Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DONOVAN
My palms sweat as I walk through the upper floors of the arena, heading for a boardroom I haven’t seen since I signed my contract at the beginning of the year.
It’s happening today.
Three months after everything went sideways and I almost lost my life along with everything that’s precious to me, I am finally here in this space.
On my phone sits a text from Shiloh that I’ve read over and over again since I woke up to find our bed empty and the light on in the small spare room we converted into a studio for him.
I love you.
Don’t disturb me.
You’ll see when you get home.
We’re out of syrup.
I pull my phone out and read it again as I stand outside the closed door to the boardroom.
Picking up the pieces of my broken apartment was easy; finding a new place to live that ticked all our boxes was the real challenge.
Eventually, we settled into a semi-detached property that’s almost halfway between the arena and the campus.
Shiloh likes to point out that he spends fifteen minutes more than I do on his way home, and I let that slide.
I don’t remind him that picking up breakfast at Sal’s for us on my way back to where we live makes up for that extra time, because the one time I did, he commented that if I didn’t want to spend that extra time picking up my pancakes, I could always just come straight home after practice.
He wasn’t wrong, but I don’t think I’m wrong either.
“You ready for this, Donny?” a very familiar voice says from behind me. Krystal walks over to me and offers a grin, her eyes sparkling and her blonde hair tossed back in some kind of messy bun.
I offer a nod and a smile to the one person who’s become my biggest confidant here in this team.
It’s because of her taking over my social media entirely and managing any sort of blowback from the comment section of my posts that I made it through the days and weeks after I killed a man with my own hands.
She’s a fucking angel, and I don’t know how to repay her for all that she’s done. Shiloh suggested a fruit bouquet. Maybe that’s the way to go, but after this is over, I’m sure I’ll owe her far more than some cut-up melons and strawberries on sticks.
She steps in front of me and opens the boardroom door, gesturing for me to enter first. My agent sits at the table, his face full of concern, alongside Coach Bob who greets me with a big smile and a young man I don’t think I’ve ever met before.
I enter quietly, taking the seat beside Coach Bob for some stability and support to get through this.
Krystal sits on my other side, cocooning me between these two pillars of support.
Taking a breath, I slide open my phone and read the first message from Shiloh again and again until it’s ingrained in me like it’s been carved into my bones.
I love you.
I love him and that’s why I’m here.
I take another breath, then tuck my phone away, placing my shaky hands on the table in front of me.
“I’m pansexual,” I blurt out as my agent opens his mouth. “I’m in a relationship with a man.”
Krystal reaches over and squeezes my knee as my agent sighs loudly into the room.
“I thought so,” he says. “It’s true, then?”
I nod, because the parts that matter are.
The Snakes had taken note of my absence at practice, but I was able to explain that away by claiming the onset of a particularly violent stomach bug.
So violent, in fact, there was no way I could have possibly made it to the arena.
As far as they know, I was throwing up, practically glued to the toilet for most of the day.
The next morning, when I arrived for practice, I was made to see the team doctors before I was cleared to hit the ice, and while they did take note of a sizable knot on the back of my head, the explanation that I had slipped in the shower and bonked myself on the tile wall seemed to do the trick.
Nobody suspects that all of that is pure bullshit.
Only Shiloh knows what really happened when I disappeared, and as far as I’m concerned, the actual events of that day will follow us to our graves.
Oakley knows some things, but at Shiloh’s insistence he was kept away from the more gruesome details.
After Sidney was good and dead, Shiloh and I did a thorough cleaning of the abandoned house he’d set up shop in.
We removed everything we possibly could, bleaching down the concrete floors, packing up the entire corkboard of momentos, and carrying his body out to the nearby water.
I moved like a zombie under Shiloh’s direction, making sure that no trace of our presence could be found.
He stood by, clutching his side as I weighed Sidney down with the heaviest stones I could find and shoved him into the water.
Then we traveled to Kyle’s place and repeated the gruesome tasks, with a few minor differences.
Dispatching a body when said body didn’t live close to the water was a challenge, but in the end we made it there.
We managed to wrap him up tightly in garbage bags to transport him, taking care to weigh him down with heavy bricks from a stack we found in his back yard.
Not a single drop of Kyle ended up in my Jeep either, which is really impressive if you ask me, given the volume of blood left behind by Shiloh’s knife.
His disappearance has been noted, but the press caught wind of the odd shrine to Oakley and the creepy room the police found in his house, and that’s taken the bulk of the attention.
Oakley was briefly questioned, but managed to feign ignorance with his high-priced lawyer at his side.
The truth of it is that it’s hard to miss a monster like Kyle Penton, and I’d be surprised if anyone really does.
“The pictures,” Coach Bob comments with a friendly smile.
Yeah. The pictures. I sigh as I nod.
It isn’t the way I want to come out, but I suppose it can’t be helped.
It’s not like I can take back my actions, and I’m not sure I’d even want to if I could.
Our love story may have a bodycount now, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to add Shiloh to the tally of corpses left in our wake, so I insisted he let me take him to the hospital.
Though he kept insisting that he’d be fine, I knew what I’d seen hidden beneath the folds of his hoodie, and I knew he needed stitches.
He was pissed off as all hell when he closed his eyes briefly in the Jeep and woke up in the emergency department of the hospital, but I’m still glad I did it.
I’m glad I took him for stitches.
And I’m happy he let me hold his hand while he was being sutured, even though he scowled at me the whole time we were there.
I’m even content that when I leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead, a staff member snapped a pic and uploaded it to social media.
It didn’t quite go viral, but it was seen enough that the rumor mill has started churning.
I’ve avoided social media, and when my teammates have asked, I’ve either brushed it off or refused to answer.
I needed to come to the conclusion on my own that now is the right time for this to happen.
But now, I’m here.
To put this thing to rest once and for all.
To claim Shiloh as mine and love him out loud, regardless of what the response may be.
“How?” the man I don’t know at the end of the table says, offering me a small smile. “I mean, how would you like to do this? Press release? Social media post for Pride month? I guess… when, would also be good to know.”
“Have we met?” I ask, a bit confused.
“Oh!” he exclaims, offering a dazzling smile. “Walker Hyland. Brand new to the zoo. I handle publicity for the Snakes.”
Publicist, huh? I didn’t know we even had one of those, but Coach Bob, Sean, and Krystal all seem to know who this horribly young-looking man is.
I smile and nod, but I don’t have any answers for him.
I haven’t really thought that far ahead.
I know it’s important that I tell my truth, but the timing and the way the information is shared is beyond what I’ve considered.
Shit, just sitting in this room and saying it to these people is enough to make me nearly throw up.
Walker looks at me expectantly and I open my mouth to speak, but Krystal’s phone starts ringing.
She offers an apologetic look to the table before taking her phone out of her pocket and turning the ringer off.
She sets it on the table, but as soon as the first call ends, her phone starts jittering and shaking like she’s either getting another call or a bunch of notifications all at once.
“Do you wanna get that?” I ask, gesturing to her phone. “It may be important.”
Her cheeks burn a bit red, but she snatches the phone off the table as we patiently wait for her to return to the discussion on how to handle my coming out.
“Donovan, I’m not going to lie,” Sean says, offering a wary smile my way. “I’m happy for you, but the NHL is a beast, and this may cost you a roster spot. Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Did you plan this?” Krystal asks, the moment Sean stops talking.
She holds up her phone, her face pale but her eyes sparkling like she’s uncovered something juicy.
My mouth drops open as I catch the image of Oakley on the screen, a rainbow flag draped over his bare shoulders and a New York Eagles hat on his head.
Holy shit.
I told him earlier that I was going to come out, but I was worried about everything.
He talked me down, reminding me that all it takes is one person stepping out of the closet for more to follow their lead.
I should have guessed this idea was what had started banging around in that wild brain of his in that moment.
“What’s going on?” Walker asks, craning his neck to see what I can see.
“Oakley Keddimore just came out on Instagram. He’s gay.”