Chapter 1
Chapter One
Ferris
There were a million things I thought I’d do with my life, but the one decision I’d made that was the most shocking—and yes, I counted it over being drafted at twenty into the NHL—was joining a fraternity.
I was not a “frat guy.” I was the guy future frat bros bullied the fuck out of in middle school and low-key tormented in high school.
I was the guy they pushed into lockers and threatened to trash can whenever they got bored or were trying to impress their cheerleader girlfriends.
And of course, those girls always laughed, then shot me a look of pity and offered to partner up with me in Foods when their macho dickhead boyfriends weren’t around.
I was the “safe” guy. The nonthreatening one. The gay dude with no experience because I was too autistic and too socially shy to ever tell someone I had a crush on them, let alone make a move.
Officially in my twenties now, I was still a virgin because I had no idea how to even begin to get a man to want to sleep with me. And that was my biggest problem since all my other queer friends had been jumping into bed with both each other and randos since freshman year at Boston U.
I was the weird one. Queer since I could remember, and I never felt the need to be in the closet because, well, it was always obvious. I was my own gay pride parade, but I had no idea how to cross the line and touch another man’s penis.
Maybe it was because I called it a penis? That didn’t seem like it was sexy. Cock was probably a better word. Or dick? Meat stick? Thick rod?
Shit. Maybe I should have read more romance novels or something.
There were days I wished I were more of a stereotype.
Everyone believed gay guys on campus were, you know, easy.
And maybe they were. Maybe I might have been if I’d been born different, but I was who I was.
I was the youngest of six boys. I was the weirdo in the family photo lineup, all short and awkward, with my shoulders perpetually hunched and my face unable to make a proper smile.
By the time they had me, my mom and dad must have been out of all the genes that would make me a tall, muscular zero on the Kinsey scale dude-bro like my brothers.
The only thing their combined DNA gave me was incredible balance, amazing hand-eye coordination, which was responsible for my goalie skills, and a low-support-needs autism diagnosis when I was seventeen and still not socializing the way they wanted me to.
That last bit, of course, was what led to the whole frat thing.
An internal dare to prove to my parents that it had nothing to do with me not trying hard enough.
So I pledged, and while my terror about what they’d make me do was real, it turned out that the severe rules and restrictions being put on frat houses—and punishments being dished out, oh, and funding being cut for violating those rules—meant things were different than the “good ol’ days” of hazing freshmen until one of them died.
There were still times I was pretty sure I was the diversity hire—being gay, being half Pakistani, being autistic—but whatever the case, I was welcome.
Even when I decided to try and get kicked out my sophomore year because I was tired of frat things.
I was going to lean into the gay and try to make the president uncomfortable so he suggested that I leave.
“Question: has there a problem with me liking men?”
At that point, after two years of bro culture, I was feeling very done. Being on the hockey team was bad enough. I didn’t need all this.
Derek, the Kappa Omicron Kappa president about to graduate, just raised a brow at me. “Bruh, it’s not our business where you put your dick.” He didn’t need to know then that I hadn’t put my dick anywhere. Not yet.
The guy who was sitting next to me—Colton, the absurdly hot one who looked like he belonged on Calvin Klein underwear billboards in NYC, not on the Boston U campus—snorted. “I mean, come on, dude. We’ve all thought about sucking a dick or two in our time.”
Derek coughed and eyed him. “Uh. Speak for yourself?”
“No? Really?” Colton asked, his eyes darting to Cosmo, one of sophomores on the hockey team with me, who was busy on his phone. “How about you?”
He looked up. “Uh. What?”
Colton mimed sucking a cock with his fist.
Cosmo blinked at him. “Are you asking me for advice? Because I have some. The guy I’m dating right now does this thing with his tongue that—”
“We’re getting off topic,” Derek said quickly.
“Oh, fuck off, it was just about to get good!” Colton complained.
I ducked my head, blushing as Cosmo asked Colton, “Are you coming on to me?”
There was a moment of tension, and Derek glanced over at his friends like he was worried he was going to have to step in between the two.
Colton looked him up and down slowly, then shook his head. “Nah. Not my type.”
Cosmo shrugged and went back to his phone, and I stared off into the distance because what the fuck just happened? My attempt at being ousted for being too gay had been thwarted by a conversation about blow job technique.
Clearing his throat, Derek said, “Well, anyway. You’re cool, dude. Just, you know, when you have someone over, put a sock on the door or some shit.”
And that was that.
I didn’t move into Kappa house until my junior year, and I was glad of it because the other fun thing about autism was being overly sensitive to smells.
I’d learned to cope in the hockey locker rooms because good god, there was no getting away from that weird dick-cheese smell of dirty jocks and sweaty skates, but to be surrounded by the overuse of body spray and vapes all day?
It was a lot.
But I coped with that too, and eventually, it felt like home.
Then I got drafted over the summer, and I realized my entire life was about to change. I was amongst friends, of course. Even Colton—who turned out to be kind of an arrogant dickhead as I came to understand most soccer players tended to be—was cool with me living there.
No one made fun of me when I’d have anxious days where I didn’t get out of bed and found myself surrounded by tiny crocheted amigurumi animals by the time I came out of my spiral.
Most of the guys kept them on their nightstands, and a couple of my teammates actually carried theirs in their pockets during games.
And no one asked why I was the only one who never brought anyone back to their rooms. They probably noticed, but the fact that they let me have this one secret to myself mattered.
In short, college was nothing like I’d been warned about, and neither was joining the frat.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave and join the real world. At least, not with the life I was living now. Even though the world didn’t know, I had no idea how the hell I was going to face the entirety of the NHL as a twenty-two-year-old virgin.
Graduation was looming over me, and everything was starting to become very real.
In a few months, I was going to walk the stage, get my diploma, then throw all my hard work into a fire to let it burn because I was heading into the professional sports world with a nice, almost seven-figure contract, which was more money than I’d ever seen in my life.
I would no longer be an anonymous student wandering around campus, trying to make it to class on time without having a meltdown from sensory overload. I was going to be on my own, and my entire life was about to be dictated by a schedule I had no control over.
I sucked at coping with change, but I could do it. I was set in my ways, but I had my plan to handle what my social life would be like once school was finished.
No boyfriends until I was an established player with a team that wasn’t trading me every other season. When I did get a boyfriend, we’d keep it low-key so he wasn’t harassed all the time on social media.
No dating celebrities.
No dating athletes.
You know, a reasonable list.
But I wasn’t sure how realistic it was, and I wasn’t going to feel settled until I at least asked another one of the pros how they dealt with it.
Luckily, I’d participated in the Queervolution photoshoot last summer, right after I’d signed on to the Bruins.
They’d sold me on being highlighted as a pro queer athlete, which was all well and good, except I wasn’t a pro.
Yet. But the kind woman on the phone told me that being drafted counted, so I said yes.
And it was fine.
Well.
It was a lot, but I handled it.
I went with my frat brothers Cosmo and Colton, so I felt less panicked and alone. And they both promised to make sure if I felt like I was going to lose it, they’d help me get out. And when I got there, I realized I was going to be okay.
I met guys my age who had been on pro teams for a couple of years already. I met guys decades older than me who had been the first ones to come out, to face the harsh criticism of an ugly world so rookies like us could feel safe signing contracts while remaining true to ourselves.
And I also met him.
Quinn Rhodes.
The retired NHL veteran with a limp and a face that never smiled.
Quinn—the man I hadn’t been able to stop staring at during the whole thing.
Quinn—the man with dark salt-and-pepper hair, a tan that made him look like he lived on the beach, a cut jaw, and dark eyes that caught mine and didn’t let go.
He hadn’t said two words to me during the shoot, but he had smiled at me a couple of times, and my dick got so hard in my jeans I was actually dizzy from my blood rushing south. He paid more attention to me than most of the other guys, which was…unexpected. I had no idea what to do with that.
But when it was all over, he just…left. He didn’t look back, he didn’t offer his number. He slipped through the side door with his heavy limp and the soft sound of his cane tip clinking on the polished floor.
And that was that.
I was never going to hear from him again.