17. Hayden
Chapter 17
Hayden
I’ve always been a rule follower. In fact, my rule following was so extreme at one point my parents had me see the school counselor for it. At the time, I thought it was a silly reason to need therapy, but looking back I realize it probably wasn’t very healthy for a nine-year-old me to be having panic attacks when other kids didn’t follow the rules. In my defense, I truly believed terrible things would happen if rules weren’t followed. There’s a system for a reason, you know? If the system falls apart, the whole damn world does. My little control freak self was not up for a life of anarchy.
I got better, obviously. I learned to let it go when others broke rules, only caring when those broken rules meant someone was getting hurt. I even learned that some rules should be bent sometimes, since the world isn’t black and white. I learned some rules should even be broken altogether. That some rules create systems that are wrong. Dangerous, even.
That doesn’t mean I stopped being a man who loves control. When it comes to my professional life, my AT room and how I run it is mine . I take my career and my players very seriously, running a tight ship to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
There’s also the little fact that I like to control my partners in the bedroom—and a little outside of it too, if they’ll let me—but nobody is perfect.
The point is, I’ve always been a rule follower. That’s why the very first thing I do when I get home is take a deep-dive into league policies pertaining to player-staff relationships.
There’s nothing apart from the overall policies related to harassment and discrimination.
The fact that it would be okay makes me nervous for some reason. Like the barrier would have provided protection. It’s a ridiculous thought, until I really think about it. Then I realize what the problem is. If Pope wants to keep us a secret, there’s no reasonable excuse for me to latch onto to make myself feel better. It’ll only be because he’s in the closet. I support him in his journey and understand that coming out is difficult and daunting, not to mention possibly destructive in the league, but I don’t know how long I can stay in a closet for him. I promised myself I’d never go back in there.
Then again, Ethan Pope has pretty much obliterated all of my own rules so far, so what’s one more, right? I did make that promise as an empowered high school kid who had just come out for the first time. That kid had no idea how many shades of gray exist in the world. That kid had no idea what it was to be in love.
I can wait, if it’s for Ethan. If he wants me to, if he asks, I can wait.
It’s hard to even think about what’s going on with Pope when the next day is a theme night that includes adorable children and goofball hockey players loving every second of their job. The theme is Kid Takeover and a single look at the arena an hour before the game is true to it. Not only are there more kids and families in the stands than usual, but the halls and dressing room are crawling with them too. Three local minor teams get to meet with the players before the game, as well as go skate on the ice and practice using the goals during intermissions. They’re all kids under twelve since the middle and high schoolers get their own takeover night in the spring, so it’s a whole lot of energy and noise as they take turns filtering into the dressing room to meet players.
“—and I—and I—I am so SUPER fast, I’m like the fastest, I ZOOM across the ice just—just like YOU!” a little boy with wide blue eyes tells Pope, the boy bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.
“Wow! You zoom, huh?” Pope asks with a wide grin that does all sorts of things to me. What is it about an attractive man being sweet to kids? “Isn’t that just the best feeling?”
“The BEST in the whole WORLD!” the little boy agrees.
Pope finishes his signature across the white 4 on a POPE 14 youth jersey, handing it to him but staying down on one knee so they’re still eye-level. “When I was your age, I totally couldn’t zoom that fast. You know what that means?”
“What?” the little boy asks, his voice going high. “What? What?”
“If you keep working hard, you might be even better than me.”
The little boy’s eyes nearly bug out of his head as he tries to process the clearly mind-blowing revelation. “Woah!”
“Woah,” Pope agrees with another big grin. “Now you remember to give that puck to your brother, alright? And the jersey you can keep. Tell your brother he should keep working hard too. I want you to send me tickets to your first big game, ya hear?”
“YES! Okay! Yes, yes, YES!”
The boy goes running off, nearly falling over twice in his excitement. When he reaches his mom where all the parents are lined up along the wall, he starts screaming at her that he and Pope are best friends and one day he’s going to be a pro player too and Pope is going to come to his game. I grin, looking over at Pope to see if he’s catching the adorable end to the whole interaction. The grin freezes when I realize Pope’s happiness has all but vanished, like a dark cloud had moved in to replace the boy’s presence. There’s almost something haunted about the way he watches him with his mom.
I realize then that I don’t know anything about Pope’s family life. Is the moment making him miss his mom? Or maybe he has a bad relationship with her?
From one blink to the next, Pope’s smile is back in place as he turns to the next kid. It’s scary, watching that shift, seeing how easily he manages it. Seeing how convincing he is. This kid has a KNUT jersey, Knut’s messy scrawl already on the K of his name. Pope chirps the kid for it, making the kid giggle before promising that Pope is his second favorite. As Pope signs the boy’s puck, he jokingly forgives him and makes small talk about what position he plays—goalie, of course. Pope says something that makes the boy giggle again. This time when the boy runs off all excited, Pope doesn’t watch him go.
His eyes meet mine instead.
There’s a knee-jerk moment of panic when I realize I’ve been caught watching him, something he’s made clear he doesn’t want me doing. Then I remember we’re… something now. That changes things, right?
I get my answer in the way his expression seems to open up like a flower for the sunshine, his grin wide and real, dimples peeking out of his cheeks. All I can do is smile back as a single thought overwhelms my brain— oh, I am in so much trouble with this one.