Chapter 17 #3
Tom’s pulse sped up. “I felt like such a liar that season. I thought I’d tricked everyone into thinking I was ready for the NHL, and I was terrified they’d realize their mistake and I would get sent down.”
“I think we all feel like imposters our first season in the show.”
“Yeah.” Tom tried and failed to smile. He could leave it there. Phil believed him. Phil had no reason to question him. Tom could move on, and the whole conversation would end without him revealing any more about himself than he had to.
“Think about it,” Jax had said. About being happy. Well, the joke was on him because Tom couldn’t think about anything else.
“I was terrified you’d figure out I’m gay,” he blurted out. “I thought that would be what got me sent down if anyone knew.”
For a terrifying moment, Phil didn’t say anything.
Tom stared straight ahead, clutching his plate on his lap.
The TV now played an ad for antidepressants.
A man walked a dog while an endless text of possible side effects scrolled past him.
If Tom lost Phil and Jax in one fell swoop, he would probably need to get a dog, or he really would be all alone.
“Oh my God,” Phil said. “Oh my God, Tom.”
“Yeah.” Tom looked down at his cleared plate. He was glad he’d asked Phil to make steak instead of chicken if this would be their last meal together. He should have made fun of Phil’s grill less; he should have let him know how much he appreciated the food if—
Phil took the plate out of his hands gently and set it on the coffee table. Then, he turned to face Tom as best as he could, sitting next to each other on the couch, and hugged him tightly.
One by one, Tom’s muscles unclenched, until he slumped over in Phil’s grip, his arms slack between them, his face buried in Phil’s shoulder. “You don’t hate me?” he asked into Phil’s T-shirt. It smelled of barbecue.
“No,” Phil said emphatically. “Jesus, Tom.”
He held Tom for longer than Tom thought he could get away with for a hug between friends. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away.
When they finally did separate, Tom muttered, “Thank you.”
“Well, that explains why you never had a girl all these years.”
“Yeah. I thought for sure someone would guess eventually.”
“Wildly overestimating the average intelligence of hockey players there, bud.”
Tom laughed, half relief and half genuine amusement.
“No, whatever you’re doing, it works. You’re not someone people look at and think ‘could be gay.’”
“I mean…who is?”
Wincing a little, Phil admitted, “Luca Mazetti, I guess?”
“What? Because he’s pretty, well-dressed, and smart?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“Honestly, I think that’s being European.”
“All the Russians in the league would disagree.”
“Denisov would murder me.”
They both laughed again, mostly at the thought of Russian giant Damir Denisov having to parse out whether or not he was being complimented or insulted. English subtleties were not his strong suit.
“What did you have Howie chirp him with the other night anyway? He went nuts,” Tom asked.
Phil opened his mouth to answer and then paused. “Wait. You changed the subject. What happened with Jax? Was he shitty about…”
Tom forced his attention to the TV. The third period had started. Winnipeg, getting desperate, had taken a stupid penalty and barreled toward a 5–0 score with the Fury on the power play. “No. No, I was the shitty one.”
“Tom?”
An empty Gatorade bottle sat on the table—a yellow one, Tom’s least favorite flavor. He picked it up and toyed with the label.
“I, uh…I don’t think I can talk about this?”
Phil hummed contemplatively. “Spitballing here, but if Jax thought you needed a friend tonight, and he also thought he couldn’t be that friend— Did something happen between you two? As in, romantically?”
Tom flinched, an automatic reaction, and in doing so, he confirmed it. “Shit. I didn’t ask him if I could tell you. He’s…not out. Yet.”
“I think he hoped you would.”
Probably. Why else would Jax message Phil?
“He wants to come out,” Tom explained. “He will at some point. Maybe not right now, but I don’t think he’ll wait long.”
“Okay,” Phil said slowly. “Good?”
Tom stared at him.
“I mean, someone has to be the first, right?”
When Tom still had no answers for him, Phil shrugged.
“Or not? I don’t know,” he said. “I thought someone would do it way before now.”
“Really?”
“It’s 2024, buddy. They make Pride tape and everything.”
“Yeah, and then the NHL banned it.” When he woke up to that press release, Tom considered calling in sick to work for the first time in his life.
Phil waved a dismissive hand. “Then they un-banned it again. The league is run by older, even stupider hockey players. Someday, we’ll take their place, and things will get marginally less dumb.”
It should have been a comfort, Phil’s hope for the future, but all it did was remind Tom of Jax.
Jax and his desire to do better, to be better, to be the future.
A future with no place for someone like Tom, clinging desperately to an image of a person he didn’t want to be.
Where would he be in a future more tolerant NHL?
He had seven or eight years at most until he was done and only if he continued to be outrageously lucky and not get injured.
If he hit the boards wrong just once, he could be down to two years.
Or none. And then what would he be? A sad, lonely man, haunting an empty apartment, watching a sport he couldn’t play, wanting a man he couldn’t have.
He didn’t have any other plans or hobbies or goals.
He wanted to play hockey, and he wanted to be loved.
He could only have one of those things, and he’d chosen wrong. He’d chosen—
“Tom, breathe.” Phil’s hand steadied him, warm on his shoulder. “Come on. In, out, slowly now. What’s gotten into you?”
“I’ve got nothing, Phil,” he managed between desperate, panting breaths. “I thought I could put it all away. Thought I would be better. I would win us a Cup if I wasn’t…gay. If I didn’t want things I couldn’t have. But it’s been fifteen years, and I haven’t won anything. And I lost—”
“Jesus Christ, Tom, we don’t keep missing out on the Cup because you’re gay!”
It startled Tom into stillness. When he finally breathed in, it tasted like the first breath out on the ice, crisp and sharp. “I don’t think I ever realized how ridiculous that is.”
“This is what happens when you keep everything to yourself. You don’t have anyone to tell you when you’re being an idiot.”
“When I got drafted, it seemed impossible, you know, being gay and being in the league. I spent so much time trying to disappear so no one would notice me too much. Never let myself look at anyone too long, never hooked up, never dated.”
Phil made a wordless, hurt noise.
Tom leaned back into the couch, playing with the Gatorade bottle again. “Then Jax showed up, and he didn’t care, you know? He hooked up, and he flirted… Hell, he even flirted with me before he knew about me, and he still played hockey so well it made the rest of us look stupid.”
“Good for him.”
“Yeah.” It was good for Jax. It was so good for Jax, and it could never be for Tom. “That’s why—that’s why I can’t be like him, and I can’t ask him to be less than he is.”
Phil studied him. “When a buddy has a rough breakup, mostly I offer him junk food, beer, and a dumb-ass movie if he doesn’t wanna talk about it. And I’ll offer you the same thing in a minute.”
“Okay,” Tom said, nonplussed.
“I’m gonna ask you something first though. If you can’t ask Jax to be less than he is, why are you so bent on asking it of yourself?”