Chapter Two
Adrian
Outside the arena, John the cameraman lit a cigarette and nudged me as I looked out into the street, Rip’s words replaying in my head.
“So how do you know Ripley Tremaine?”
“Hmm? What?” I was still trying to recover from Rip’s arm around my shoulders.
His warm, heavy, very muscular arm. “Oh, he’s my brother’s best friend.
We grew up together.” No need to get into the complex dynamics of Ripley’s home life and how he’d come to live with us.
Especially when I didn’t really understand it myself.
He and Neil had always been together, in school and after, and one day, Rip had simply stayed and never left. That was pretty much all I knew.
“No shit? Whoa, that’s cool.” He flipped the ash on the sidewalk. “Did you always know he was gay?”
No, but I knew I was the first time I saw him in his rookie year with the Blades.
My dad took me into the locker room for the season opener, and Rip stood there, sweaty and bare-chested, with a huge smile.
My mouth dried, and tingles traveled up and down my body.
That night I had an explosive wet dream with him as the star.
I made a face. “That’s not something I talk about. He’s a friend.”
As if he hadn’t heard me, John continued.
“Sure as hell shocked me, but I guess it don’t matter if he can play the game.
More and more of them comin’ out every day.
Football, baseball…who would believe it?
” He dragged on the cigarette, then tossed the butt and crushed it under his heel.
“Better get going. Don’t wanna be late for dinner.
” He pulled out the keys to the van and turned to leave.
“I’m not going. He didn’t mean it. That was a courtesy invite.”
John stopped and gave me a bug-eyed glare. “Dude. I’m not gay, but even I could see he was into you.” He leered and waggled his brows. “Go for it. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s like a big brother to me.”
Trust me, I’ve been fighting these feelings for years.
“Whatever. Listen, I know you wanna get on the hard news, but Rob DeVine ain’t gonna hand that over to some rookie intern whose main job is making sure the coffee urn is filled every morning.”
I winced but understood John’s point. Rob DeVine was a hard-ass, tough guy who barely acknowledged me as Louie’s new intern.
It didn’t seem to matter that he and Neil were friends—I knew I’d only been hired because Neil had once worked for him and Rob respected Neil’s position in the industry.
If I wanted to stay and make a name for myself, it was sink or swim on my own.
“I know. But I have to begin somewhere.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t think that just ’cause you did the sports tonight, they’re gonna take it away from Louie. He’s a legend. Thirty years in the business don’t disappear like that.”
Sighing, I zipped up my jacket. “I don’t want it. I’m not a sports person. I just want to catch a break and get noticed.”
We approached the van, and John hit the key fob to deactivate the alarm.
“Listen, kid. My advice? It’s dog-eat-dog in this world.
Use whatever advantage you can get. You know Rip Tremaine good, like you say?
Get on the inside track with him. If Louie hears you got pull with a big-shot player in the NHL…
” He winked. The innuendo wasn’t lost on me, and my face turned to fire.
“God, no way. I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? Everyone’s got an angle, and if you can score with Tremaine, you’d be a golden boy. Maybe they’ll give you the entertainment spot if you start dating a big shot like him.”
“And do what? Spy on him? That’s gross.”
“Don’t be naive. That’s show business. Lots of reporters have started either with being besties with producers, a famous someone’s kid, or banging some star. Use what you got.”
With a two-finger salute, he hopped into the van and drove off. I watched the taillights recede, then headed in the opposite direction, toward the train home.
Golden boy?
As quickly as I pictured myself behind the anchor desk, I thrust the image from my mind.
I couldn’t do that to Rip. We might not really be friends, but I was sure he trusted me.
I could never use sexuality to advance my career.
Besides, I wasn’t Rip’s type. He went for the hot supermodels or the famous athletes. Not nobodies like me.
Hands jammed into my jacket pockets, I stared at the traffic whizzing past and wondered how badly I’d screwed up the segment.
I’d thought I was confident about my abilities, but the moment I’d seen that little red light on the camera come on…
poof. My thoughts had turned to mashed Jell-O, my throat had dried up, and the words had refused to come without me forcing them.
Add in having to interview Rip, and I’d become a stammering, airheaded fool.
The secret crush I’d had on him all through high school had been placed on the back burner when I went away to college, then moved across the country for my first job.
But I’d catch glimpses of him on the sports news or on the cover of a magazine in an airport traveling for work, and those silly emotions would muscle their way into my brain again.
I might not know a damn thing about hockey, but I sure as hell was a fan of Ripley Tremaine.
To say I’d been shocked by Rip’s coming out speech in his second year of playing professionally would have been an understatement.
Of course, I’d immediately had a fairy tale of Rip realizing he was in love with me and asking me if I’d wait for him until I was older and we could be together.
All I’d been able to think of was him touching me. Kissing me.
That dream had lasted all of one month, before the stories of Rip’s love affairs started to make the gossip pages.
He went out with models, Olympic figure skaters, swimmers, and other sports figures who’d made the choice to wait until after their retirement to come out.
Older or younger, Rip was going through every gay man he came in contact with.
Except me. Rip had obviously forgotten about my existence the moment he left home.
I might’ve only been a teenager, but I’d been hopelessly, helplessly in love with him.
I was left out of parties, sleepovers, and weekend trips to the mall and movies.
I’d make excuses that it didn’t matter. Eventually I’d grow up and Rip and I would meet at some point, and he’d see how I’d changed and fall in love with me.
Out of college, I’d landed a job at a local news station in the Midwest. I wanted to report coverups by local politicians, drug raids, corporations pushing out small-business owners.
I had dreams of being a big-shot anchor, telling the important stories of the day with intelligence, honesty, and that touch of humor that would make me relatable and have people tuning in to hear my reporting.
Silly me for thinking I could jump right into hard news, as I was stuck reporting on the latest fashions and whose Hollywood marriage was in trouble.
I’d figured I could stick it out and prove I could do it.
Instead, I was out of my job as gossip reporter in one year, for revealing a major celebrity having a romantic dinner in town with an unidentified woman.
We’d even had video of the two of them getting close in a secluded booth.
Unfortunately for me, it turned out the woman was the station owner’s wife. I was let go the next morning.
After that, I’d bounced around, trying to get my foot in the door with smaller markets—worked in Idaho and Oklahoma—none of them lasting more than a year, mainly due to budget cuts.
My last job, in North Carolina, had used me as a floater, doing whatever the station manager had wanted.
One day I’d be writing copy for the local lifestyle reporter, and the next I’d be at the Friday night high school football game, helping our sports reporter.
All the while, I’d still yearned to cover the hard news, but each time I’d been told to stay in my lane.
That I had to earn the move up the ladder to even think about transferring from essentially gofer work to news reporting.
The only time I’d get in front of a camera behind the desk was to fill in for someone if they were sick, or if it was a holiday and no one else was available.
The last resort. Of course, I always jumped at the chance.
It wasn’t as if I had anything resembling a social life.
I was twenty-eight years old, and sex was a distant memory—I might as well be a virgin.
I could use—and did—the excuse that I didn’t have the time to meet anyone, I was still young.
It was more important to build up my career.
The reality? No one was interested in me, so it worked out.
Rip and Denis Bouvier had become the power couple of professional hockey, proclaiming their love for each other, forcing me to shelve my fantasy of the two of us falling in love.
And then an intern job at Channel 8 in New York City opened up, so I swallowed my pride and asked my brother to use his friendship with Rob DeVine to see if he could get me the job at his station.
What they offered me wasn’t any better than what I was leaving, but I jumped at the lateral move anyway.
Aside from returning home to my family, New York City was one of the big markets.
A chance to make a name in the industry.