14. Gideon
Gideon
Sunday afternoon games always felt wrong.
My body knew what game day was supposed to look like: morning skate, food, a nap, more food, the drive to the rink when the sun was going down, hockey under bright lights, a shower, something terrible for me to eat, then home, too wired to sleep.
Sunday afternoon screwed with all of it.
We were on the ice early, which meant pasta at ten-thirty in the morning.
Matinee games always ended the same way, with everyone piling over to Walker’s afterward to eat too much and do nothing for the rest of the day.
We beat Syracuse four-two. Walker scored twice, Chip got the empty-netter, and I picked up an assist digging the puck out from behind the net and feeding it back to Bob at the point.
Arnaud stopped thirty-one shots and spent the last two minutes yelling at their right wing in French after the guy sprayed him with ice, then yelling at Bob when the big man got up in the winger’s face.
After the game, showered, dressed, I tried to work out how subtly to ask a locker room full of hockey players if their wives and girlfriends wanted to let Ryan practice makeup on them.
It had sounded easier when Ryan suggested it. He needed practice, real practice, not just his own face in a mirror: different skin tones, different eye shapes, different ages.
I ended up standing in the locker room while everyone packed up. “Can I ask you guys something?”
Bob looked up from tying his shoe. Arnaud stopped talking mid-sentence, and the room went quiet.
“Jesus Christ,” Bob said. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you retiring?” Walker asked as Nate Mercer called out, “Did you get called up?”
I looked around at all of them and remembered exactly why I didn’t usually start conversations in this room.
“Ryan, my boyfriend, you all met him at casino night.” Some of them nodded, and I forged ahead.
“He needs people to practice makeup on. Different faces, different skin types, whatever. He’s serious about beauty school and wants some real experience before he applies.
So… can you ask your wives or girlfriends?
No pressure. He just needs people who don’t mind being practiced on, and I said I’d ask. ”
Nobody laughed. Mikey Russo nodded first and said his wife, Lena, would do it. Nate said his wife, Claire, probably would too. Dylan already had his phone out to text Jess, who worked in marketing upstairs. Arnaud raised his hand like he was in school.
“I volunteer.”
“You’re not a wife or a girlfriend,” Bob muttered.
“I have a face,” Arnaud said.
Bob muttered something I didn’t hear, and he got something angry returned to him in French, and that was the end of anything useful. It didn’t matter. I’d asked. That was the part I cared about.
Walker’s place was already loud by the time I got there, cars lined up both sides of the street, and I regretted turning down Chip’s offer of a ride the second I had to walk half a block from where I parked.
Finn opened the door before I knocked, told me shoes go wherever I could find room, food in the kitchen, beer in the fridge, and that Walker was pretending to be in charge of the grill.
“I am in charge of the grill,” Walker shouted from the back of the house.
“You’re burning the chicken,” Finn called back without even turning around and disappeared toward the yard swearing.
The house was full—players, wives, girlfriends, kids, someone’s baby asleep in a carrier by the kitchen—and food covering every surface like the whole organization needed feeding.
I found Ryan by the island, a plate in one hand, talking to Claire Mercer.
He’d changed into black jeans and a lacy shirt, some subtle makeup on his eyes, his hair still a little damp from a shower, gold catching at the corners of his eyes whenever he turned his head.
When he saw me, he smiled the smile that was just for me, and I stole the sweetest of kisses.
“Good game,” he said. “You were very hockey.”
“Hockey?” I asked, and he smiled again, teasing this time.
“I might work here, but it doesn’t mean I understand what you all do out there, just that you, Gideon Taftwell, look sexy while you do it.”
Claire laughed and excused herself to go find Nate before he ate everything, and Ryan turned straight back to me.
“I heard you’ve been pimping out my services.”
“I asked.”
“You did?” Something shifted in his face, and before I could answer, he’d stepped in and wrapped his arms around my waist, fast enough that I didn’t have time to brace for it. I put mine around his shoulders, and he fit there. “Thank you,” he said into my chest.
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“It is to me.”
I looked down at him, and he looked up, eyes bright.
For a few seconds, the noise of the party dropped away enough that I thought about kissing him right there in Walker’s kitchen.
I could have. That was still new, wanting something and knowing I was allowed to reach for it.
Someone shoved past behind me for the beer, and the moment broke before I did anything with it, and Ryan stepped back.
Dinner wasn’t really dinner with that many people in one house.
Plates balanced on knees, kids stealing food off anyone who wasn’t watching their plate, Finn insisting to Walker that he cooked for fifty people and Walker insisting that was the whole point of leftovers.
I was halfway through my second plate before I noticed Ryan wasn’t next to me anymore.
He was across the room with Claire, who was pointing at her own face, and then Lena joined them.
I watched him touch under his own eye, explaining something.
Claire asked a question, and Ryan answered it with his hands moving.
Jess joined next, then Sophie Brennan, whom I barely knew beyond team functions and a couple of hellos, standing there with a wineglass, listening before she pulled out her phone to show Ryan something.
He zoomed in on it. Another woman joined. Then another.
“What are you staring at?” Finn asked, following my line of sight before I could pretend I wasn’t.
“Nothing.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.” He didn’t deny it, just stole a fry off my plate.
By the time I looked back, six women were around Ryan.
Six. I’d asked the guys to tell their wives.
That was all. Ryan had done the rest himself, perched now on the arm of the sofa with all of them gathered close as he talked, hands moving fast, pointing at Claire’s eyes, then Lena’s, then miming something on his own face.
Someone asked a question, and he answered without checking whether anyone thought he belonged in that conversation.
He knew this. They were listening to him, and I liked watching it more than I wanted to admit.
I’d gotten used to nervous Ryan, unsure Ryan, Ryan trying to take up as little space as possible in a room.
This Ryan had something to say, and people wanted to hear it.
By dessert, all six of them had their phones out, comparing schedules—Wednesday, six-thirty, two at a time, photos—and Ryan was organizing every bit of it.
He found me by the front door once the coats started coming out and the kids were being rounded up.
He grinned and rattled off the list like it was the best thing that had happened to him all week: Claire’s dry skin, Emma’s oily skin, Jess’s hooded eyes, Lena’s sensitive skin, Sophie’s darker skin, and wanting something specific for a wedding she was going to.
I understood maybe sixty percent of it, but it sounded good.
Ryan said it was fucking amazing, so it must be good.
“A couple of them are coming to yours. Wednesday.” Ryan hesitated. “Are you sure it’s okay to do it at your place?”
“Of course.”
“And you’re still taking photos, right?” Ryan asked.
“Yes.” I’m not the world’s best photographer, but I could point and shoot with the best of them.
“Thank you for all of this, Gids. I know I haven’t… I know we…”
Seemingly frustrated with himself at not getting the words out, he went on tiptoes and kissed me instead, but before I could hold him close, he was pulled away by Claire, who wanted to talk about something called serum.
I stood there with my hand against the spot he’d kissed and thought Wednesday suddenly seemed a long way off.
Wednesday came eventually. Ryan arrived at five with three makeup bags, a folding light, a small mirror, a case of brushes, cotton pads, something that looked vaguely medical, and enough bottles to stock a pharmacy.
All of it piled on my kitchen table while I stood there trying to work out what half of it was for.
“Why do you need that many brushes?”
“Why do you need more than one hockey stick?”
“That’s completely different.”
“It really isn’t.” He held up a tube and asked me what it was.
When I said lipstick, he told me it was concealer with the kind of horror on his face that suggested I’d failed a test. Maybe I had.
I definitely felt something close to nervousness by the time Claire arrived, five minutes ahead of Emma, and my kitchen stopped being my kitchen.
Ryan took it over completely. A dining chair pulled to the window because the light was better there, a folding light added because apparently my actual lights were useless, a clean towel over part of the table with brushes and bottles lined up in rows as if he’d done this a hundred times instead of never.
He asked Claire about allergies and sensitivities and what she normally used before he even touched her.
He pulled her hair back with a soft band and leaned in to study her skin properly.
“Before photo,” he said, and I took one from where I was standing behind the camera.