Page 20 of Two for Roughing

On his phone screen, Howard’s face lit up, a wide smile dimpling his cheeks. He settled into something more serious quickly, but the dimples stayed. Damir wondered how it would feel to run his thumb across them. Maybe the tip of his cock. He bet Howard enjoyed being on his knees.

“Look, I don’t want to make things worse for you or anything.” Howard sighed, tugging at the tuft of curls right over his forehead. “I just…I’ve been going through some shit with…well, you know.” Damir didn’t, but Howard went right on. “I really wish I had someone to look up to. I get why no one in the NHL has ever come out, but do you have to come out to say something? Tell people it sucks when they make homophobic jokes in the comments?”

Oh. He meant the gay thing.

Damir had never had the option of hiding his ethnicity nor his religion. As a consequence, he’d also never seriously considered telling anyone he was gay. American or Canadian gay men could choose to give up hockey to embrace their sexuality. For Damir, the idea was laughable since he’d be as decisively ostracized from Tatar, Muslim, and Russian society as he would from hockey circles. Far better to play the game he loved and earn what he could from the sport. Being secretive about his own identity was second nature at this point, along with hiding his mixed feelings about religion.

Would it have been different if someone else had gone before him, blazed a trail? Would it be different if other men in the league took a stand? Of course it would. But Damir had long since given up hope that might ever happen. His choices were a closeted life as a minority in Russia or a closeted life as an NHL star earning millions in North America. He could hardly ask for more than that. Howard would learn. He was twenty—plenty of time for reality to destroy his optimism. Damir didn’t have to speed the process along.

“I understand,” he told Howard through clenched teeth. “But you didn’t talk about homophobia.”

“Oh.” Howard laughed nervously. “I figured if no one ever talked about homophobia, they also don’t talk about your thing. You know, be the change you want to see in the world or something.”

Howard turned his head, and the camera caught a pimple under the corner of his left nostril. His skin looked pale and a bit waxy, although that might have been the lighting. He swept his unruly curls off his forehead again. Truly, the people’s hero.

“Thank you,” Damir said. “But now people will ask me to address it.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” Howard deflated, his lower lip jutting out a tiny bit. “I’m sorry.”

Damir took a breath, then another. He didn’t want to speak about the abuse he got online himself. But over the years, he had sometimes wished anyone else, perhaps his teammates or coaches, would notice and mention it in the idle way every unhappy person longed for someone else to fix their problems. He hadn’t expected anyone to ever try, and he certainly hadn’t expected it to be Howard, but here they were.

“I’ve always assumed that would make it worse,” Damir said, “but maybe it will be a good thing. I don’t actually know. Thank you for saying something. You didn’t have to. It wasn’t a great hit.”

Howard mustered a small smile. “We’ve been over this, you apologized, it’s fine. Can we talk about more important shit now?”

Damir raised his eyebrows. “More important than racism and homophobia?”

“Well, I was going to ask if I’m gonna see you off the ice tomorrow, but now I feel like a shallow asshole.”

The Firecrackers’ flight left late in the morning, and they would only be in San Francisco—or rather, in the Radisson in Palo Alto—for one night before leaving for Vegas. It would be stupid of Damir to use his curfew exemption tomorrow instead of saving it for Sin City, as Ketchup had made half the team promise to do.

Then again, in Vegas, he’d have to go out with the team. He would probably spend all evening babysitting drunk, high idiots, and he definitely wouldn’t get laid. If he used his exemption beforehand, he would have a valid excuse to stay behind in the hotel.

“Are you propositioning me?”

Howard smirked. “I mean, last time in Chicago, I tried to be subtle about it. But I guess that wasn’t working for you, so yeah.”

“Based on experience, I thought you would just beg to get fucked if you wanted it.”

Howard’s cheeks flushed, but he kept up his smile. “I’ve grown older and wiser since then.”

“Ah, yes, you’re all of twenty now, hm?”

“I was good enough for you last year.”

Damir considered him, all false bravado and unearned confidence. Should he feel guilty for enabling Howard? Fuck, should he feel guilty for hooking up with Howard again despite being six years his elder and a hell of a lot less naïve?

On screen, Howard blinked his big blue eyes. “Wasn’t I?”

Entirely bypassing his brain, the words shot out straight from Damir’s libido. “You were such a good girl for me.”

Howard’s pink lips dropped open.

Damir wondered if he’d fucked up and crossed a line. It wasn’t as though they’d talked about it or negotiated a scene or anything healthy and sane.

“Please tell me you’re coming over after the game tomorrow night,” Howard said.

Hadn’t crossed a line, then. Good to know.