Page 84 of Wingmen

Some beast of a guy from Bumfuck, Oregon had just steered Elliot into the boards as he was coming down the wing with the puck. Elliot slammed his stick on the ice as the guy skated away on a breakaway and buried it. His legs were on fire and his lungs were burning because he’d stayed out ten seconds past the end of his shift instead of going back to the bench, and this was what you got when you did that. You got rubbed out and humiliated like a fucking rookie.

He didn’t want to go back to the bench. On the bench was his phone, and there was either a text from Dustin on it or there wasn’t. As long as he was on the ice, either one was possible. Once he looked at the phone, only one of them was, and he was afraid it was going to be the wrong one.

This was probably why you were supposed to leave your phone in the locker room.

He cameoff the ice at the period and collapsed onto the bench. He reached behind him without looking, and dug around in his bag for his water, pretending he’d forgotten the phone was in there. There were too many people around to check it, anyway. He’d just been eaten up out there; if these guys caught him looking at his phone after that, they’d tear him a new one so wide he’d need stitches.

And as long as he wasn’t checking the phone, there was a chance the message from Dustin was on it.

So he left it where it was, hauled on his water, and waited for the next period.

Less than a minute left,and Elliot was ready for this to be over. He stripped the puck from the opposing defenseman and sprinted full-out for the net with his legs screaming. Passing was the sensible thing to do, given how exhausted he was, but if he put this one away he could at least hold onto some scrap of dignity after spending the last thirty minutes smearing dogshit all over the ice.

He could feel the guy coming up behind him and had about half a second to make a call. There wasn’t time to cut him off. He dropped his weight and leaned on the inside edge for a snap shot. Ten more seconds and the game would be over, and he’d be on the bench finding out whether Dustin–

The edge of his skate went into the ice like an axe. His legs stopped instantly while his top half kept going, and suddenlyElliot was on his face, on the ice, stick clattering out of his hands as he skidded toward the net. He hit the post at what felt like a thousand miles an hour, heard it pop out of the ice with a hollowclack, and then he was slamming into the wall behind the goal with the net tangled around his helmet and the whistle shrieking.

He got his forearm up just in time to take the impact as he piled up on the end boards like a marionette with the strings cut. He felt the wind go out of him, and rolled onto his back, gasping.

Dios mío. Dios mío. Dios bendito, me cago en la madre.

He immediately thought about Dustin as his mind careened through the list of injuries he could have just sustained. Head, spine, knee, ribs, forearm, wrist, shoulder, hip…

Not that. Please God, not that, because if I don’t have hockey I don’t have anything and I can’t go through what Bennet is going through. Not yet. Even Bennet got to play until he was twenty-nine.

He moved his fingers. Then his toes. His head and neck. Shoulders. Wrists. He put a hand on his ribs and breathed into it and didn’t feel anything.

He was fine,gracias a Dios, puñeta.He put a thumb in the air to let everyone know.

No one came to help him as he lay there with his ears ringing, staring up at the lights. Understandably. He was unhurt, and what just happened was fuckin embarrassing and deserved no sympathy.

The goalie he’d wiped out was swearing as he came for the net. It was still tangled around Elliot, and the guy shook it roughly loose without a word and dragged it back to the pegs.

By the time the net was back up and Elliot was on his feet, the clock had run out. Elliot kept his eyes down and said nothing to anyone as he skated off the ice and went to the bench.

Dustin hadn’t texted back. He stripped down in the locker room, jerked off furiously in the shower, and stomped outside to wait for his Uber.

That night,he called his mother.

He was in bed with a pizza and theGolden Girlson mute, nursing a bruised shoulder and his wounded pride. She didn’t pick up right away, and he put the phone on speaker, cracking open a Deschutes.

The line clicked and Mom’s voice came through warm and surprised. “¡Dime, corazón!”

“Bendición, Mamá.”

“Dios te bendiga, Mijo. How are you?”

Elliot sighed. He sipped the beer and thought about lying. On the TV, Rose was talking about her diary. “I’m okay,” he said.

“Just okay?”

“Sí, Mamá. Just okay.”

They sat quietly for a moment while he collected his feelings and Sophia on the TV told everyone to go to hell because she wasn’t a 7-11. He wasn’t sure why he’d called. He wasn’t planning to tell his mom anything. Or maybe he was. Maybe he just wanted someone to tell him things would be okay.

So he told her.I’m gay.It just kind of…came out. It was easier than he’d thought it would be. Saying it to Drew first helped.

He didn’t tell her specifics about Dustin Bennet – she knew who that was, and he was afraid that learning her son was gayandsucking the cock of a guy nearly ten years older than him might give the poor woman a heart attack.