3. Drake
CHAPTER 3
DRAKE
Oh my God, this sucked. I sucked. Everything sucked. I sat on the bench, gripping my stick so tight, it was a wonder I didn’t snap it. Halfway through the first period, I put my helmeted head down on the edge of the boards in front of me and hoped that maybe the universe would swallow me whole.
It did not. Instead, Jonny Eriksson’s voice sounded in my ear. “Hey.” Then he rubbed circles onto my back. “Breathe. It’ll be okay.”
I lifted my head and checked the scoreboard. The Gators were still up two goals to our none—two goals that my shitastic play had caused in the first five minutes of the game. Coach Macintosh had benched me after that, running shifts with eleven forwards rather than twelve. It was a non-subtle way of telling me I fucked up big time and couldn’t be trusted on the ice. “We’re losing. Because of me.”
“Yeah, I know. It happens.” I could practically hear the smile in his voice. “That’ll change.” He nudged me. “Look.”
I focused on the action in the defensive end—near our goaltender. An Otters D-men and one of the forwards (I hardly knew anyone’s names) were battling against Gators players along the boards. The puck came free and right to the tape of another Otters forward, then the team was breaking out of their zone and heading up the ice for a three on one rush. A few seconds later, the puck was in the back of the Gators’ net, and I was on my feet along with the rest of the bench and the crowd as the goal horn sounded and the goal song blared out around us.
“See?” Jon said. He put one arm around me as we leaned out to give our teammates fist-bumps. “Atta boy, Lou! That’s the way to do it, guys!” he called out.
When I sat, before Coach sent Jon’s line over the boards for a faceoff, I got a full view at that beaming smile of his. “You know, you said ‘we’.” Then he was gone, and I sat there, stunned.
I’d said “we.” Our team. The Otters. The guys I’d let down. “I’m such a fuckup,” I muttered.
The player who’d taken Jon’s place on the bench gave me a quizzical look. He was familiar, but I couldn’t quite—then it hit me. Training camp. Kid from Sweden. Had just come over. Was down in the minors to get used to the change in rink size. I couldn’t remember his name.
Fuck me, I really was a jackass.
But being down only one goal felt less hopeless than two. And by the time the period ended, Jon had been correct. The Otters—my team—had tied the game. Back to a clean slate. Mostly.
In the locker room, Coach gave a quick speech about sticking to our game and playing simple with attention to details. I swear he looked at me when he said that, or maybe that was my guilty conscience. Afterward, Jon handed me a sports drink, despite me spending most of the period riding the bench. I gave him a look, and he shrugged. “You’ll need it for next period.”
“You think Coach is going to put me in?”
Fuck, that grin of his. “Oh yeah. He will, to see how you respond.”
Great. So I’d better be better. “Got to earn back trust.”
He nodded. “Ice time is never a given.”
I rubbed the heel of my hand into my forehead. “I should know that.”
The Swedish kid was sitting to the other side of me. “Lots of change.” He gestured to his head. “Scrambles you up, yeah?”
I croaked out a bitter laugh. “Yeah.” Then I sheepishly added, “We met in camp, but I don’t remember your name.”
That got me hint of a smile from the blond-haired forward. “Alfie Joelsson.”
“Jolly,” Jon cut in. “We call him Jolly Green Giant.”
Alfie threw a towel at Jon. “You do not!”
Another laugh came out of me, one not quite as bitter. “What do you want me to call you?”
Alfie nodded. “Al is fine. That’s actually what they call me on the ice.”
“Jolly,” Jon said, in a sing-song tone. “Green Giant.”
“Al it is,” I replied. That got me another soft smile from Alfie.
It felt good to connect to someone on the team. I glanced over at Jon, who was still beaming. Two someones. Desire—treacherous desire—tugged at me whenever I spent too long looking at Jon. He was something else, really. Beautiful, with his pale skin and dark hair that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be black or brown. And those brown eyes that danced when he smiled. Alfie said something in—Swedish, I guess. To my surprise, Jon quipped back in the same language.
Jon had no accent. Or rather, he had a pretty typical North American hockey accent. Probably spent some time in Canada, but how he spoke was more US-oriented. The point being, he didn’t have the accent Alfie had. At least when speaking English. But whatever he’d said to Alfie came out as if he’d been speaking Swedish his whole life.
But there was no time to ask him about that, even if I had any idea how to broach “Hey, you speak another language?” without seeming like a complete jerk. I was already pretty far into that territory as it was, and we were getting ready to get back onto the ice.
I’d love to say that my game somehow miraculously improved, but all the shit that had gotten me here was still there. All my shots on net went wide. I even had a beautiful look at a big old gaping hole the goalie had left for me and couldn’t get the fucking puck into the net. For fuck’s sake, a five-year-old could’ve, but I flubbed the shot, and it flew right over the crossbar.
My passes weren’t crisp, which led to a couple odd-man rushes, and I collected two penalties, a high-stick in second period and tripping in the third. Luckily, both times, the Otters got the kill. And the Otters got goals, despite my shit play. Both Alfie and Jon collected assists, and I tried to memorize the names of the goal scorers. Especially since Coach had pretty much nailed me to the bench in the third after I returned from the penalty box.
I was still a fuckup, wow. No wonder no NAPH team had wanted me. Maybe those two years before this one had been a fluke, just like social media and some reporters speculated. Luck, not actual skill.
Unwanted .
At the end of the game, I went out for fist bumps and to thank the goalie, then headed into the room. There was enough chatter and good spirits (and oh God, was Jon loud and happy and perfect, all sweaty and bubbly) that I could get out of my gear, slip off to shower, dress, and get the hell out of there. There was a post-game meal in the team lounge, which semi-surprised me because I’d heard that a lot of PHL teams didn’t do that. I guess the Otters were serious about keeping their players in shape. The Lions owned the Otters, so maybe that had something to do with it, too.
I was in no mood for food, though. Figured I could pick something up on the way back to my hotel. Heck, there was a chain rib place right near the hotel.
God.
I was staying at a hotel on the edge of a strip mall, next to a bunch of big box stores and chain restaurants and playing in the PHL because I was a fuckup. So much so, that I suspected Coach Macintosh would be on the phone to JR soon, and he’d bust me down to the HLENA. I gripped the steering wheel and drove right past the entrance to said strip mall. My head was not in a good place and sometimes driving helped, so I just kept going. GPS would get me back, so I didn’t worry about getting lost.
Fifteen minutes later, I was driving down a back road with no idea where I was except that it was dark, late, and I still felt like shit. Then my phone pinged with a text. Fuck. No one texted me this late except my mom. I pulled over into what seemed to be a tiny parking lot next to a commercial building of some kind. It had a For Sale sign bolted to it. I picked up my phone.
The text came from an unknown but local number, judging by the area code. There was the message I’d ignored before, the one welcoming me to the team. The new one said:
Meet me at the bar?
My heart ticked up a beat or three. At that moment, going to Jon’s gay biker bar seemed a better plan than driving aimlessly around the hills of Westmoreland County until my head settled. Especially since I wasn’t sure it would settle any time soon.
Okay.
After I texted my response, I pulled up my map app. The bar’s address was still in my recent history, so all it took was a tap on the screen, and then a voice was telling me to turn around. Ten minutes later, there was the bar, and my phone told me I’d arrived.
When I entered, I swear every head in the place turned. All those eyes on me, and something told me they all knew who I was. Probably had the night before too.
Shit. Oh God. Maybe I should leave.
“Hey, babyface,” Ella called out from the bar. “Grab that booth over there.”
I headed over to where she pointed, and took a seat. A moment later, Ella set a glass of water down in front of me.
“Everyone knew who I was, I guess.”
“Not everyone,” Ella said. “Bunch of folks here aren’t into hockey. They know Jon plays, but that’s about it. The rest of us? Yeah, we knew.”
I cradled my head in my hands. “I’m so fucking stupid.”
She snorted. “No more than anyone else, sweetie. You want a beer? ”
I did, but not having anything to eat was catching up with me. “Water’s fine. Is there—do you serve food?”
“No,” came Jon’s distinctive voice. “Just nuts and pretzels and snack mix. Running a bar is hard enough without having a kitchen. Didn’t want the added complication. But I brought food because I thought you might be hungry. God knows I am.” He set down two large paper bags onto the table. “Hi!”
I stared at him, with his bright and cheerful expression and tousled wet hair. He was wearing his scrumptious leather jacket with an Otters hoodie peeking out beneath.
“You want a beer, Jon, or water?”
“Oh, water, please. Thank you, Ella.”
“You got it.”
Then he was sitting across from me, pulling takeaway boxes out of the paper bags. “I don’t know what you like, so I just grabbed some of everything they had tonight.”
From the post-game spread, I realized, as he opened the boxes to reveal different items. Salad. Fish. Chicken. Steak. Vegetables. Pasta. Sure, it wasn’t the sushi that sometimes appeared after Lions games, but my stomach rumbled loudly enough that Jon’s smile widened.
“How…” But it really didn’t matter how he knew I hadn’t eaten, so I changed my question. “Why are you doing this?”
He stilled and watched me, blinking a few times. His not moving was almost unnatural. Then he settled into the booth a bit more. “A couple reasons. I’m captain and I like to make sure my teammates are in good shape and not doing anything silly, like punishing themselves by not eating.”
I flinched. Maybe I had been doing that. I didn’t know anymore. I reached for my water glass .
“But also, I like you. I wasn’t flirting with you last night just to be an ass, you know.”
That had me sputtering, trying not to choke on the water I’d just sipped. “What?”
That smile was coupled with a hint of flush on his cheeks. “I’m not going to lie about it.” Then he pushed a few of the paper containers toward me. “Please eat.”
That was a redirection if I ever saw one, but I was hungry, so I took up the biodegradable bamboo utensils he also pulled out of the bags, and got to work on some of the pasta with chicken and broccoli and the salad.
Ella brought water for Jon, and then retreated, so it was just the two of us again.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“For being a shitty hockey player.” I paused, then added, “And a shitty teammate.”
“Ah, well, the latter, thank you for realizing it, but what you did with Alfie went a long way there.” He grabbed salad and dropped some steak on it. “For the former, you aren’t a shitty hockey player.”
I stared at him. “Dude, did you see me out there tonight?”
“Absolutely.” He took a few bites, then added, “Not your best night, clearly. But I’ve watched you play. You’re good.”
I shook my head. “Not anymore.” Useless .
Jon seemed amused as he watched me, though not in a malicious way. There was warmth to his mirth and a friendliness—or more—that was confirmed by the faint color he still had in his cheeks. He did like me. Finally he put down his fork, folded his hands, and asked, “Do you know who my father is? ”
His father ? Why would I know that “No, I—” Wait. He spoke Swedish. His last name was Eriksson. “Holy shit, are you Gunnar Eriksson’s kid?” He’d been a Hockey Hall of Fame player, a number-one draft pick, and one of the best centermen to ever play the game. He was also blond and blue eyed. But studying the sharp angles of Jon’s face, I could see a resemblance.
Eriksson was a common enough name that I didn’t put two and two together. There were three Erikssons in the NAPH alone, and I knew none of those guys were related to the Shifty Swede.
“Yeah, I’m Gunnar’s kid. One of them. I have a sister, too. She’s a research biologist working on curing cancer.” He shrugged, “And I’m an okay PHL hockey player everyone’s forgotten about.”
Now my cheeks heated, but he waved that away. “No, seriously. How often do you hear about Gunnar Eriksson’s kids?”
Never. People still occasionally talked about Eriksson when another Swede got drafted high or had a breakout year as a forward or something like that. “I honestly didn’t remember he had kids. I mean, I was eleven when he went into the Hall.”
Jon flinched slightly. “I was eighteen,” he murmured. He was unusually silent after that, peering out into the bar like he was looking into the past.
His words caught up to me. “You’re more than an okay player.”
At that, his good humor came back, and he laughed. “No, I’m just okay. My skills are fine, but not NAPH quality. I belong here.” He pointed at the table. “ You do not.”
I skewed up my face and looked down. “Maybe I should be in the HLENA instead. ”
At that, Jon kicked me gently under the table. “Stop that.”
“It’s true.”
“You know it’s not,” he said. “You’re twenty-two . Your whole career is ahead of you. Everyone has slumps, Drake. It’s how you deal with them that counts.”
I shook my head and poked at my salad. “I’m nearly twenty-three, and this doesn’t feel like a slump. It’s feels like… like… reality.” Back to the baseline I should’ve been at.
“What happened to you?” he asked, so very gently. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want, but something took the wind from your sails.” He tapped his head. “Up here.”
I flicked another piece of lettuce. “Nothing happened to me. I just ran out of luck, I guess.” I ignored the memory of those messages from my sperm donor that I’d snapshotted. The ones I’d not told anyone about.
Jon grunted. “It’s not luck.” He resumed eating. For a while, that’s what we both did, and silence drifted between us, despite the general noise around the bar. The music, the chatter, the clack of pool balls from the back, those faded into this heaviness that seemed to blanket the booth.
Finally, Jon spoke. He didn’t look at me, but it certainly felt like his entire attention was on me. “How old were you when you started learning to play?”
The memory was visceral and almost painful, despite how much joy was in it. Or maybe because of that. “Five. I grew up outside of Philly and they had one of those programs where you could try hockey for free. Get some lessons and gear, you know?” I could still smell the rink and hear the echoes of shouts and the blades on ice. “Best day of my life.”
A flash of teeth at that. “I don’t remember when I wasn’t on the ice. There are videos of my father and me on the practice rink when I was something like eighteen months old.” He chuckled. “Everyone thought I would be like him.” He gestured around at the bar. “Didn’t work out like that. I’m not my father. I can see the game like him, I know what’s supposed to happen, but I’m not as physically gifted, so I can’t actually do what I need to fast enough. Used to really bother me. Spent a number of years incredibly upset that I was always being bounced between the NAPH and the PHL because I felt like I had to live up to my father’s legacy.”
“What happened?” I had a hard time imagining this man being anything but upbeat. Granted, I hadn’t known him that long, but even on the bench when we’d been down two goals, he’d been chattering away at the team, smiling and happy.
Jon got that faraway look again. “I was up in the NAPH, playing for New Jersey, and was having a rough go at it. I missed a stellar pass that would’ve been the tying goal if I’d had better hands. Faster reactions. I was so angry with myself, so upset that I broke my stick when I came off the ice, and nearly took out the coach with the shrapnel. There were discussions about my anger issues.”
I really couldn’t imagine him that upset. Didn’t fit with the picture of the man before me. “They send you down again?”
“Of course. And traded me not too long after.” He chuckled. “I was a mess, to be honest. And it hurt, because I absolutely love hockey. I can’t imagine not playing.” There was such passion in his voice, and the way he leaned forward as he spoke. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do in my life, from the time I realized what hockey was until now. I’ve always wanted to be a hockey player.” He took a breath. “And I almost lost that.”
I paused and watched him, and for the first time, I caught a glimpse of sadness in Jon. Then is smoothed over. “After the trade, as I was scrambling to pack my life up, my father showed up.”
“How’d he feel—I mean—did he want you to be a hockey player?”
Jon’s smile was beautiful. “Papa? God.” He shook his head. “Maybe you can meet him someday, because it’s hard to explain, but honestly, all he ever wanted for me and Sofia—my sister—was for us to be happy. And that’s what he told me. If hockey was making me miserable, I didn’t have to keep playing. He didn’t need me to be him. I could be anything I wanted—he just wanted happy, healthy kids.”
That stopped the breath in my lungs for a second. Because that’s all my mom ever wanted for me. And here I was—not happy. With my mind a mess. “But you kept playing.”
“Yeah. Like I said, I love this fucking game. I told him I didn’t want to embarrass him by playing in the PHL. And he told me that he would never be embarrassed by me. I could play rec league hockey and he would be proud. I could never pick up a hockey stick again, and he’d be proud of me, because I was his child. I was enough, no matter what.” Jon’s voice broke a little. He cleared his throat, took a sip of his water, then smiled. “So I decided to see if I could be good enough for the PHL and stay pro, and well—” Once more he gestured around him, and beamed. “It’s worked out.”
I stuffed some more food into my mouth, mostly so I didn’t have to speak while I figured out what even to say. Eventually, I took a drink. “So, I should stay?—”
Jon shook his head, then tapped the side of it. “I’ve got the IQ, just not the skills for the NAPH. You’ve got both. I’ve seen you play at that level and thrive. Give me a half hour, and I could probably pull up a dozen clips of you playing at an elite level. You’ve got it, Drake. You’re actually a dragon out there.”
“But your story…”
“Do you love to play?”
I froze. Did I…? No one had actually ever asked me that before. The answer crept over me at first, a faint tingling, then rumbled up, like a wave growing before it crashed onto the shore. “Yes.” I almost shouted the word. Then I fell back against the booth’s backrest. Because I hadn’t loved it tonight. Or even recently. “Shit.”
There was that glimpse of sadness. “I don’t know what happened between last year and this—and you don’t need to tell me—but you need to find that love again, Drake. That passion that makes you get out onto the ice.”
“I don’t know what happened, either.” Not really. I didn’t think. I was just… useless out there. Like the message from that fucker had said. “I can’t score.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“Oh my God.” I put down my fork and clutched my head. “I don’t know if you’re helping or fucking me up even more.”
He tapped my leg again. “Hey.”
I looked up into Jon’s gentle, concerned face.
“Tomorrow, get onto the ice, and remember what you love. That’s it. Start there.”
That—was a good idea, I guess. I let out a breath and lowered my hands, as an absurd question floated through my mind. “Uh… does this count as a date?”
Jon’s grin was like the sunrise, then he laughed and that was the best sound in the world.
I got to the practice rink early the next morning, before any other player arrived. Even before Coach Macintosh. Hank and the other equipment managers were there, though, but they didn’t seem too shocked to see a player far before we needed to be at the rink. I grabbed a coffee from the lounge, then started stretching and loosening up.
I’d hated going back to the hotel after the dinner and conversation I’d had with Jon. He hadn’t clarified the date comment, but we’d played another game of pool. Jon really wasn’t good, so I’d won, but goddamn, that smile—and the knowledge that he liked me—well, that had kept me up longer than I’d wanted, once I’d crawled into bed. Alone.
“Teammates can date teammates here?” I’d asked him. I knew the Lions weren’t queerphobic, since Brodie Boone’s partner, Oliver, was a trans man, but I’d never broached the whole dating your teammate thing there. I knew on some teams, like Seattle, not acting heterosexual has consequences. Seattle had pretty awful and phobic GM. Hopefully, the league would do something about that jerk someday.
Jon’s answer had come easily. “Yeah, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect the team.” He’d paused after that. “We had that happen once. Guy came through here and slept his way around the team. Wasn’t good at all. Bad scene all around. Caused a lot of internal strife, you know?”
“Did you date him?”
Color rose to his cheeks again. “No. I fucked him. A few times. He was too—” Jon waved his hand. “He had bad vibes, I suppose, and I didn’t want any more of that. I don’t know how to describe it. Flighty and negatively dramatic, maybe? He was always pitting everyone against everyone. Anyway, after I found out all the shit he pulled with the other guys…” Jon shook his head. “That’s why the dates. To get to know someone a little before jumping into bed with them. That whole thing was so soul-sucking.”
“Dates, huh?” I’d given him a small smile and he’d dipped his head, color still on his cheeks.
“Yeah, dates,” he said, his voice soft and enticing.
Then he’d met my gaze, and the way he looked at me… Jesus. I took that with me all the way back to the hotel and into a shower to rub one out. No idea if Jon was a top or bottom or vers like me. Didn’t matter. I wanted that man’s lips on me, and him in my bed. Jerking off hadn’t done much to settle me down, because my mind was still whirling from everything else beside the lust.
I had no idea if what we’d done was a date, but I felt like we were getting to know each other. He cared. He thought I had talent.
Maybe I did. I mean, my goal had always been to make the big show. I’d been told a good portion of my life that I could go that far. I’d made it. Played good for two years, better than everyone, including me, thought I might.
Then I hadn’t, and proved at least one person right, I guess.
Maybe Jon was wrong. But he was so sure of my talent, and he was the son of a hall-of-famer.
Then again, he also thought something had happened to me between my first two seasons and now, but nothing had, really. Only that one tense week in the off season when that jackass had messaged me, everything had been normal. And that week? I shook my head. Done and dealt with. Didn’t want to think about it, and that had nothing to do with hockey. It barely had anything to do with me , other than some random genetics I’d gained from someone who never wanted me at all.
I didn’t know why my game was crap right now, why I couldn’t score on a completely open net or pucks jumped off my stick seemingly every time I touched one—I did know that it was eating away at me. I tightened up every time I stepped out onto the ice. I’d been trying and trying so hard.
What he’d said, and that memory of being in gear for the first time… I’d wanted to cry. Not out of sorrow or anything, but the absolute memory of the moment. How complete and amazing it had been.
Even lying in bed after jacking off to thoughts of Jon kissing and touching me, of me fucking him, those early memories and emotions churned inside. Kept me thinking well after my lust was gone.
Made for a sleepless night, but here I was, stepping out on the ice in gear earlier than most people would. No idea how many times I’d done this between being that little five-year-old and the person I was now. There were no shrieks of children here. My mom wasn’t nervously sitting in the stands. It was just me, the sound of my skates cutting the ice, and the slap of my stick against a puck. I took a breath, and there was the cold scent of the ice, the smell of detergent from the practice jersey, and the vague stink of my own gear that no spray ever quite got rid of.
I circled. Stopped and started. Stick-handled. And just—listened. Felt. Let my mind quiet and trusted all those years of practice. I grabbed another puck and launched it at the net. Perfect shot. Went in easily. Nothing I did was very hard or intense, but my eyes were watery and my breath caught in my lungs.
I loved this. I missed this . A feeling of completeness, like I belonged out here on the ice. I was lucky this was my job, and… and…
Maybe I was good at it, just like Jon had said. When I was out here alone, I could almost taste that truth, like the cold air around me, as if the trace of understanding drifted like the faint smell of ice, concrete, and sweat.
All I had to do was play. Not worry about goals or assists or anything. If I played the game that I loved with the love I had for hockey—the goals would come. The playmaking would return. I headed for the bench, grabbed some water from my bottle, then hopped up to sit on the rail and just—stared out at the ice.
Yeah, I could do this. Come back. Swallow my misplaced pride, worry, anxiety and fear and return to the basics. Listen to the coaches. Work hard in every drill. Play with passion. Didn’t matter if I was in the PHL, it was still hockey .
This game was what I loved. I had to start loving it back and let it go from there.