Chapter 4
Quentin
“Looks like you were getting chummy with Joel Beckett,” Henri Bellancourt said to Quentin while they were in the locker room at the Webb Practice Rink, changing into their practice gear.
Henri rolled his eyes. He was twenty-three, two years younger than Quentin, and was from Québec.
He spoke with a lilting French-Canadian accent and had a wicked sense of humor that he seemed to have grown into since moving to Boston last year.
He was one of their newer centers and was very talented.
He had a disciplined, intense style of playing.
He had a high hockey IQ and could read the ice better than anyone Quentin knew.
He always had complete command of the puck when it was in his possession, and seemed to have the ability to intuit his opponents’ moves before they took them.
He had been well-trained, had played for a prestigious Canadian university before being drafted to the NHL, and had a promising career ahead of him.
Quentin could see Henri replacing him someday as captain.
He had the talent on the ice, and more importantly, he had the leadership qualities. The guys on the team listened to him.
“How was it, though?” Henri asked. “I mean, besides getting socked in the nose on live TV.”
Quentin gingerly touched the bridge of his nose. His face was still tender, ever since the accident last week. “It could have been worse,” he admitted.
“What did you think of Joel Beckett? I love his music.”
Quentin pulled on his hockey pants. The other guys in the locker room weren’t paying attention to his conversation with Henri. He hadn’t told anyone else how much he’d disliked Joel, but he knew he could trust Henri. They were best friends, and they told each other everything.
(Almost everything. Quentin hadn’t said anything to Henri about his sexuality, though he knew Henri would be a good person to tell.
Henri was openly bisexual and lived with his boyfriend, Cort.
They were both good friends with Quentin, and they often had him over for dinner.
He knew that Henri could be trusted with the secret of Quentin’s sexuality, but Quentin wanted to figure it out for himself before he brought anyone else into the conversation.)
He leaned in closer to Henri. “Honestly? I think he’s kind of a dick.”
Henri looked shocked and then laughed loudly. “Seriously? Don’t meet your heroes, I guess.”
“He’s hardly my hero,” Quentin grumbled.
“He’s stuck up and self-centered, and was always late to rehearsals.
” He shook his head. A small part of him knew that his dislike of Joel wasn’t entirely rational, but then again, there were just some people you didn’t click with.
Joel was one of those people for Quentin, apparently.
Everything Joel said or did managed to get under Quentin’s skin.
“We didn’t get along at all during rehearsals,” Quentin said. “And after the whole face-punching incident, his PR team wanted to make sure that a scandal didn’t develop. I don’t know if you saw that selfie he posted, but it was at a staged lunch.”
“I saw the paparazzi photos online,” Henri said. “You’re getting really famous now. Out and about with Joel Beckett. How does it feel?”
“Annoying.”
Henri laughed again. “That’s got to be an exhausting way to live for him, with everything managed by a PR team.”
Quentin didn’t want to feel sympathetic for Joel, so he just shrugged. “Maybe. He didn’t seem to mind all that much.”
“Did you ask him?”
“No. I generally tried to avoid talking to him.”
“Even at lunch?”
“It was a very awkward lunch.”
Henri sat to put his skates on. “At least you don’t have to see him again.”
Oh, the irony. Quentin sat heavily on the bench beside Henri. “If only,” he grumbled. “I’m supposed to go to one of his concerts in a few weeks so that we can have another staged ‘friendship’ moment. His PR team really wants it to look like we’re cool.”
“Your life is so hard, hanging out with celebrities and going to free concerts. His new album is good! Have you listened to it?”
Quentin sighed. “No.”
“Maybe you should.”
That night, after Quentin returned to his apartment, showered, and ordered himself dinner, he sat on his couch and looked at his phone.
He scrolled through social media, looking at recent posts and photos where he was mentioned.
Countless people and news outlets had reposted the paparazzi photos of him and Joel, and the selfie Joel had posted.
A few people had also managed to screenshot the picture from Quentin’s story before he’d taken it down.
He didn’t bother reading the comments. People had plenty to say, and the comments and posts he did manage to skim were mostly people wondering if this was genuine.
Good job, Quentin thought. It’s not.
Quentin was not always comfortable with his status as a celebrity athlete.
For the first couple of years of his career, he had been anonymous outside the world of hockey.
Hockey fans knew his name and face, and no one else did.
His newfound fame on the Internet, even before FCL, was still alien to him.
He hadn’t gotten used to it yet, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would.
People seemed to think that because he was famous, they could comment on him or his choices.
They thought they could speak for him, and that was what annoyed him the most.
Plenty of people, and not just hockey fans, had been calling for Joel’s “cancellation” after he accidentally hit Quentin in the face.
Quentin might’ve been pissed at Joel and thought he was an all-around annoying person, but he didn’t think Joel deserved to get publicly harangued on the Internet for something that had clearly been an accident.
At least the photos seemed to have done their job. There were already fewer posts about the whole face-punching incident. A few people were still hanging onto a “conspiracy” that the whole thing was a PR scam. If only they knew how right they were.
Quentin’s food arrived, and he went down to the lobby to pick it up. He’d ordered from a Vietnamese place near his apartment, and the food smelled amazing. He returned to his apartment, shucked off his shoes and his sweatshirt, and took the food to his couch, where he sat, shirtless, to eat.
His apartment was his safe place. It was the second apartment he’d had in Boston.
His first had been smaller, not as nice, and he had upgraded when his NHL salary allowed him to.
It was spacious and modern, all clean lines and smooth surfaces.
The furniture was sleek, but comfortable, and the walls were a soft gray.
He had the newest appliances and simple, tasteful art on the walls.
He’d used a decorator on the place, because he didn’t know what pieces to put together himself.
He was thinking, someday soon, of upgrading again, this time to a house, and he wanted to decorate the house himself.
He’d thought of maybe having one built, something specifically to his designs.
He’d like a home, a real home, where he could put down roots and stay.
He didn’t think much about the long-term future and what his life might look like someday, but when he did, he liked to think that his future might involve the need for a house.
Until then, it was just him and his apartment—and his bún cha.
He usually put a movie on while he ate, but now he had a different idea.
Henri had suggested that Quentin listen to Joel’s latest album.
Quentin liked music, but he’d never listened to any of Joel’s solo albums. He’d listened (against his will) to Good Treble’s music plenty when he was in high school, and he’d always assumed that Joel’s music would be a similar sanitized teen bop style. Quentin preferred rock or the oldies.
On a whim, he pulled out his phone and searched for Joel’s latest album online.
The album was called Northern Sun, and according to a press release, Joel had recorded it last year over a six-month stay in Stockholm, where he had worked with a famous Swedish producer.
He said that the album was inspired by 1970s glam rock, synth pop, and “French New Wave cinema.”
Despite himself, Quentin was intrigued.
He found the tracklist online and pulled up YouTube on his TV. There was an entire visual album to go with the music: twelve music videos, one for each song, with interludes of spoken word poetry. It sounded like much higher art than what Quentin had expected.
Food ready, he looked for the first video on YouTube, and settled in to watch.
An hour and a half later, the visual album was finished, and Quentin sat still on his couch, eyes wide and lips parted in a silent expression of surprise.
He’d been glued to the TV for the entire visual album.
Each song was incredible, and the spoken word was moving.
The music videos were artistic and visually compelling, shot almost like they were short films. Joel starred in each video, playing a variety of different roles, from a 1970s rocker to a futuristic alien explorer to a Renaissance man’s muse.
The album seemed to be a commentary on the nature of fame and how consumerism and commercialism were inherently at odds with artistic expression.
Quentin blinked in surprise.
Yes, that was one of the messages of the album, he realized, and the fact that Joel had managed to communicate it so artfully and so thoughtfully was impressive.
He had expected all of Joel’s music to be silly love music, but that wasn’t it at all.
There had been a few love songs on the album, but they had been deep and meaningful, full of yearning and unrequited affection.
No love interest was ever seen in the videos.
Joel had sung to someone offscreen, or directly at the camera, longing for an impossible love.
Quentin had almost wept during one of the songs, which spoke poignantly to how Quentin had felt after losing Drew. Not that Drew had ever belonged to him. Drew had been the one to want something more, and Quentin had rejected him.
He wiped his cheeks, feeling silly for crying to Joel’s music. Maybe, he thought, the concert wouldn’t be all that bad.