Page 29 of Josh’s Play

Ethan ruffled my hair again. “That’s a no-brainer, Josh. We all know that Cam belongs in the spotlight.”

“Yeah, he does,” Josh agreed, looking right at me again before looking up at Ethan and then quickly focusing on his scribbling again.

I knew it had been a mistake to invite Josh, but the thing was, Josh had been to every one of our home games, and he’d never stayed after the game, even to say hi. I saw him in the crowd each week, except for one when he had sat somewhere different. When I asked him about it in class, he told me he had intentionally sat elsewhere to get a different perspective on the game. Earlier that night, he had been back in his regular seat, looking right at me as I entered the rink.

So I’d invited him to come to the after-party, but first we’d stood in the shadows of the ice rink and kissed, and all I wanted was to kiss him again.

Ethan tapped my shoulder, and I turned to look at him as I swatted him away. “Huh?” I’d clearly missed something.

“Just because you live like a monk doesn’t mean Josh here wants to. What do you guys say? I’m gonna head over to Lefty’s and scope out the action.” He pointed to Josh, and I turned to face him, finding his eyes on me as if he was trying to read the look on my face. I clocked his look of concern as Ethan ordered, “Write this in your little book. The puck bunnies come out in full force when you win, and when you have the team’s ‘Mr. Nice Guy superstar’ with you”—I felt my hair get mussed again—“they come out of the fucking woodwork. Whaddya say, Cam? Josh? Should we leave these boring couples and head to the bar?”

I felt trapped, Josh looking on sympathetically, Ethan behind me talking about hooking up with women.

“I think you mean happy couples, not boring couples. You guys should try it sometime.” I thought Noah’s quip would give me a moment to center myself, but he had shone the spotlight on me instead.

He pointed between Ethan and me. “You’re like two extremes, this one with a different girl every night, and hell, Cam, I think Josh is the only person you’ve had over since the season started!”

I jumped up, a look of desperation on my face, but Josh stood, too, and rescued me. “You know, Cam, your friends are right. We’re way too focused on this stupid podcast project. You two should definitely be out chasing, what’d you call them, puck bunnies? But I’m gonna leave you guys to it.” He looked at me then, his gaze intense. “Meet up with my own crew. Congrats on the win, guys.”

He walked right past me and headed for our front door, phone in hand before he was even on the other side. One of the couples in the room took the opportunity to get up and make their way upstairs, and Noah mumbled a, “See ya,” as he and Diane headed to his room toward the back of the house.

Shelley: Still meet me if you want. Doesn’t matter how late.

He added his dorm and room number.

Ethan clapped me on the shoulder, and I shoved the phone in my pocket, taking in the suddenly empty room. “Come on, man.”

“Yeah, sure. I guess so. Maybe one drink.”

I threw a winter coat on and followed Ethan out of the house, a cold blast of Hampstead Valley wind finding my face like a slap. I felt like I deserved a slap, inviting Josh, basically offering to hook up with him, then sending him on his way because I was too in my own head to even sit next to him. He shouldn’t have invited me to join him in the dorm, he should have told me to fuck off.

Head down against the wind and hands stuffed in my pockets, we walked briskly to the nearby bar. Ethan was talking a few paces ahead of me but didn’t seem to require a response as I thought seriously for the first time what it might mean if I came out. I mean, it wasn’t the Middle Ages; there were out major league players in some sports and even an out NHL prospect.

And yet it was such a hang-up for me. In part, I blamed my high school hockey coach, who used to bark at us all the time about not having any distractions during the season. If it were up to him, we would have been exempt from homework and family obligations and anything but hockey. He’d drilled that into me personally, pulling me aside over the years to tell me he thought I could go far and doling out advice on how to get there. “Hard work! Concentration! Keep your head down, Cam, and most importantly, no distractions!”

He’d drilled that into me over four years and reminded me of it again when I was a senior, and I’d started dating a girl I had been friends with for years, Leah. The thing was, he hadn’t needed to, as I was so goddamn distracted after Leah suggested we could maybe have sex for the first time after the winter formal that instead of going through with it, I broke up with her.

I played like crap for a week after that, my friends all teasing me that I should beg Leah to get back together with me. I resolved at the end of the week that my love life in general, and my gayness in particular, would never be distractions. And I had used my “no distractions” motto as an excuse to not think about my sexuality, much less contemplate coming out.

Joshua Marchetti-Gordon was proving to be a huge fucking distraction.

The thing about me is that attraction generally isn’t that big a deal for me. Over the years, there had maybe been one or two guys that I liked. I can freely admit that I thought Josh was cute when I saw him in that waiting room, and had I sat at the other side of the room and never seen him again, he would have just been one of the guys on that list. Jon from high school, Ned from the opposing traveling hockey team, the guy in my dorm freshman year who never wore a shirt. My attraction to them was as meaningless as my attraction to random movie stars or influencers who popped up on my phone or the shockingly hot man who was then president of the United States.

But then Josh and I talked, and it’s not like I believe in love at first sight or anything, but I just knew I had to see him again. In my convoluted brain, I had thought I could ignore my pull to him the day I met him by inviting Diane to the party instead, when what I really wanted to do that day was to invite him.

So when fate brought us together again, first at the gym and then in the same class, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to him both times.

All the hours we’d been spending together had allowed me the chance to get to know him, and there was this part of me that just knew that if I weren’t so hung up on the “no distractions” thing that I would have asked Josh out, properly and directly. Not just a hey, come to my party or a casual hookup but a proper date.

But Josh wouldn’t have wanted that. I’d learned that by becoming friends with him. He liked to play the field, hooking up with different guys. Hell, if I’d texted him right then and told him I wasn’t coming, I was sure he’d take advantage of having the room to himself to find some willing guy to fool around with.

So I told him nothing of the kind.

I went to the bar with Ethan, and we found our teammates and many hangers-on taking up most of the front corner of the restaurant. Ethan, who was twenty-one, headed to the bar, and I followed. I hadn’t eaten since before the game, and I thought about ordering something, but when we were intercepted by a woman that I knew Ethan was interested in, I just quickly ordered a soda instead. I went back to the crowded hockey table and left Ethan by the bar, where he and the woman shared a corner of the counter next to a group of guys around our age.

Our group was pretty rowdy, still celebrating the win, and they cheered as I approached. I loved the feeling of doing my best on the ice and of winning, but I hated being the center of attention. It was another reason why I’d decided to stay in the closet. I was just a simple farm boy from Upstate New York who was pretty good at blocking a goal. I wasn’t a trailblazer or an activist. I just wanted to play hockey.

I stood on the fringe of the group, sipping my drink, smiling and thanking people who came up to me. Two of the guys from the bar left, arm in arm, right as I was draining the last, watery dregs of my soda, and I could have sworn the blond was checking me out even as he left the building on another man’s arm.