Chapter Seventeen September #3
He held the phone in his hand until the alarm went off at 6:55 p.m. Butterflies in his stomach, he dreaded this meeting. Maybe despite Lucy’s encouragement, despite how well they clicked, Brady wasn’t ready for them to ever be more than they’d been.
If they were done, if Brady was done with him, it’d crush him, but Nick would let it happen.
Ugh, he was such a melodramatic sap.
He hit every red light on the five-mile drive to the bar. He hadn’t even known it was possible to take so long getting there, but he didn’t roll into the parking lot until the first intermission. The game was on a TV by the bar, only one person paying it any mind.
There he was, old-school Pens jersey with JAGR printed on the back.
Backward 68 cap, slightly too-short shorts, fucking sandals and socks.
Brady sitting there was somehow timeless, like he could’ve been plucked out of any moment from the past year and put here and Nick would never know any different.
Fuck was he gone on this guy.
He shook his head to snap out of it. He wasn’t there to spend the evening staring at Brady from the doorway. They had to talk, and hopefully between the two of them, there was enough functioning adulthood to get through it.
The best way to Brady’s heart was always through hockey, so Nick checked the score as he walked over.
“You hate to see it,” Nick said over the general noise of the bar.
Brady swung his bar stool around to face Nick, licking his lips and very obviously giving him a once over.
“Respectable team like Pittsburgh getting beaten by upstarts like the Senators.” He tsked loudly as he took the open seat next to Brady.
“They could still come back,” Brady said defensively, a scowl and grin warring for dominance on his face.
“It’s seven to two. In the first period.”
“It’s preseason,” he said. “Crosby and Malkin aren’t even playing.”
“So they’re not coming back?” Nick teased. He sobered and whispered, “It’s good to see you.” That was normally where he’d end things, but he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “I missed you.”
Brady was suddenly engrossed with his beer. His thumbs traced through the condensation on the glass, and he turned it slowly between his hands. “I missed you, too.”
Nick took a deep breath like he was about to dive underwater, then started. “Then where have you been?” he asked. “What’s going on? You disappear, and now we’re at the same crappy bar we’re always at, watching hockey like nothing happened.”
He’d said it as gently as he could, no yelling or harshness to his voice; still, Brady winced. “I know… I know I shouldn’t have… left. Or should have told you…”
“True,” Nick scolded him with a soft smile, hoping it would take away some of the sting. Yes, he was hurt, but he didn’t want to hurt Brady to make up for it. “If there’s something wrong, I wish you’d talk to me about it.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” Brady said with a sigh.
“People don’t run to Pittsburgh and crash on their sister’s couch if everything’s fine.”
“How’d you know I was in Pittsburgh?” Brady narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “How’d you know I was at Lucy’s place?”
“Your sister posted on Facebook that you were there. She took a picture and tagged you and everything.” It wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the full truth. He didn’t think it was a good time to drop the bombshell that he and Lucy had conspired against him. Well, more like conspired for him.
“You checking Facebook to find me?” Brady asked with possibly the worst poker face Nick had ever seen.
“You didn’t give me many options.”
The bartender dropped off a Natty Boh for Nick and then walked away.
He took a long gulp, some liquid courage; he’d probably need to chug the whole thing to really feel it, though.
Chewing the inside of his cheek, he turned toward Brady so he could see him head-on; he was tired of stealing glances out of the corner of his eye.
“Why’d you leave?” Nick asked. He tried to keep the accusation from his voice, tried to make his face open with curiosity and not anger. He wasn’t angry, hadn’t even really been angry back in January if he was being honest with himself. He was concerned, and he thought he’d earned that much.
Brady groaned, head thrown back to stare at the mismatched ceiling tiles. “This is going to sound stupid,” he said slowly, measuring out each word, “but I’m not really into guys?”
Nick raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, you’ve been in at least one guy.”
Brady grimaced at the bluntness of the statement, a blush creeping up his ears as he turned to face Nick. “I mean, yeah, but—”
“You’ve never liked a guy before? Never fooled around with one? I don’t buy it, because you’re waaay too good to be a dude-virgin.”
“Thanks?”
“Sure, take the compliment and ignore the rest of what I said.”
Brady stared at a spot a little to the left of where Nick’s eyes actually were. “I’ve… been with guys before. I played a lot of hockey as a kid. We had away games. We shared rooms. We were horny teenagers without a lot of adult supervision…”
Nick nodded in encouragement. “And?”
“And it was fun? I guess? But it was convenient. I didn’t like guys; I was taking advantage of an opportunity. An opportunity that heavily featured guys, but when there were girls, I fooled around with them, too. It was easy to just have fun and not put labels on stuff.”
“It was fun,” Nick repeated, and then added. “Until it wasn’t…?”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly. “Until it wasn’t.” He didn’t elaborate, and Nick hated to see him stew in the bad memories. He was making Brady relive this crap. Maybe he should stop—
No. Brady was fully capable of telling him to shove it if he didn’t want to talk about it.
Brady rarely said shit about himself, even benign things like having a sister or being from Pittsburgh, so if he was talking about this, he wanted to.
He was trusting Nick with this, and Nick would do his best to help him get through it.
“How’d you break your ankle?” he asked. He had a hunch that a lot hinged on that. Brady made a pained face, and Nick’s instincts were to pull back and let it go. Maybe this was too much, too fast. “Look, never m—”
“No,” Brady said and grabbed Nick’s wrist, squeezed it like a lifeline.
It was the first time they’d touched in weeks, and Nick swore he felt a spark of electricity roll through him at the contact.
“No, I can…” Brady took a moment to collect himself.
“It was stupid, okay? There was this guy who joined the team, older than the rest of us. Everyone thought he was cool shit. And he… he didn’t… when he heard, uh…”
“Not okay with the fooling around stuff?” Nick offered, trying to keep his voice calm and soothing.
Brady laughed humorlessly. “Understatement of the decade. He, uh… he said a lot of shit, shut the sex stuff down. I didn’t care much because despite this dickhead thinking he was God’s gift to hockey, he wasn’t that good.
Even if he was, fuck that guy. He spends two weeks on the team, and he thinks he’s got any say in what we do off the ice behind closed doors? ”
Nick’s stomach turned a bit trying to piece together how homophobia escalated into an injury. He almost didn’t want to know. Turning his wrist so he could hold Brady’s hand, he asked, “What happened?”
“I broke my ankle, that’s what happened.
” Brady took off his hat with his free hand and ran a hand through his hair in an out-of-character display of nerves.
“I was his main target. Aside from not liking the other stuff, apparently I got on this guy’s shit list because I play decent hockey.
He was a douche to anyone who played better than him, and I guess that was me one too many times.
He knew just what to say to get under my skin… ”
Brady’s voice dropped to a whisper. Nick held his breath as he listened, leaned in to make sure he caught every word.
“It was a scrimmage. Two of our practice teams playing each other to prep for a tournament. He’d been pushing my buttons all week, and it was way worse that game.
He scored on me once and would not shut up.
He was constantly in my face, knocking me down between whistles…
even during play, he was rougher than he needed to be.
Slashing my legs, pushing me along the boards.
If he’d done half that shit in a real game, he’d have gotten a couple penalties for sure.
” Brady’s eyes glazed over like he was watching his younger self, that game, the accident Nick knew was coming next.
His hand tightened in Nick’s grasp. “And then there was this one icing. Easy call, but he raced after it and then I raced after it because fuck him thinking he could beat me. Fuck him bullying me at a stupid scrimmage. I could show him. I could get the whistle. I could make him look stupid for trying.”
Brady stopped on a shaky breath.
“And you got hurt,” Nick said. “He hurt you.”
“I hurt myself,” Brady said bitterly. He put his hat back on and turned away. Worse, he pulled his hand away from Nick so he could discreetly rub at his eyes. “I lost an edge and went into the boards hard. Didn’t know it was broken until I tried to get up.”
“I’m so sorry.” Nick barely recognized his own voice.
“Yeah, me too.” Brady clenched his hands.
He was angry now, and that was better for a whole two seconds until he kept talking and Nick realized he was angry at himself.
Then it was so much worse. “Apparently, to my teammates, it was one thing for the good players to fool around for fun, and it was entirely another when I busted my ankle and couldn’t play.
People who’d stood up for me before suddenly had a change of heart.
I wasn’t one of them anymore. I wasn’t a teammate experimenting or blowing off steam or whatever; I was the loser who liked to give blowjobs to hockey players. ”