Page 15 of Wingmen

But an image came into his head and stopped him: Bennet, sitting in the recovery room. Ten pointnine nineon the ladder was fucking rough. Or maybe not, for where Bennet was at with recovery, but… Dustin Bennet wasn’t a guy who felt good about ten nine nine. And on your home turf. In front of your people.

He remembered the call with his mom, and winced.

Shouldn’t’ve gone into the recovery room – he didn’t need to ice his leg; he was just trying to show solidarity to Bennet, because watching him get reamed by that bald guy was tough. Elliot had a clip saved in a YouTube playlist of Bennet getting brutally checked into the boards a few years ago, and then waving everyone off as he got up and skated away, bleeding from the nose. It was tough to watch. Watching the bald guy call him out on the agility ladder was worse.

Sighing, he got up and went to the window. Across the street, six stories down, people in sun hats were drinking cocktails on a restaurant patio. He deleted the message to Bennet, typed,nah chillin dog. get at it, sent it, pocketed the phone, and went down to the restaurant.

The waiter broughta cocktail and Elliot tapped the next profile. He squinted at the picture. Not Leah. Sighing, he went back to the list and tapped the next one.

Why was he even looking for Leah? He wasn’t interested in girls like that: Shameless. What Uncle Sal would call ‘descará’ — not for anything serious. The girl you were looking for, the one you married, wouldn’t act so desperate. Sal had told him thatfuckingthatgirl would be like ‘a religious experience’. Honestly, the thought of that made him nervous.

But as long as Diego thought he was fucking someone, he figured he may as well be. Leah would do for now.

The server came back with the menu and Elliot told him to wait while he ordered. He skimmed the front page and chose a panini. The waiter went off, and Elliot sipped his drink and went back to the phone.

He couldn’t look at any more Leahs, so he opened TikTok and idly scrolled: Hockey, woman screaming in her car, dog at a day spa. A familiar face appeared and he stopped. Nic Arsenault – a defenseman from Canada. One of the best in the league: he’d won gold with the US at the Winter Olympics this spring.

In the video, Arsenault was behind a press desk with about a thousand mics pointed at him, and beside him, a player Elliot knew, Riley Webb, was sitting with his arms folded. It was a week old, according to the date on the video.

Elliot angled away from the sun to read the subtitles.

–was one of the hardest decisions I ever made.It felt like there was a lot at stake – not just, uh, you know, for me, but for the – for other guys in the league who might also be queer.

Elliot’s stomach jumped.Queer? Did he read that right?He turned up the volume, then glanced around and lowered it to barely audible and put the phone against his ear.

“ButVanity Fairwas great about giving me a lot of control over what was written in the piece when I came out,” Arsenault said. “Naomi Vasquez, who did the interview, turned out to be a great resource for navigating the uh, you know, the media. And Rick Gallagher has been a great agent and supportive ally. He’s uh, he’s taking on new clients, if any…you know, if any other guys are…interested in coming out.” He chuckled nervously, and off-screen, the assembled press did the same.

Elliot pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it.

Arsenault wasgay?

“–wasn’t a decision I made lightly,” Arsenault was saying. Elliot turned it up one notch. “And I guess… I don’t know, I feel like sometimes, because it’smostly okayto be queer now, some people kind of assume that itisan easy decision. But like…even if you have support, and even if you live in a place where it’s accepted, it’s stillhard. You know? Like…before you even decide to tell other people, there’s a lot of – of soul-searching, and questioning, and denial and, ah–” He glanced at Riley. Riley looked caught in headlights for a moment, then leaned forward.

“Imposter syndrome.” Cameras flashed.

Hold up…

Elliot’s heart began to beat fast.Was Webb gay, too?

Riley Webb? Who’d come up three years ahead of Elliot in juniors? Who’d asked to borrow Elliot’s phone at an event once, and Elliot had handed it over before he remembered he had Grindr downloaded on the home screen. Elliot was fifteen. He’d only downloaded it because he was curious. It wasn’t like he’d actually used it. It wasn’t like he actuallyneededit, because he wasn’t actually… Webb handed the phone back after his call and walked away like he hadn’t noticed, but the moment was seared into Elliot’s memory, because he’d been so fucking terrified Webb had seen it.

What if hehad?What if he’d noticed and said nothing, because – because…

Elliot came to the edge of that sentence and couldn’t get across to the other side. His stomach went horribly sideways, and he swigged his cocktail and leaned in to block the sun on the screen.

“–and then you worry about, like, if you’re queerenough, which is, like, a whole other crazy – uh…” Arsenault smiled and cleared his throat. “Sorry…what was the question?”

Elliot pinched to zoom in on his face. Arsenault was usually pretty good at media – Elliot had a playlist of his clips on YouTube so he could study how he handled questions. But this was like…it looked like he’d never done press before.

The clip ended and the next video auto-played. Elliot went back to the press conference and watched it again.

How the fuck had he missed this?

A plate appeared in front of him, and he said, “Gracias,” automatically, and then, “Thanks.” The server asked if he wanted another cocktail. He glanced at the half-empty glass in his hand, downed it, and held it up. “Yes.”

Pushing the plate aside, he put his elbows on the table and went back to the phone. When he typedNic Arsenault gayinto TikTok search, a bunch of videos came up. All within the last two weeks, from communities Elliot didn’t follow – which explained how he’d missed it. QueerTok, mostly, and some from something called BookTok, which Elliot didn’t even know was a thing, but who all seemedveryinterested in gay hockey players, for some reason. The official NHL account was slower to pick up the story. They’d probably waited to see what the internet did to figure out how to play it.

He tapped a QueerTok video and learned that Arsenault wasn’t gay, he was bi, and that he’d come out in an interview withVanity Faira couple of weeks ago in June. Elliot had been decompressing in Miami after the season – which mostly meant getting shitfaced with Diego, which was another reason he probably didn’t see it. He opened the browser and found the article.