Overdue Changes (Changes)

Chapter 1

Logan

“Did you fucking see this?” Our tallest defenseman, Morty, waved his phone at Yagger, our third-line center.

Post-practice body odor wafted out from Morty’s sweaty pits as he gestured.

“Remember that ex-pro football coach who came out as all queer and shit at the awards dinner last year? Well, he’s engaged to a woman. Way to shut down that bullshit, right?”

Engaged. The word echoed in my head, loud enough to drown out Yagger’s reply and the sounds of my teammates pulling off their gear before heading to the showers.

Miles was engaged.

If Morty wasn’t lying, or mistaken, or maybe there was some other football coach who came out as queer at a dinner. Miles had come out as gay, not bi, so why would he be with a woman? He’d once told me he was occasionally attracted to women, but not enough to date them for real.

Well, we’d said a lot of things to each other that turned out not to be true.

I tried to act casual as I unearthed my phone from under my hat and gloves on the locker shelf and powered the screen on. I almost headed automatically to my messages, to a long-silent thread. Once— a year ago— I’d have texted Miles, asking WTF? Before he blocked me. Before…

Maybe the story isn’t about Miles.

A quick Google search crushed those hopes dead.

There he was, complete with pictures. Miles Buckner, ex-NFL star, current winning high school coach, all six-five of him with broad shoulders, trim waist, and thighs that dwarfed mine.

Still looking like a fucking Viking with his blue eyes and that long blond hair past his shoulders, though he’d apparently trimmed his beard down to mere stubble now.

He wore a perfectly fitted suit in the pictures, taken at some fancy party, the kind of affair he’d said he hated.

Miles stared at the camera with no sign of the broad grin I’d loved, despite his possessive arm pulling his fiancée close.

I wondered if Miles grinned at her in private.

Did he bend her over, kiss her, and laugh, because life and sex were so much fun—

I cut off those thoughts.

Fiancée. Avery Winters. The photos showed me the typical athlete’s girlfriend, way too damned young for him, ethereally slim, blond, pretty, dressed in some kind of shimmery fabric that revealed her smooth shoulders and the tops of her boobs.

The hockey player wives-and-girlfriends ranks were full of women like her.

She smiled at the camera, looking much happier than Miles’s poker face.

Well, I’d be happy if I’d landed that man too.

I did land him. Then I let him go—

“Dude!” Morty thwapped me on the arm and I almost dropped my phone. “You knew that guy, right? The football player? You should ask him where he found the babe. Get him to set you up, too.”

I glared up at Morty. “I don’t need anyone to fucking set me up.” I hoped my scowl hid the panicked thudding of my heart. Does Morty think I need a beard? Does he know? But of course not, or he’d be calling me something a lot worse than “dude.”

“You’re such a loser.” Morty whacked me again, harder. “You need to get laid, bro.”

“You have no idea what I’m doing in my time off. Or who. I’d never let any woman I liked get within fifty yards of you.”

“Because I might steal her away from your puny bod.” Morty flexed his not-small biceps.

“Get your stinking pits out of my face,” I snarled.

Which of course goaded him into putting me in a headlock and trying to wrestle my face into his armpit.

I didn’t mind sweaty men in general, but I resented Morty’s extra four inches and thirty pounds that let him throw me around.

I hadn’t minded Miles’s size one bit— Fuck!

I elbowed Morty in the gut as hard as I could and wrenched free as he grunted.

“What the hell, Vally?” Morty rubbed his ribs.

“Guess I don’t know my own strength.” I threw one of his favorite lines back at him.

“I’m getting a shower.” I made sure my phone was locked and stuffed into the back of my locker, trying to act casual, then stripped off my shorts, and headed for the showers.

I had about thirty seconds before Morty finished undressing and followed me.

Fifty-fifty odds whether he was pissed enough to harass me further, or would find a new victim.

Like he used to harass Rusty Dolan. Rusty had moved up to the AHL now, getting the chance his stellar defensive skills had earned him in the higher league. But last year, as our team’s first and only out gay player, he’d been Morty’s favorite target.

The harassment started with Morty picking Dodo for Dolan’s nickname and warping it to Dumdum and Doodoo and Hoehoe.

Juvenile shit. Nicknames were a thing we all learned to shrug off.

Hell, mine had been Bieber for my first five seasons, because I looked a lot like the singer.

The guys made fun of my pouty lips and thick eyebrows, until Bieber faded from the top of pop culture consciousness and I aged enough to not look like a boy-band member.

But Morty’s teasing of Rusty had developed a truly nasty edge, like he was digging to see what would hurt most. Family digs against the guy who no longer had one, and most of all, gay shit.

F-words and jabs about bending over for men, the old, worn line about dropping the soap.

I remembered Rusty snapping back once that we had soap dispensers, and if Morty dropped soap, it meant he’d brought a bar into the shower on purpose to get fucked.

Morty had not been amused, and Petrov, our captain, had just watched without expression while Morty put a choke hold on Rusty up against the wall for one second longer than I could pretend was funny. Morty had made the kid’s life hell.

Guilt flooded me as I stepped under the water, letting it stream over my heated face.

I’d watched Morty and Yagger and Pete treat Rusty Dolan like shit for a year and done nothing.

Fear had paralyzed me, because I was hiding the same secret and I’d been dodging that homophobic shitshow for a decade.

I’d told myself that Rusty would get called up to the Tacoma Tornados any day. The kid was destined for the big leagues, AHL soon, NHL eventually. He wasn’t going to hang around Eugene and our homegrown bullies for long.

I pretended the cruelty was just hazing, like all the rookies got when they arrived. I told myself speaking up wouldn’t make a bit of difference. I was smaller than Morty or Yagger, much older, never gonna be a star— there was nothing that made me suitable to be Rusty’s champion.

He’d move up to the AHL, but I’d still be here with these teammates around me.

Fact was, I’d been a fucking coward. Then, and later.

I lathered up, ignoring the sounds of Morty and Yagger swaggering in, of them harassing one of the new rookies about staring at their dicks, sneering that they’d had enough cocksuckers in the room last year, don’t start.

The rookie muttered something back, and I heard the snap of a towel and a muffled “Ouch!” I didn’t turn to see which of the newbies Morty was hazing.

If I couldn’t be brave back when it mattered most, why bother now?

But the litany of nasty slurs that followed dragged my head around.

Luke Stackman, our newest center, was their target this time.

His face flushed red as he tried to stare them down— another kid with enough talent he’d no doubt leapfrog over me on his way up the hockey ladder.

Maybe I could keep them from tearing this one to shreds.

Although Stacker hadn’t given me any gay vibes so far.

“God, you’re boring,” I drawled loudly, eyeing Morty up and down. “Don’t you know any other words? I’ve been listening to this shit out of your mouth for years, and you keep repeating yourself. You’ve memorized three whole chirps after six years in the pros, and all of them gay? That’s pathetic.”

“Fuck you, Vally.” Morty stalked my way, twisting his towel in a rope.

I became aware that facing off with him while wet and naked wasn’t the best decision I’d ever made, but some kind of fatalistic mood swamped me, and I cupped my dick. “What? You want to fuck me? See something you like, Mort? Can’t wait to get closer to my cock?”

“Jesus fuck, you’re disgusting.” Although Mort stopped short, which was a win of sorts. “Maybe you’re the fag, Vally, huh? I don’t hear you talking about the girls you’re banging.”

“Because I’m a grown man and I keep my hands off girls. You saying you don’t? Should we be calling the FBI about you?”

“You shut your mouth.” Morty lunged into the shower and shoved me.

His hands hit my shoulders hard enough to slam me against the wall, and I fought for balance.

My luck would be to fall and break my elbow or something.

He grabbed my arms and glared into my eyes from a foot away.

“You stinking queer, you stay out of my business.”

I fought not to shake under his punishing grip. “Yet here you are, naked in my shower, your dick inches from mine. Something we should know, Mortenson?”

For a hysterical second, I wondered if I’d pushed him too far. He hauled off to punch me and only Bubs, skidding over from his own shower to yank on Morty’s arm, saved me from a haymaker to the face. Morty staggered and turned on Bubs. “Get the fuck off me!”

“You beat up Vally in front of witnesses and you’ll be off the team,” Bubs told him. “Let it go.”

“Fuck that!” Morty slammed his other fist up under my ribs, the angle awkward enough the blow hurt but didn’t wind me.

Yagger lunged and hauled that arm away too. “Bubs is right, dude. Come on. Not worth losing hockey over.”

“You heard him,” Morty whined. When neither man released his arms, Morty slumped, then pulled free of Bubs and stepped back. “You.” He pointed at me, his face thunderous. “One time, one time you get to say shit like that to me. Next time, I’ll bury you.”