Page 56 of Offside

Banning was silent for a minute, letting me cry and try to calm myself down, but nothing was really working. I tried to swallow it all down, but the floodgates were open, and I was holding enough in to drown a small village.

“Okay,” Banning finally said, gently patting my shoulder when I finally started to calm down a little bit. “I can’t exactly do anything about that, but I can say that…I mean, you know I’ve got your back, Landon. I have Ash’s in every room, and I will have yours, too. If any of this is from feeling trapped or cornered in a closet– you don’t have to worry about that.”

“You know I’ll make sure you’re as safe as I make Ash–that’s no problem…if you want to–you know. Come out.”

It was nice of him. He had no obligation to do anything like that, and I had no doubt he meant that, but it was just…the last thing I wanted.

No part of me ever cared about being in or out of the closet–I just cared about hockey. I wanted people to associate me with the game I played, not the team I played for. I didn’t want to be some inspiration or have my face tacked on next to Ash’s when our arena did their Pride Night.

Ash liked the attention, but not me. I was happy to be myself and knew that if I were going to come out for Metal, I would be doing it with a safe team, but it would have been just that.

For Metal.

“Lando,” Ash called out, racing over to me like he wasn’t a bowling ball of padding in his goalie gear.

God forbid the kid just left me alone–I got that he and Sam were buddies and that he knew about us, so he knew about me, but that didn’t make us buddies.

In fact, the fact that he was so close to my ex-boyfriend was exactly why he should have been leaving me alone–wasn’t there some bro code in there or something?

No, he was close to Sam.

Not my ex-boyfriend.

Or maybe that was wrong–maybe I should have been trying to meld them more, but it felt good to just be mad at Sam.

It had been a little over a week since my breakdown with Banning, and I was ready to move on to the anger stage of grief. Anger was the name of the game here, and it felt good to be mad at Sam, but it stung something deep to be anything but sad about Metal.

“Landon!” Ash said again, catching me just before I made it off the ice with a scrap of my dignity left here. “Dude, why are you ignoring me?”

“Are you serious?” I asked quietly, but pointed. “You’re not actually that stupid–”

“Whoa,” he almost laughed, following me down the tunnel and away from the rest of our team. “Look, I’m just trying to check on you–”

“And why would I want that, Ash?” I asked sharply, angrily pulling off padding and clothes to get changed. “Tell me–if you were pissed and sad and broken up with Thayer, would you want his buddy up your ass and bugging you every day?”

“No,” he said simply, smiling at me so annoyingly when I looked over at him. “I told Sam it was a bad idea–I actually told him he was a fucking idiot and that pretty much every idea he’d had since the first one was bad, but this was probably the worst.”

Ash started getting changed next to me, not even fazed, while I did my usual tunnel vision on the cubby. I had no concerns about being attracted to Ash ever, but especially not now–that was preservation more than denial.

“I told him you wouldn’t want me bugging you all the time, but you know him,” he sighed, shaking his head almost playfully…like this was all a joke to him. “He got it in his head that you didn’t have anyone to talk to or check on you, so he begged me to do it.”

No.

Don’t react.

My first thought was to get mad at him for thinking I needed him to protect me, but my second?

My second thought was how that was sweet of him…because that was the man I loved.

The one who cared about me and just wanted to be with me because we understood one another. That was the man who hooked me like it was nothing and had me breaking every rule I made for myself for my own protection.

But he was showing up to the party late.

“Well, report back to your master that I’m fine and don’t need you checking in on me,” I grumbled, fumbling to get my shirt on my sweaty body, so I could just get out of there. “And while you’re at it, tell him to stop texting me.”

“Lando–”

“Fuck off, Ash.”