Epilogue #2
“Absolutely.” She started talking, pulling apart the game play by play, while I nodded and tried to look like I both knew and remembered more than I did. Still, I appreciated being included instead of just standing against a wall.
The first player, a veteran defenseman, came through the door in his game-day suit. He kissed his wife, then spotted me. “Your guy’s gonna be a while. He’s got more media to do.”
“Thanks.”
“The penalty for being a star.” He grinned, showing the gap of missing teeth. “He did good. Some of the boys want to take him out for drinks. Significant others invited.”
“He’ll appreciate that.” Callum wasn’t a big drinker, normally, but he’d been relieved that many of the Dragons had made an effort to welcome him to the team. The rookie hazing had mostly been good-natured.
A clump of players came through the door a few minutes later. One was Aakvaag, who looked around and came my way. “Hey, your man played good.” He held out his hand.
I shook it. “Thanks for that last goal. My blood pressure did not want to go to overtime.”
“Us neither.” He turned as several of the other men approached.
“Hey, Evans,” one of them said. “We’re going to take Fitzer out to celebrate his first win and his first point.”
“Yeah,” another laughed. “I tell he needs to score goal next time.”
His buddy shoved him hard enough to stagger him. “Don’t give Fitzer ideas. We don’t need another forward.”
The youngest of them said, “Anyhow, we thought we’d make it fun for Fitzer by going to a gay club. You have any ideas, Evans?”
“You want to take Callum to a gay club?” I asked, to make sure.
“Yeah. Not to pick up or anything. You should come too. But he hates being hit on by women.”
Callum actually thought it was funny, how many women still chased him despite his public coming out. But he’d probably also think it was funny to have his whole team end up in a gay bar, and who was I to derail the spirit of inclusion? “You more into drinking or dancing?”
“Both?”
I gave some thought to which gay club might be welcoming to straights and fun to go to. Although the asses on a hockey team would be welcome in most gay bars. “If the guys can handle being hit on by men in the spirit it’s meant, try Tiger’s. The DJ has good taste and the beer’s decent.”
“Tiger’s, huh?”
The team guys huddled, looking it up on their phones, discussing who was driving and whose wives and girlfriends were coming.
They were good sports about the thirst-trap photo of the tattooed bartender, arguing over whether his abs were better than theirs.
The women joined in the teasing, some bowing out, some saying they were definitely coming.
I was standing back, watching the guys, when someone started clapping. Callum came in, his face going red. “Cut it out, guys.”
“It’s the first star!” A burly defenseman caught him in a headlock.
Callum wriggled free, shoved the guy away, and grinned at me. “You see what I put up with? Arrest that man.”
“Sorry, I’m not a cop anymore,” I reminded him. “You’re on your own.”
Callum ran a quick gaze up and down the suit I was wearing and sobered. “How did it go in court?”
“Fine.” I wasn’t going to discuss the trial here, or bring down his mood tonight, but tomorrow he’d probably have to put up with me whining about the whole testifying process— dressing up to look professional, now I was no longer entitled to the uniform.
Waiting around for hours, just to have my words twisted by the slimeball lawyers of the trafficking motherfuckers we’d busted.
I thought I’d held my own, but it was not a fun time.
And there were more trials and hours more testimony to go.
Vicki said, “I didn’t realize you’d left the force. What are you doing now?”
“Back to school,” I told her. “Change of careers.” I didn’t mention social work, having found out pretty fast that everyone had vehement and uninformed opinions on the topic.
I had no regrets, though. Callum’s salary, and his grandfather’s decision to sell his house and pay me nominal rent, had cleared the way for me to go back to what I’d originally wanted.
I’d seen social work in practice. I didn’t think I had illusions. I was looking forward to it anyway.
As a distraction, I told Callum, “The team wants to take you to Tiger’s.”
“Seriously?” He looked around. “You guys do know that’s a gay club, right?”
“We want you to be comfortable, little goalie.” Blocker, who was six-five and twice as wide as Callum, could get away with calling him that.
“Ah.” Callum’s lips twitched like he was suppressing a smile. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”
We ended up with ten guys and five significant others, which was a good turnout for a weekday, celebrating a win against a team that wasn’t in any kind of rivalry.
Everyone agreed on separate cars so they could bail at will, and we snuck out, no doubt disappointing fans waiting for autographs.
I left my truck in the lot to drive Callum in the hybrid SUV he’d bought when he no longer had to worry about his grandfather’s mortgage.
It ran quietly and had twice the legroom of his old beater.
“Was it you who suggested Tiger’s?” Callum gave a little grunt as he stretched out his puck-pummeled legs in the passenger seat.
“Yeah. Only after they decided to go gay, though. I didn’t want them to Google it and end up in a total meat market.”
“Fair. As long as Blocker’s up for being hit on left and right.”
“Is he your type?” I teased, putting the SUV in gear.
“That ass is everyone’s type and supersized.”
I laughed. “Congrats on the win, by the way. The boys were thrilled, and your grandpa too, even though he tried to play it cool. Hannah says the Foxes miss you.”
“No doubt.” Callum grinned at me and pretended to buff his nails on his suit jacket.
“Jos said to tell you that you have a point-per-game streak going.”
That made Callum snort. “Smart-ass kid.”
“Yeah. I like it.”
“Me too.”
We exchanged glances. Jos had come a long way from the obnoxious, grieving preteen I’d moved home for.
He still could get snippy, but that meant he fit in with the two of us.
He no longer spent all his time locked in his room, and he was making more friends.
Big-brothering him felt a lot more natural with Callum at my side and Roy running backup.
I asked, “Did they give you a game puck?”
“Two of them. First game and first point. They’re in my locker, till I bring them home for the trophy case.” Callum couldn’t hide a satisfied smirk.
“Feel better about playing in the NAPH?” He’d had a few decent but not stellar games in the preseason, and I knew he’d been biting his nails over this start.
“Yeah. Even if I tank next time, I had this, you know? I proved I could do it.”
“You won’t tank.” I set my hand on his thigh, and he covered it with his own.
My phone chimed, and I dug it out of my pocket and passed it to Callum to check for me. “Friend or foe?”
“Olivia. Not sure which that is.”
I snickered, although that secretly hurt, because she had not been impressed with my decision to leave the force.
It was Olivia’s opinion that I would graduate, spend a year beating my head against the futilities of social work, and beg to come back to where we could at least arrest douchebags who needed arresting.
I knew better, though. Too many times, walking away from the person who needed help to drive around intimidating folks had grated on me.
I was still testifying against the monsters we’d caught, and I didn’t regret one minute of that. But I was done with being a cop.
“What does Olivia want?” I asked.
Callum read, “‘Tell your boyfriend he did good. Tell him to bring you to dinner with me and Nicole next weekend. I need some queer bonding.’”
“Type back, ‘Yes. Let me know,’” I instructed. It’d been months since we’d spent any time with Olivia and her wife, and I’d take an olive branch when I saw one.
“She sent back a thumbs-up.” Callum stuck my phone in the cup holder.
Tiger’s had a decent-sized parking lot for being this near downtown, currently full of more high-end vehicles than it usually saw. “Looks like some of your teammates are here.” I pulled in next to a Porsche.
“Should be fun.” Callum got out, slipped off his tie and suit jacket, and tossed them in the back seat.
I did the same, watching him unbutton his shirt and roll up his sleeves to bare his forearms. His newest tattoo came into view, and I caught his arm to look at it in the actinic glare of the parking lot lights.
He’d finished the tattoo for his dad a month after the playoffs, and the hawk on his chest had come out great.
Then, one day in summer, he came home with this one.
At first glance, it looked like a child’s drawing.
A tree with a round top beside a three-story pointed-roofed house, and four male stick figures on the lawn.
One of the people had gray hair, one red, and one of the two dark-haired figures was shorter than the rest. But if you looked closer, you saw all the little details River had included.
The shortest guy held a comic book, the front window of the house showed a trophy case with a gold cup, the curtains in the top floor window were drawn tightly shut…
and the trunk of that simple lollipop tree had angles and curves and bark that could’ve hidden a lightning bolt SS.
The same angles and shadows that hid mine.
Some people said matching tattoos were a curse, but this was like a secret match, a detail that only we would notice, and I loved it.
I ran my thumb over Callum’s tattoo, then looked up at his face. That harsh light brought out the clear blue of his eyes and sparkled in the copper of his hair. He’d been smiling, but the humor faded as he gazed down at me.
“I always wanted a real family,” I said. “Mine always seemed to have bits missing, people unhappy or discarded, or lost. What I have now, with you and Jos and Roy, is everything I need.”
“You also need to help six hundred total strangers,” Callum said, as if to lighten the moment. “Or whatever your caseload will be.”
“Yeah, I hope that job will be good for me, and them. But I don’t need it, except to pay my share of the bills.” I stroked the tattooed trunk of that tree on the pale underside of his forearm, where the lines matched mine. “You and me, and the life we’re building together? That’s what matters.”
Callum bent and kissed me, and joy surged inside me at being free to do this, have this, to wrap my arms around the man I loved and craved, right here in front of all the world.
Then someone shouted behind us, “Hey, Fitzer! We’re here for you to dance and show off. No heading home with your man yet. Get your chunky ass inside the club.”
Callum’s arm flexed behind me, and I bet he was shooting them the bird. But then he laughed, broke the kiss, and held out his hand to me. “Shall we go inside and watch my team prove to the world that most hockey players can’t dance? Show these straight dudes a good time? You up for that?”
I closed my fingers on his and grinned. “I’m up for anything with you.” Always and forever, up for anything, as long as it’s with you.
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