Chapter 10
Theo O'Keefe
We’re out at a team dinner celebrating a preseason win. I should be happy. I played fucking fantastic and had an assist.
I’m done eating and plan to put distance between King and me by going to a high-top table. King’s one seat away and keeps trying to include me in his conversation, but I don’t get what he’s doing.
We have a standard, bland beige banquet room with our own bar, a convenient place to escape.
King must pity me for accusing him of going to a boarding school like it was a bad thing. Because I’m an asshole, I called his school pretending to be a reporter doing an interest piece on King. The ladies in the office were more than willing to pass the phone around and tell stories about him.
That had to violate some privacy acts or some shit, but it’s true. The internet isn’t as reliable as we need it to be. His old school is known for its good academics, but it’s in the projects. The worst projects in New York City.
John, his father and my stepfather, told me I had to go to boarding school because King did. He lived out of the country, per John, because King’s mom thought it was best. It was a convenient excuse for why he didn’t live with us or visit.
When I was ten, he told me that King didn’t like me and refused to visit if I was there.
“You look like you’re brooding.” King stands next to me at a high-top table.
“What are you doing?” I outright ask. There isn’t a reason to pretend we’re friends.
“I’m being nice.” His eyebrows scrunch.
“I’m not falling for your act. You might have fooled everyone else here, but not me.” I motion to our teammates with my beer.
“What act?” he demands.
“See, the mask crumbles around me. You hate me as much as I hate you. Don’t forget you throat-punched me after the playoff game last year.” I smirk.
“I threw you into the wall, but it wasn’t a throat punch,” he argues. “Besides, you were implying some fucked-up shit.”
He thought I avoided playing him last year because he walked out on Pride Night, and in his words, “I can’t catch gay.” I won’t tell him that hearing he was queer fucked up my head, but since he’s not, there’s no reason for me to stress out.
“Details.” I set my beer down and cross my arms.
Mav saunters over to our table. “I’m trying to rally the single guys to go out and take advantage of the puck chasers. Whad’ya say?”
“He’s got a girlfriend,” King answers for me.
“No, I don’t.” He’s lost his mind. Who could he mistake for my girlfriend?
“Sarah?” he asks.
“Nah. Best friend, not a girlfriend,” I reply, and pick up my beer bottle for something to do with my restless hands.
“Does she know?” Mav laughs.
“I’m not her type,” I say instead of outing her. Her parents are still in denial, and I don’t want them to put more pressure on her. “What’s your type?” I ask King because he’s being weird, and I don’t like it.
“Oooh.” Benz crashes into our table out of nowhere. “We’d all like to know that.” He puts his elbows on the table to support his face as he stares at King. “He won’t give us anything,” Benz complains.
“None of you saw him hook up last year?” I ask, then mutter, “Suspicious.”
“I guess it would be suspicious, but they already know I’m gay.” He turns to Mav. “Sorry if you didn’t know. I don’t usually blurt it out.”
I’m a hundred percent sure I’m having an aneurysm. Or my hearing is bad.
Mav shrugs. “I assumed you were at least bi. Straight guys don’t usually walk on Pride Night for support or publicly flirt on social media.”
As if summoned, Brant appears. “Who’s King flirting with?”
“We’re trying to figure out who he wants to flirt with besides you.” Benz straightens to his full height.
“Tell us,” Brant chants in a deep voice.
What. The. Fuck. Is. Happening? Jamal King cannot be gay.
He said terrible things about the possibility of my being bi. Things I could never repeat, truly reprehensible.
“Do you only date Black guys, cuz…ya know…the big dick situation?” Mav leans in.
King’s eyes dart away, and he scratches the underside of his chin. “It’s a stereotype, not a guarantee.”
My mind goes directly to how big his dick is. It’s like I hate myself and get off on torture. There are zero reasons I need to think about his dick.
Mav slaps King on the back. “I want stories!” he sings. “Oh, and I’m bi, FYI.”
“Arggg.” Benz hugs Mav. “This is so exciting. Wait until I tell Leo.”
I’m being punked. “You want to tell your boyfriend that Mav, the new guy, who is arguably good-looking, is bi? Are you dumb?”
“No.” Benz’s lower lip sticks out in a pout. “He’ll be excited too. There are so many of us. It’s like a support group with me, Leo, Liska, Trevor, Lucky, Drake, King, and now we’re adding Brant and Mav. We’re like the awesomest hockey team in the world.”
“You aren’t worried he’ll try to scoop up Mav?
” I pronounce each word slowly so he’ll understand me.
Awesomest isn’t a word, but I let it slide.
And I doubt anyone wants to be in his support group.
But he’s right about one thing: we have the queerest team in the league.
I know I could come out to them, and they wouldn’t judge, but I still haven’t figured out King’s game.
I’ll never show my cards before knowing what I’m getting into.
“Nope, that man is going to marry me and make an honest man out of me. Speaking of that, I gotta talk to Trevy and Liska about their bachelor party.” He bounds away and I stare.
He isn’t worried in the least about his boyfriend screwing a younger guy. Could be love or delusion.
“Oookay.” Mav rolls his shoulders. “Who’s going out with me?”
“I’m in,” Brant says immediately.
“I’m out.” King shrugs, and Mav and Brant boo him.
“Will it be the new trio out on the town?” Mav asks.
“Nah. Not tonight.” My head is going to explode from information overload, and I can’t handle anything else.
“Bummer,” Mav says, but doesn’t boo.
After they leave, I tell King, “You could’ve gone. Don’t let me stop you.” I check my phone, and it’s only 7:30 p.m. Day games on the weekend mess up my sense of time.
“I have something else to do.” King shifts his feet and looks away.
“Hot date?” The words come out aggressively.
King opens his mouth and shuts it, looking like a gaping fish. “You could come with me.”
“On your date? Not in this lifetime.” My jaw tightens and my fingers twitch.
King grabs my elbow. “It’s not a date. You might like it.”
His hand burns my skin, and the heat radiates out from my elbow. I drown in his aqua eyes that glow in the low light. They draw me in, and I can’t escape—don’t want to escape.
He lets go of my elbow to check his phone. “If you’re coming, we have to leave now or we’ll be late.”
The spell is broken, and I breathe a sigh of relief. King can’t be trusted. I shake my head, refusing his offer. He says it’s not a date, but he’s nervous and sweaty, the way he’d probably act before a date. The thought sparks my anger.
He’s a liar and a fraud, and I’m going to prove it.
For all I know, he’s trying to lure me into a dark alley and have me murdered.
I shake my head to refuse him.
“Maybe next time.” He sounds hopeful.
“Maybe,” I lie. As if I’d ever go anywhere with him.
If only my mom would call me back and answer some of my questions. For a woman who said she was worried about me moving to New York, she’s not good at returning my phone calls.
She stayed with me to oversee the renovations, but I haven’t talked to her since.
Fuck.
King leaves, so I pull up her number, and it goes straight to voicemail.
“Mom, this is an emergency. I need you to call me back.” After leaving the message, I stare at my phone, willing it to ring.
I haven’t talked to her for a month. I’ve been so caught up in my own shit; I let the weeks get away from me.
She’d better be okay.
John never pays her any attention, and she might do something stupid. She ended up in rehab after the last stupid thing.