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“Tans,” Coach barked. “You’re up!”
I shook myself, and oh, shit. How long had I been spacing out? Too long, apparently. Face burning, I skated up to join my linemates, both of whom gave me puzzled and amused looks. The look I got from Coach was definitely not amused, and I would probably be hearing about this after practice.
At least I made it through the drill without falling on my ass. That was honestly an actual miracle.
On the way into the locker room, Bens elbowed me. “Where’s your head today, man?”
I shrugged. “Just one of those days.”
His expression screamed skepticism. “Just one of those days right after you met your online friend in person, right?”
My lips parted. “What? How the hell did you know we—”
“I didn’t.” He cackled and smacked my shoulder. “But I do now!”
“You… Oh, fuck you.”
He howled all the way to the locker room. Coach did, as predicted, pull me aside and give me an earful about having my head in the game, including threatening to healthy scratch me tonight if I didn’t come back from whatever planet I was on. I assured him I’d have it together, and he let the subject drop. Coach was a hardass—head coaches had to be—but he was also fair and reasonable. I wouldnotlet him or my teammates down again.
After I’d showered and dressed, I joined some of the guys in the lounge to eat. Bens, Levinson, and Adamo were at our usual table, a place saved for me.
“So Bens says you’ve got a new dude on the brain.” Adamo smirked. “That why you couldn’t skate this morning?”
I punched Bens in the arm. “You dick.”
He just snickered.
“Who is this guy, anyway?” Adamo skewered some green beans on his fork. “You actually got a boyfriend this time?”
“I…” I stared at the food on my plate, nudging a piece of chicken around. “We just met, okay?”
“In person, yeah,” Bens said. “But c’mon. You’ve known him forever.”
Levinson and Adamo fixed inquisitive looks on me. They sort of vaguely knew about my nebulous online friend, but I hadn’t said much about us meeting.
I huffed as I put down my fork. “Fine. Yes. I met him online a few years ago. Through… mutual friends.” That was a creative way of describing online trolls, fuckwits, and politicians, but it would do. “Turned out he lives in Pittsburgh, but we just never got around to meeting in person until recently.”
“‘Never got around to it,’ he says.” Bens kicked me under the table. “More like you were too scared to meet him and find out he was actually Bill Wyatt or something.”
I almost choked. “Yeah. That’s it. I totally thought our GM was catfishing me.” I rolled my eyes.
Adamo pursed his lips. “I don’t know, man. He can be shady as hell.” He shrugged. “I’m not saying hewouldcatfish anyone, but if I found out he did, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Absolutely,” I deadpanned. “And all that time he was wheeling and dealing to re-sign our UFAs and get Egorov and Vincent signed last summer, he still had hours left in the day to chat with me.”
“Hours? Seriously?” Levinson scoffed. “I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than an hour online in a single day.”
Bens shrugged. “That’s because no one likes you.”
Levinson flipped him off. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t change the subject.” He turned a pointed look on me. “So you spent ages online with this guy and finally met him face to face?” His forehead creased. “How did that go?”
“Uh, it…” I dropped my gaze and poked at my food. “It went good. It was…” How the hell was I supposed to explain it? Especially to my straight teammates? Okay, the jury was still out on Adamo—prettysure he and our equipment manager had hooked up once or twice—but Levinson and Bens were definitely straight. And even though openly queer players were just a normal part of the sport these days, since thank God this wasn’t the 1990s anymore, that didn’t necessarily mean they wanted to listen to me drone on about Isaiah’s beautiful eyes or the chemistry that had sparked to life last night.
Before I could go on, Bens declared, “I was right! Youareinto him!” He barked an arrogant laugh. “Thought you could fool me.”
I just chuckled, shaking my head. Truth was, I hadn’t been lying. I’d been really into Ian as a friend, and while I’d known we had a connection, I hadn’t considered the possibility there might bemore. That had changed in a heartbeat the moment I’d met Isaiah.
God. Just thinking about that almost made me shiver. Which I did not need to do in front of my teammates. They found enough reasons to chirp at me, thank you very much.
