Chapter 28
CONNOR
If I kept reading, my eyes were going to melt out of my skull, but I pressed on anyway.
The NAL’s rulebook was enormous, as were the collective bargaining agreement and several other governing documents.
I knew every on-ice rule and regulation back to front.
Off-ice wasn’t quite as critical for my job; I’d internalized the code of conduct and strictly obeyed it, but since my job was to officiate games, a lot of it didn’t pertain to me.
Or, well, it hadn’t until this week.
Now it was suddenly very, very relevant, and I was frustrated with my inability to find something—some rule, some guideline—that spelled out what we could and couldn’t do. Just… throw me a damn bone so I had a place to start, for fuck’s sake.
So far, nothing.
When I’d broken into the NAL much younger than most officials, I’d been meticulous about treading very carefully.
I’d made absolutely sure I was on the up-and-up with the League that my brother was a player.
There were some rules about family members, but they were pretty straightforward.
I couldn’t officiate games Michael played in, and I was “strongly encouraged” to recuse myself from those that had significant effects on my brother’s team.
This came into play a couple of years ago when Denver and Seattle were neck-in-neck for a playoff position.
Every point counted, and in the end, it literally came down to Denver squeaking in with the single point from an overtime loss.
During that stretch, I declined to officiate any games Seattle played in order to avoid any accusations that I was tilting things against them to help my brother’s team.
For years, we’d made it work, and aside from the odd whiner, there hadn’t been any issues.
Oh, there’d been one sports reporter who insisted that I should be investigated for a penalty-heavy game early in the season, saying Seattle lost because of those penalties, and those two points would have put them above Denver months later.
Right. Because I’d had a crystal ball and knew those teams would be locked in a tight race in March, and I’d conspired to give my brother’s team an early edge.
I wondered if that guy also thought I’d paid three of Seattle’s players to take high-sticking penalties, including two that ended up being four-minute double minors.
Or if I was somehow responsible for the egregious boarding that resulted in an injured player and a five-minute major during which Seattle let in three goals against.
Yep, that was definitely on me, conspiring to help my brother’s team.
So aside from the odd whiner and rumor, I’d navigated just fine as a referee while Michael played in the same league.
But as I scoured the rules and regulations now, searching for some guidance on how Madars and I could navigate dating while I officiated and he played… I came up empty. Not because I couldn’t figure out how to obey the rules—because there weren’t any. There was just… nothing.
On the one hand, that was great because it meant there wasn’t technically anything forbidding me from dating a player in the NAL.
On the other, that opened up a massive can of worms. No, we wouldn’t be breaking any rules, but it wouldn’t look good. The lack of rules meant a lack of guidance. A lack of a detailed, black-and-white map for staying together and not giving people a reason to believe we were compromising the sport.
Not for the first time, I considered seeing if there were positions available in the women’s league.
Also not for the first time, I dismissed that without much thought.
There was only one female official in the entire NAL.
Half of the officials in the women’s league were men.
They didn’t need another man coming in and taking an opportunity away from one of the many women who were more than qualified for those jobs.
I sighed into the stillness and lowered my phone so I could rub my tired eyes.
I didn’t know what to do. Especially since there wasn’t a damn rule.
Of course there wasn’t. Players hadn’t even started coming out until a few years ago.
I was the first and only gay official. There was one assistant coach in California and a skills coach in Ottawa; I knew that because that’s how few queer coaches there were.
The sport hadn’t exactly been quick to embrace us, and they’d only sort of grudgingly accepted our presence in the last three or four years.
No one had bothered making any rules about us because they were barely acknowledging we existed.
Which also meant that a gay player and a gay official would probably make some serious waves. In this league, serious waves could sweep away careers.
“Fuck,” I whispered, and stared down at my dormant phone.
It was a relief that there was no rule banning us from being involved with each other, but it still left us with a can of worms. “It’s not illegal, it’s frowned upon” was fine and good for a lot of things, but not for a referee trying to toe the line when officials were under more intense scrutiny than we had been in decades.
What the hell were we supposed to do?
End the relationship so neither career gets fucked.
Yeah, that was the most logical answer. That was the answer for a scrupulously rule-abiding referee and the player on a PTO trying to earn a second chance in the League. Rules or no rules, the heat from something like this could burn a lot of bridges that couldn’t be rebuilt.
But every time I even thought about calling this off with Madars…
My throat tightened and my eyes stung. I couldn’t do it. I just fucking couldn’t.
Can you risk his career? Can you be that selfish?
Fuck. Fuck!
There was no easy answer. Nothing that kept us on the right side of the League and didn’t set us up for one to resent the other later.
Because that was the reality of two people as ambitious as Madars and me—we’d worked hard to get where we were, clawing our way to the top of an extraordinarily competitive game.
If one of us bowed out to keep from sabotaging the other, guilt and resentment were almost inevitable. That was just human nature.
Something had to give. Someone had to give.
So how the hell did we—
Soft footsteps pulled me into the present, and I turned to see Madars coming into the room. I hated how much work it took to smile; I loved seeing him, but this whole situation had me tied up in so many knots, it was a struggle to put on a happy face.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He eased himself down on the couch beside me and slung his arm around my shoulders. Gesturing at my phone, he asked, “Am I interrupting?”
“No. No. Never. I was just…” I scowled down at my screen. “I’m trying to figure out if we can do this. Be together when we’re both in the NAL. But there’s no rules about it, and—”
“Connor.” He gently took my phone and put it aside. “Let’s give it a rest for a little while.”
I held his gaze. I wanted to protest, but at the same time—I mean, yeah. I wanted to give it a rest, too. My fucking brain hurt at this point. So, he was probably right.
Sighing, I nodded. “Okay. Good idea.” I leaned into him and closed my eyes, loving the way we fit together. He drew soft circles on my arm with his fingertips, and for a long time, we just sat there in silence.
I tried to keep my brain from going there. I really did.
But every thought was only two or three degrees away from it, and I just kept landing there again and again.
Pushing out a harsh breath, I wiped my hand over my face. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Madars deflated. “I can’t either.” Silence held for an uncomfortably long moment before he turned to me. “Want to go distract ourselves for a little while?”
“I’m game for a distraction. What did you have in mind?”
But a split second later, I caught up. The look in his eyes was unmistakable, and though I felt like absolute shit, I was suddenly very, very onboard with what he had in mind.
“Yeah.” I licked my lips. “Let’s go.”