31. Novi
THIRTY-ONE
Novi
I knew this question was coming, and I’m perfectly ready for it. It has taken me months, but I finally understand why this group exists and why so many queer men have joined it.
I trust them. I can be myself here.
“Nyet,” I say, feeling the weight of their disbelieving eyes as I grab Colby’s stool and drag him closer with a tile-protesting krrrr . Then I add, “Well, not today.”
Ezra and Oskar break out into increasingly louder versions of I knew it as Lane releases a long sigh, throws back his nip of amber liquid, and sets the glass on the counter again.
“I’m happy for you both,” he says, but the searching look he gives my Colby makes me think it’s not their first conversation about us.
“We’re happy for us both too.” I’m speaking for Colby, but it has to be true. I could not be happy if he is not. “And we’re keeping this on the down-loud, obviously.”
“Down-loud?” Ezra asks.
“Da. Like it is a secret.”
“Oh, down- low .”
Under the counter, Colby holds up his hand, and I high-five it. See? He’s happy.
“So this is one of the great Collective meetings, huh? I know I’ve had dinner with a couple of you before, but this is the first time it’s been a group thing,” Colby says, looking around. “It’s tamer than I was picturing.”
“Don’t challenge them.” Anton is sitting two stools away from Colby, sipping on a beer.
With his black hair and square jaw, he reminds me of Colby, but in more of a clean-cut sort of way.
The creases in Colby’s forehead, the smile lines around his eyes, and his messy hair speckled with grays turn me on way more than the catalog-model type.
All he needs is some missing teeth to be my perfect, rugged man.
“Did someone say challenge?” Ezra asks.
“ No .” Anton and Lane are so perfectly in time.
“So what you’re saying,” I begin, pretending to be confused, “is there will be no naked runs or tables dancing or ordering five hundred pizzas at midnight?”
“Are you purposely trying to give us ideas?” Oskar asks, leaning his crossed arms on the counter. With the jagged scar down one side of his face, he is the type of handsome I can get behind. Mostly. He is still too pretty.
“I have heard so many things, and none of them involved talking around a kitchen counter like we are a book club.”
Lane pins Colby with a pleading look. “Make him stop.”
“I’m only saying, maybe it is right to never meet your idols.”
“Awww, I’m your idol?” Ezra asks.
“I think he was talking about all of us,” Anton points out.
“I’ll get you into a thong again,” Ezra promises him. “Don’t you worry.”
“There’s a story there,” Colby says as Lane makes a slashing motion over his throat.
I put the poor man out of his misery. “Is there food here? I am so hungry after such an incredible win where there was no competition and I showed why I am one of the greats.”
“I think you’ve forgotten English again.” Ezra jumps up to sit on the counter. “You mean to say the win where you barely beat us and only got that last goal because I was feeling friendly toward you after the whole gay stick thing.”
“You cannot tell people Novi has a gay stick,” Colby says.
“Rainbow rod?”
“Nope.”
Ezra’s eyes squint up. “Magic unicorn staff?”
Colby face-palms, and Lane takes over. “Speaking of rainbow tape and making a statement, have you checked to see what the online response is?”
“I don’t need to,” I say. “The people who care will be split between homophobes and others debating if it means I’m queer, while others will say it doesn’t matter after my years of being silent—it’s still too little too late in their eyes. I’m not in a hurry to see all of that.”
“It’ll die quickly,” Anton says. “Despite what your ego thinks, no one really cares all that much about us.”
“What do you mean? I’m Radimir Novicov. Everyone cares about me.”
“In hockey circles, sure. But when I was trying to come out subtly, literally no one noticed. Ez and I would be holding hands or going out to dinner, and it was completely ignored. Unless you kiss Colby in the middle of a game, what you two are doing is a nonevent.”
“It only takes one person though,” Lane cautions.
Anton laughs. “Remind me how you and Oskar were found out again.”
Something smug crosses Lane’s face. “We were fucking around in the arena.”
Colby immediately turns to me. “No.”
“But—”
“No.”
I turn to Ezra in support. “You see how he ruins my fun?”
Ezra hooks a thumb at Anton. “I’m married to the most boring person on Earth. I get it.”
“I wore a thong bikini for you!”
“Again, I’m very interested in hearing about this thong,” Colby says.
“Besides,” Ezra continues, eyeing Colby with suspicion. “Even we’re not dumb enough to fool around at work.”
“Is dumb the right word?” Lane almost sounds offended as Oskar wraps an arm around his waist.
“It’s exactly the right word. But I’m also happy everything worked out how it did. Anaheim is having an okay season, but more importantly, they’re not a bunch of assholes. No one even reacts when I suggest a locker room OnlyFans.”
Ezra perks up. “A what now?”
“ No .”
The way Anton and Lane have perfected the unison really is sort of creepy.
While they bicker about that, I tease them again. “Only fams is about families, yes? This sounds like a perfect thing for the locker room and team bonding.”
Colby shakes his head, and at first, I think he’s forgotten the game. “It’s Only flans. Lots of baking.”
“Why would they bake in a locker room?”
He shrugs. “Sounds sort of unhygienic to me.”
Ezra’s mouth is somewhere around his ankles. “What in the great gay gods are you talking about?”
“You want to start a baking show with your team?” I answer. “My sister can give you tips.”
“Oh my God,” Lane mutters.
“It’s porn,” bursts from Oskar. “You want your sister to give us tips with porn?”
“I don’t think cooking prawns is baking, but I’m sure she can?—”
Ezra all but leaps over the counter to seal my mouth with his hand. “I’m doing you a favor.”
When he finally lets go, Colby and I high-five under the counter again.
“Moving on from whatever that was,” Anton says. “ Are you planning on coming out, Novi? Is that what tonight was?”
“It was my sister’s idea. A way for me to go out there as myself. She was very pushy about it.”
“Was she?” Colby asks, voice strange. “Was she pushy? Your sweet, funny, delightful sister?”
“It’s hard to believe, I know.”
He takes my hand. “I was very proud of you.”
“I was too. It felt really good. Like I didn’t have to hide anymore.”
A slight frown settles between Colby’s eyebrows. “So you are thinking about coming out?”
That’s a difficult one.
Ezra switches to Russian. “What about your sister?”
“She is very determined that I stop thinking about her and do it.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
It takes me a second. “Unsettled. But hopeful.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Colby turns to Ezra. “You speak Russian?”
“I also speak Polish,” I say.
Ezra gives me a look of betrayal. “You told me you didn’t. All this time I’ve been trying to remember the Polish word for the English word and then the Russian word for the Polish word. You made me speak Russian when I didn’t have to?”
I shrug. “You say that like you can actually speak Russian. You needed the practice.”
Ezra switches to Polish. “Fuck you . ”
I blow him a kiss.
“I want to learn,” Colby says, ignoring us both. “I started, but …”
But I went AWOL and ditched out on him before he could. “I’ll teach you.”
“Thanks.” It doesn’t sound like he means it. “I’m not sure you have the patience for it.”
“But I am very patient.”
“Last time you told me that if you spoke it constantly around me that I’d pick it up. Then refused to speak anything else.”
“Da. It’s how babies learn.”
“I’m not a baby.”
Anton is laughing. “You think Ez will be more patient? Ezra? I’ve seen him eat a banana through the skin because peeling it would take too long.”
“I wasn’t trying to eat it. I was trying to seduce you.”
“Trust me when I say there’s nothing sexy about a man trying to deep-throat a banana, peel and all.”
“But it was a big one.”
“The little stalk bit at the end was still attached!”
One side of Ezra’s mouth kicks up like he’s remembering. “Yeah, that tickled the tonsils a bit.”
Colby tilts his head to one side. “Just how big was this banana?”
“Don’t encourage him.”
“All I’m saying is that if it really was big, I’d be impressed.”
Ezra turns to Oskar. “Quick, where’s your fruit kept?”
“I could tell you that, but it wouldn’t matter anyway.”
“Why?”
Oskar hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Lane hid everything phallic-shaped before you got here.”
“The audacity.”
Lane pours himself another drink. “I stand by my decision.”
Anton tilts his beer Lane’s way. “Thank you for your service.”
“Yeah,” Colby says. “You have to nip this behavior in the butt.”
“I think you mean bud. But yes. I’ve learned.” Lane pours himself another drink.
“Careful, Ezra is ready to curl into the feeble position,” I add.
“It’s fetal, and no I’m not.” He plants his hands on his hips as Colby and I high-five twice under the counter. “Bet I could find the stash though.”
“Good luck.”
“They’re in your nightstand, aren’t they?”
“Despite the numerous edible things in there, no, we did not stash the food with our sex toys,” Lane says.
“Numerous?” Ezra looks around at each of us. “Be right back.”
“Is he … going to paw through our personal items?”
Oskar pats Lane’s shoulder in pity. “You just said you’ve learned, and yet you dangled that in front of Ezra anyway.”
“Lube, massage oil …” Anton counts things off on his fingers. “Underwear …” He pauses and squints at the wall. Then he abruptly stands up. “Ah. I’m going to go and … check on … something. Not Ezra. Be right back.”
I reach across Colby to scoop up Anton’s half-finished beer and take a long drink. “He is going to help Ezra. You know that, right?”
Oskar looks at Lane, who holds up a fist. At first, I think they’re going to fist bump, but then they start rock, paper, scissors. Oskar loses.
“Fine, I’ll go. But I still maintain this is your fault.”
“It’s about time you cleaned up one of my messes. Equal partnership and all that.” Lane watches Oskar go before immediately turning back to us. “Before the three stooges get back?—”
“You’re including Anton in that?” I ask.
“Yep.” Lane doesn’t even hesitate. “Give it time and you’ll understand.
He’s just as ridiculous as the rest of them.
But quickly: I know I don’t work for either of you, but I’m here.
Anything PR, you’re welcome to come to me to talk through it, and I’ve already made this offer to Colby, but I’m making it to you as well, Novi.
Coming out isn’t going to be a stark before and after for you that some of these other guys have faced.
I’m not minimizing or saying it was easy for them, but not only do you have to think of your mother country, you also need to think about Colby and his job.
Coming out could mean that people draw the line between you two, and I know that’s something Colby is worried about. ”
I turn to him, hating that he worries about anything. “You’re worried?”
“Hey, no need to yell.”
“I am not yelling.”
“Sorry. Your death glare confused me.”
I huff. “I don’t glare. And you should not be worried.”
“In a perfect world, I agree with you. But we’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and we couldn’t tell anyone because you’re not out. Telling them after you come out isn’t an option either because if they find out we’ve been crossing boundaries already, it will cost me my job.”
Lane drums his fingers on the counter. “He’s right.
Seeing Oskar cost me mine, and I hate to agree with San Jose’s team management, but they didn’t really have a choice in that matter.
A team has to protect its players. We can say it was all consensual and above board until we’re blue in the face; it doesn’t change the power dynamics.
I do maintain they could’ve handled it better, but I knew the risks when I started sleeping with a player. ”
That almost makes me laugh. “Colby? Have power over me? But he’s like a cute polar bear, and I am the puppy following him around.”
Colby squeezes my thigh. “That metaphor doesn’t make the point that you think it does.”
I still don’t see the problem.
But between my sister and the team finding out that Colby is my boyfriend, it’s sounding less and less likely that I can come out.
The others get back, and Lane straightens as Ezra walks up and stands beside him. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at Lane in a way that looks unhinged.
“Well, well, well,” Anton says, walking in behind Oskar. “We had no idea you had it in you, Lane.”
“Didn’t you?” Lane only downs his neglected drink. “I guess you’re all forgetting that Oskar proposed to me .”
Colby and I glance at each other.
I have no idea what they mean by any of that, and I don’t think I want to know. Toys? Edible things? What is more sexy than enjoying Colby’s body? I don’t need anything fancy in order to do that.
While they all continue to tease Lane about what was in the drawer, I lean over and press a kiss to Colby’s cheek. “Do not worry about anything. I will make it all work.”
And I’m determined to.