Between the Pipes (The Games We Play – Season 2)

Chapter 1

CHASE

It’s the first weekend in October. For the first time in my life, I’m going a hockey game and not wearing a jersey.

For eight years, I had season tickets for the local Tier One Junior Hockey team in the city where I grew up.

There is this magical feeling being a part of the start of these boys’ careers that used to make me proud every time I would see them lace up their skates in the pros.

But I lost those tickets along with my dignity and self-worth in the divorce. After Tim cheated on me, I didn’t think he could rip my heart out more than he already had. I was wrong.

Now, every scrape of a blade on the ice is like a blade ripping out my heart.

He stole my love of the game. He polluted the memories of damn near every player we interacted with.

And yet, he is the one who is still welcomed with open arms by the organization he manipulated while I have essentially been cut out of the family.

Eight years of friendships were destroyed by his selfishness, but I was the one cast out.

Somewhere deep inside, I understood that my having played in college likely played a big role in Tim approaching me back then.

Not to sound cocky, but I was a damn good D-man.

I had offers to enter the draft. I even had a few scouts from overseas come watch me play.

But hockey was never meant to be my life.

It was my escape from responsibilities. It was my joy, my passion play, but I never wanted it to be my whole identity.

I felt how much playing had taken its toll on my body by the age of sixteen and promised myself and my parents that once it paid for my education, I would quit.

And I did. I turned down every single offer from scouts, even with their attempts to skirt the gifting rules.

Tim loved all of the fancy dinners and VIP treatment at the night clubs, but I wished they would all take the hint and leave me to my studies.

As a poor kid from East Youngstown, hockey was my only hope to break free and take my parents with me to somewhere better.

I know my coaches always believed I would go pro.

I know I had the skills, but I have always been a realist. Even if I went pro, I would have needed to make it all the way up to the Majors to even attempt to make enough money to support my parents, myself, my husband, and the family I always hoped to build one day.

Plus, going pro would mean I would have to take on the stigma of outing myself.

Being gay in professional sports is tough enough without adding the media circus that the Major leagues force players to navigate.

I knew the odds were stacked against me despite my talent, so I focused instead on my degree – using the sports scholarship to pay through my Master of Finance.

And since my parents refused to leave the home they raised me in, I settled back in the Northeastern part of Ohio – albeit in a much more affluent neighborhood – with my fiancé and allowed myself to indulge in supporting the guys just starting their own journey to the Bigs.

With how much I made as a financial advisor, I was even able to open our home up as a billet family for some of the players that made their way through our small city on their way to college and beyond.

That’s where I made my biggest mistake. That’s how I discovered that my husband has a thing for players and was using the fact that we opened our home to hide his affairs.

I’m not sure how long the infidelity had been going on before I caught him in the act, but looking back, I could see a ton of red flags.

It takes more effort than I expect to extract myself from the never-ending spiral of negativity thinking about Tim brings up.

Pulling on my charcoal suit jacket, I debate between the red and blue ties.

My new company had a Chinese auction at the picnic last month and I unfortunately won the season tickets for the Harrisburg Pickaxes – the PHL farm team for the DC Gladiators – and I can’t seem to break the habit of wearing team colors.

I never should have let the boss’s kids put my name in the cups, but fuck if he doesn’t have the most adorable munchkins on the planet.

You know what? Fuck the tie.

It’s bad enough that I have to go watch the worst team in the league.

I’m not going to be choking myself out all night just to impress the boss who happens to have the tickets for the seats in front of me.

The only thing I need to do is make sure that I don’t start crying in the middle of the game.

It’s been almost two years since I caught Tim in bed with a barely legal former player, so hopefully enough time has passed that I don’t make a fool of myself.

An hour later, I make my way into the arena.

While the organization’s NAPH team has a metro stop right at their arena, the Pickaxe arena requires a half mile walk from the closest bus stop.

I refuse to pay what these arenas ask for parking.

At least the Juniors team had free parking as a perk for season ticket holders.

Today, I parked at the office and walked across the city to save on parking, but I might cave when the weather starts to turn around mid-season.

The temperature here is nothing like what I dealt with during my travel team days on the U18 team…

Then again, that was a body twenty plus years younger and practically lived on the ice.

I shiver a bit at the familiar sights of a hockey crowd ready to kick off a new season while I wait in the line for security.

Memories assault me while I wait for all of the people ahead of me argue with the staff because they apparently haven’t been to any event for the last decade.

The first game is always a nightmare to get in because of the self-entitled pricks who don’t bother to check out the arena’s bag policy before trying to come in with Mary Poppin’s carpet bag.

Tim always managed to sweet talk his way into getting contraband past security.

It was always a point of contention between us.

“Kinsey!”

As I enter the arena, I notice my boss waving me over to an alcove near the refreshments stand.

Plastering on the fakest smile that anyone has ever smiled, I walk over to where he is wrangling his six-year-old son and five-year-old daughter.

From the corner of my eye, I notice his teenage son trying to flirt with the woman working the counter.

Oh, the confidence and ignorance of youth.

I feel my smile becoming a little less forced until reality crashes through my mind.

“Chase, you remember my kids from the picnic?” Mr. Sanders asks. Before I can respond, he’s introducing them again. “This is Mikey, Allie, and the one currently getting shot down while retrieving our nachos is Roger. Kids, you remember Mr. Kinsey, right?”

Tim’s new piece is barely older than Roger.

The little ones stop running around long enough to give me a wave before resuming their game of whatever the hell they’re doing to keep themselves occupied.

I push back the wave of sadness that threatens to take over.

Tim never wanted kids. I gave up my dream of being a dad for him.

I mean, yeah, I can afford to find a surrogate and everything, but I’m almost in my forties.

Even if I get a baby this year, I’ll never be able to do the things I always wanted to do on my own.

Maybe, I’ll be able to teach them to skate and throw a ball while they’re little but forget anything once they become teenagers.

Would I even live long enough to see them get married?

“Come on, Mr. Kinsey!” Allie’s adorable voice calls out from within the throng of people heading toward the seats from the concourse. “We gotsta do the battle cry!”

I adjust my glasses to disguise the few tears that have slipped out and follow the happy family toward our seats.

I fucking hate Tim.