ asses and you still don’t get it!
I can’t say any of that, obviously, so I settle for a soft, “He didn’t mean it like that.”
“In that interview on campus radio, you mean? It kinda sounded like he did,” Taylor comments, before turning toward Hart. “You don’t seem surprised by this. Did you know he was bi?”
I can feel Hart’s eyes on me before he gives a hesitant nod. “Yeah, Nate told me when we met in freshman year.”
