Chapter 3
CALLUM
“You’re kidding, right? You’re ditching me?” I stared at Sully across our small apartment kitchen two days after the funeral. “Fuck. I need coffee.” I grabbed the pot out of the coffeemaker and poured myself a big mug. I was not at my best in the mornings, even after our brief pregame practice.
“Sorry.” He ran a hand over his wild blond curls. “But Hannah needs a roommate ASAP, and we were already talking about moving in together, so this is perfect.”
“Perfect,” I said, deadpan.
“Well, other than leaving you needing a new roomie, but I’m sure you’ll find someone in no time.”
“Sure. Because I’m so easy to live with.”
Sully laughed. “Aw, you’re not that bad. Make sure they know not to talk to you before you’ve had coffee, and to hide their junk food, and you’ll be fine.”
I couldn’t believe my trusted roommate was hanging me out to dry like this.
We’d shared the small apartment since our first development camp a year and a half ago, and I trusted him.
The idea of someone new in my space, messing up my routines, made me twitchy.
But the PHL didn’t have a housing allowance, and our meagre salaries barely covered shared rent in expensive cities like Vancouver.
As soon as Sully stopped paying his half, our modest apartment would be way out of my price range.
“I’ll put it up on the team chat,” Sully said. “Maybe someone else is looking for a change. A lot of the guys are on month-to-month leases like ours.”
With the chance of being traded, a lot of us were willing to pay a bit more every month, to not be landed with a lease we couldn’t pay as we moved across the country. Which was how Sully could just walk out on me. I rapped my knuckles on the cabinet to keep the thought of being traded at bay.
Sully was swiping through his phone. “Hey, maybe Brosky’s tired of rooming with Kegger.”
“You want me to room with the guy who’s gunning for my job?” Brosky wasn’t close to my equal as a goalie, but he sure would like to be in my spot.
Sully eyed me and sighed. “Okay, maybe not. But there’s sure to be somebody, right?”
I said, “Sure,” because I liked Sully better grinning about getting to move in with Hannah, rather than looking guilty. Even if he should feel fucking guilty. “So how much of our shit are you taking with you? Do we need to plan a moving day?”
“Just my own things from my room and my favourite mug, my books and electronics, a few bits and pieces. Her roommate ditched her with barely a note on the table, cleared her room but left all the rest behind. You can keep our furniture and kitchen supplies and everything.”
“Aw, so generous.”
Sully grinned. “Hannah’s stuff is in better shape anyhow.”
“Your sacrifice touches me right here.” I whacked myself in the stomach and pretended to gag. “You didn’t say when.”
“Um. This afternoon?” His grin went a little sideways. “No reason to wait, right? I’ll pay my rent for next month, since we’re halfway there. By April, you should be able to find someone.”
I grunted. I hated this. I wasn’t good with change, and although I wouldn’t tell Sully, Grandpa’s request to come by the store two days ago had really been to help him identify ways to cut costs and pull out a few furnishings we could sell.
Money was tight, and I planned to tighten my belt even more to help him out.
This was a crappy time to lose my roommate.
But Sully’s homely face lit up every time he talked about Hannah, and I wouldn’t piss on that. “You need boxes? I could drive out to Grandpa’s and get some.”
“That’s kind of a long way, isn’t it? I can run to the grocery store.”
“I need to talk to Grandpa anyway. I’ll bring some back after lunch.”
Sully tapped my arm in a featherlight punch. “You’re a good guy, Fitzer. Anyone who rooms with you is lucky.”
I scoffed, because I wasn’t an easy guy to be around, but grabbed my jacket and headed downstairs.
The drive to East Van took about forty minutes even in decent traffic, the main reason I didn’t live at home even though my team was in the same city as Grandpa.
I’d avoided the rush-hour craziness now, but traffic was still the usual stop and go on King George.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to stop being so pissed off at Sully.
So I was losing a roommate. It wasn’t as if Sully would stop being my friend.
Even though I found it easiest to be friends with someone I was forced to see every day.
Even though he’d now be spending most of his free time with Hannah.
I liked the idea of trying to find someone else on the team to move in.
Well, not liked, but it was the best of a bad situation.
It wouldn’t be like starting over with a stranger.
And for at least two weeks, I’d have the whole apartment to myself. That was a bonus. Right? Heck, I might even hook up with a guy and bring him home, something I’d never done.
Sully didn’t know I was gay, because I kept that stuff close to my chest. There were a handful of out gay guys in the PHL, including Docker, and even in the NAPH, enough that I wouldn’t be a novelty.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t one more strike against a player, one more controversy, when teams went looking.
Once I made it to the NAPH and showed them I belonged there, then I’d come out.
Until then, a few hookups with guys who didn’t know anything about hockey were the most I allowed myself.
Mostly at away games, in cities like Pasadena or Tucson where hardly anyone cared about minor league teams. Heck, not too many people there cared about major league hockey.
In Vancouver or, say, Calgary, I had to be cautious. My red hair was a strike against me, although wearing a mask on the ice made my face less well known. But if I had a safe place to bring guys with Sully gone, maybe I’d figure out how to hook up here at home.
In a less dire mood, I pulled into the alley behind Grandpa’s business.
The convenience store, which my great-grandfather had named “Nina’s Necessities” had existed in that same narrow storefront for almost eighty years.
Grandpa liked to talk about working in the store when he could barely see over the counter, sweeping up and stocking the shelves.
Dad had done the same when he was a teenager, and I’d put in some time, although billeting in Juniors meant I’d spent my last two years of high school in Calgary.
The store had evolved over the decades, but it was still a local institution, somewhere people in the neighbourhood came on their way home from work, in the evening, or on weekends, picking up that carton of milk after a late shift or cereal and bananas for breakfast. A local retirement complex had added more daytime foot traffic and probably saved our butts twenty years back, but like every other brick-and-mortar business, we were hurting these days.
So I wasn’t surprised to find Grandpa behind the counter on a Sunday morning. He looked up as I came in from the back. “Callum! Good to see you. What brings you out this way? Don’t you have a game tonight?”
“Yeah, but not till seven. I wanted to get some boxes for Sully and I figured I’d see if you needed a hand here.”
“I can always use a hand. What kind of boxes does Sully need?”
I didn’t want Grandpa to worry, but I’d have to tell him sooner or later. “Moving boxes. He’s moving in with Hannah.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. I hope they’re happy.” He peered closer at me. “What are you going to do about a roommate?”
“No worries. He promised to cover another month. I’m sure I can find someone.”
Grandpa tilted his head. I wondered if he was going to push me for how I felt about this, but he just said, “I had a run on the boxed cereal this morning. Can you restock?”
“Sure.”
Working in the store was always good. I liked the physical repetition of bringing out cartons and opening them, stocking shelves, righting tipped and misplaced product, and lining everything up.
The ding of the door opening and Grandpa’s voice from up front chatting with customers grounded me.
I reached and bent and stretched, getting stuff down, putting the half-full boxes back in place, stacking the empties for Sully.
Foot traffic was often best on Sundays, and I was pleased to see a steady stream of people in and out, even if most of them left with at most one or two bags filled.
Noon was heralded by Koda coming in from the back, tugging their “Nina’s” T-shirt straight across their chest. “Callum,” they said brightly. “It’s been ages. How the fuck are you?”
“I’m good. Helping out a bit.”
“I have no problem with you using your beanstalk arms to get down the high stuff,” they said from their respectable height of five-foot-eight.
“A pipsqueak like you needs all the help you can get.”
Koda spread their hand on their chest with a wide-eyed look. “Oh my, total lack of respect for your elders. What are they teaching you in that nasty hockey business?”
I laughed because Koda was only three years older than me, and I’d caught them checking the hockey scores on their phone during last year’s Cup playoffs.
“Take the old man out and feed him some lunch,’ Koda added, waving toward Grandpa.
“Speaking of respect for your elders,” Grandpa sniped back with a grin, already coming out from behind the register. “You good to go?”
Koda slipped around the counter and punched their code into the register. “All set. Have a nice lunch with carrot-head there. Bring me back a donut. Or a cupcake.”
“You wish.” I gave them the finger and took Grandpa’s jacket that Koda’d brought up from the back for his lunch break. “Don’t steal from the till while we’re gone.”
They gave me the finger back and then swiftly converted the gesture to a wave as a customer walked in.
Grandpa laughed. “Thanks, Koda.” He led the way out the front door.
“Let’s go to Jade House,” I suggested as we stepped onto the sidewalk. “I’ll buy.”