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“So.” I clear my throat. “Part of why I wanted to tell you about me and Seb, you know, being friends, is I’m going to the roller race fundraiser Friday night. With him. As his guest.”
Ren blinks rapidly, clearly confused. “But it’ll be chaos, Ziggy. You hate events like that…” His voice dies off as he looks at me, searching my expression. “You…don’t hate events like that?”
I shrug. “It’s not my ideal environment, but part of what I’ve been sorting out since I started college is how I can enjoy those kinds of chaotic environments sometimes. I like your teammates. I love kids. I think it’s an incredible initiative. So, I figured out how to make it accessible for me. I’ve got it covered.”
My brother peers into his coffee mug, frowning thoughtfully. “I never invited you to it before because I thought you’d feel pressure to come, or feel like I didn’t know what’s difficult for you—”
“I know.” I set my hand on his arm and squeeze gently. “I know you meant well.”
He sighs, rubbing across his shut eyes. “I feel like a really crappy brother right now.”
“Ren, no.” I set aside my coffee cup and throw an arm around him, resting my head on his shoulder. “You’re a wonderful brother. Years ago, I would have felt that way, had you invited me.”
“But people change,” he says quietly. “And it’s important to remember that.” He glances my way, then rests his head on mine as we both peer out at the ocean, lulled by its steady roar. “I’m sorry I forgot.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat and squeeze his shoulder harder. “I’m sorry I didn’t speak up for myself. I’m learning. I’m trying to do better.”
“I’ll do better, too,” he says quietly, then after a moment, “I’m glad you’re going. Frankie will be delighted.”
I smile. “We’ll be earplug twins.” Like me, Frankie is autistic and struggles with complexly noisy environments—she’s the one who turned me on to earplugs for that very reason years ago.
He laughs softly. “Yeah. You will.”
After one last squeeze to his shoulder, I ease back and settle into my chair, cupping my coffee in both hands again. A muscle in my back twinges as I shift, and I wince.
“What’s up?” he asks, observant as always.
“Oh, just tweaked a little something in my back during angry yoga. Sebastian and I went real hard on those chaturangas.”
Ren nearly drops his coffee mug, then catches it. “Whew. Too much caffeine.” He sets the mug on the ground beside him. “So, uh, this angry yoga. How was it? I mean, how’d that go?”
I meet his gaze, searching his face for some clue as to whether or not Sebastian told him how far I lost it, but there’s nothing I can read in Ren’s expression, just a sort of odd curiosity. “I said a lot of swearwords and got out some repressed feelings. I haven’t really processed all of what that was, but I just know it felt good to get it out.”
Ren nods slowly. “Right. So…was it, like, a partner thing? You know, where you do poses together?”
“Yeah. Well, kind of. We did the same flow, facing each other. It was a ‘supported practice,’ Yuval called it.”
A quiet hum leaves Ren as he bites his lip, just like I tend to when I’m thinking something over, and glances toward the sand, eyes on Pazza. “Do you two…plan to do it again?”
I nod before sipping my coffee. “Yeah, this Wednesday, actually. Why do you ask?”
A beat of silence stretches between us but for Ren’s fingers tapping on the arms of his deck chair. A furrow forms in his brow. “Just wondering.”
12
SEBASTIAN
Playlist: “Outnumbered,” Dermot Kennedy
My stomach hurts like hell, and I’m telling myself it’s nerves. Because for the first time in my career, I’m actually attending one of our team’s mushy-gushy, feel-good fundraisers, and I’m doing it sober as a saint.
It’s not that I don’t like my teammates or that I don’t support raising money for childhood cancers research. I do. No, I don’t get cuddly and socialize with them, but we get along fine; and privately, I make sure a good portion of my income goes to a number of philanthropic outlets—I just make sure that shit never leaks.
Because if I did regularly show my face at these events, if I did publicize where my money went, it would nudge my dastardly public image into precariously positive territory. And I can’t have that, when every way that I fuck up shows my stepfather I don’t give two shits about his disapproval and humiliates my father, who walked out on my mother and me and who has his own professional hockey legacy that I’m determined to tarnish as much as possible by association with his no-good son.
This has been my plan for years, and I’ve stuck to it. Well, until recently, when I realized it was about to cost me hockey. And now I’m on this bizarre detour, digging myself a little out of the hole I purposefully made, just enough to get my place on the team secure again, to keep my grip on hockey safe and secure.
Me being seen at this team-run charity event, our annual Roller Race for Research of Childhood Cancers, will go a long way in hopefully repairing my standing with the Kings’ management, and Ziggy will get her moment in the spotlight at the event, then have a place to be a little wild, at the after-party at Tyler’s. It’s just right for both our agendas. And yet I have the funniest feeling it’s going to go all wrong.
