Cross Ice (Breakaway Plays #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Nico

Steam from the shower still clung to my bathroom mirror. Through the condensation, the tattoo on my left pec was barely visible, but I knew the words by heart. Five years ago, when I’d signed my first big contract with the San Jose Lasers, I’d had them inked there.

One life to live. One life to love.

Everyone thought it was about hockey—living without regrets, playing every shift like it was my last. Which was true enough. But the tattoo meant something else too, something I’d never admitted out loud.

My phone sat on the counter, its screen still lit with the Instagram post I’d been reading obsessively for three days. Marco Morelli and étienne Savard, of the Colorado Glaciers. Both of them together, smiling at the camera cheek to cheek. The hashtag was simple: #lovewins

Scrolling through the comments again, I found thousands of them. Mostly supportive. Some hateful, but fuck those people.

Griffin Lapierre had come out first, back in October. That had been huge; the first active NHL player to do so. Brave as hell. One player against the entire hockey world, and he’d done it.

But Morelli and Savard? Something about that finally clicked for me in a way Lapierre’s coming out hadn’t.

Maybe knowing there were more queer players in pro hockey than just Lapierre made the difference. Maybe I realized that if Morelli and Savard could survive being on the same team, in the locker room together every day, then I could handle being out in my own city.

Or maybe I was just tired of hiding.

My reflection wavered in the steam-covered mirror, there but not quite clear. Like everything else about me. Thirty years old. Elite power forward. First line. Excellent contract. Endorsements. Everything I’d worked for my entire life.

Everything except actually living any of it as myself.

Road trips had always been my solution. Different cities meant apps, hookups with guys who didn’t know who I was. Never in San Jose. Never where it could get back to the team, to my family, to the media. Closeted throughout my entire career—juniors, college, every single day in the NHL.

My parents didn’t know. Miguel, my brother, didn’t know, and he was in the league too, playing for Vancouver.

We’d grown up breathing hockey together.

Hockey was our language, our bond, our entire world.

How was I supposed to tell him I was gay when that world had taught us both that gay meant weak, meant other, meant not one of us?

One life to live. One life to love.

“Fuck it,” I said to my empty bathroom.

Friday night, just after the New Year. No game until Saturday night. The evening stretched ahead of me, and I was done wasting them.

A gay club. Here, in San Jose. Not as Nicolás Briggs, NHL player with seven hundred and fifty thousand social media followers and a Wikipedia page. Just as Nico, the man who’d been hiding in plain sight for fourteen years.

The decision settled over me, terrifying and liberating at the same time. My mind immediately started spinning. What if someone recognizes me? What if this ruins everything? What if—

No. For once, I was choosing one thing deeply instead of keeping all my options open. Even if it scared the shit out of me.

André Cloutier, my best friend and team captain, got a text.

Nico

Hey man, gonna have to bail on beers tonight. Something came up.

His response came back almost immediately.

André

Everything okay?

Nico

Yeah, all good. Just need to handle something. Rain check?

André

You got it. See you at practice tomorrow.

Guilt twinged in my chest—we’d been planning this for a week—but I shoved it aside. Losing my nerve wasn’t an option.

After drying off, I pulled on dark jeans and a white T-shirt.

Nothing fancy. Brushed my teeth, checked myself in the mirror one more time.

The clothes were anonymous enough, but my frame wasn’t—shoulders too broad, neck too thick, the build you got from eight years of professional contact sports.

I looked like a hockey player trying not to look like a hockey player. It would have to be good enough.

The black leather aviator jacket I grabbed on the way out was the one I’d bought in Vancouver last winter. Not flashy, but mine. It was a risk—stood out more than the plain T-shirt—but I wanted something that felt like me. Just Nico. Someone who didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought.

Someone who was finally, finally, going to live.

Twenty minutes in the car downtown, every second alternating between excitement and pure terror. Sweat slicked my palms on the steering wheel. My heart raced like I was about to take the ice for a playoff game.

Recognition was the risk. One fan seeing me walk into a gay club, one social media post, and everything could implode. I knew what that cost. Had paid it once already, in a way I didn’t let myself think about too often. This could be the stupidest decision I’d ever made.

But then Morelli and Savard’s photo filled my mind again. The way they smiled. The way they weren’t hiding.

Two blocks from the club, I parked in a garage and walked the rest of the way. Vivid Colors sat tucked between a craft brewery and a vintage clothing store. Popular, mixed crowd, good reviews, a place where I could blend in. Or at least I hoped.

A simple rainbow flag and a bouncer checking IDs marked the entrance. Handing mine over, I tried to look casual, like this was something I did all the time.

The bouncer glanced at it, then at me. His eyebrows went up. “Nicolás Briggs?”

My stomach dropped. “Yeah.”

“My boyfriend’s a huge Lasers fan.” He handed my ID back with a grin. “Have a good night, man.”

“Thanks.” I was through the door before he could say anything else.

Sound and light hit me like a physical wall.

Colored lights pulsed in time with a deep, throbbing bass that I felt in my gut.

Strobe lights flashed across the dance floor where dozens of people moved together, bodies pressed close.

Men kissing men. Couples grinding against each other without shame, without fear.

Nothing like anything I’d ever seen.

Plenty of bars, plenty of clubs in my past, but this was different. Here, everyone was just… themselves.

For the first time in years, I could breathe.

Squeezing through the crowd to the bar, I ordered a beer. The bartender, a guy with bleached blond hair and a nose ring, didn’t give me a second glance. Just handed me the glass and moved on to the next customer.

Anonymous. Just another guy in a gay club on a Friday night.

Perfect.

A spot against the wall gave me a view of the crowd. The energy was incredible—people laughing, dancing, living without apology. Beer in hand, I let myself just… enjoy being here.

This was what I’d been missing.

Then I saw him.

Tall, handsome, with styled brown hair. Standing near the bar, talking to a shorter, dark-haired man.

The shorter man checked his phone, said something, and then walked away.

Left alone, the taller man held his drink with both hands, shoulders slightly hunched.

He scanned the crowd like he was looking for an escape route, tension visible in the set of his jaw. Uncomfortable. Like he wanted to bolt.

But he was attractive in a way that wasn’t flashy.

Not an athlete—I could tell from the way he stood, the way he held himself.

An untucked band-collar shirt skimmed over the lean muscles of his chest, paired with a blazer like he’d come from work or dinner somewhere nice.

Caramel highlights in his hair caught the strobing lights as his gaze roamed the dance floor.

Then his gaze landed on me.

The jolt of it, the connection, hit even from across the room.

Neither of us looked away.

Pushing off the wall, I walked toward him. My heart pounded again, but for an entirely different reason now. This was what I’d come here for. Not just to be in a gay club, but to actually do something about it.

To talk to a guy I was attracted to.

He watched me approach, expression unreadable but not unwelcoming. Up close, he was even more attractive—light scruff, blue eyes that looked almost gray under the colored lights, an inch or two shorter than me, leaner build. He looked out of place, like someone who didn’t come to gay clubs often.

“Hey,” I said, pitching my voice loud enough to be heard over the music. “I’m Nico.”

He looked at me for a moment, assessing. Weighing something. Probably the same thing I’d weighed when I’d decided to walk over here. Risk versus reward. Safety versus possibility.

“Evan,” he said finally. His mouth formed the word carefully, and he held eye contact when he said it.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I have one.” He lifted his glass—something clear with lime.

“Then can I keep you company while you drink it?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “Sure.”

We moved away from the crush at the bar to a spot where we could hear each other better. The music was still loud, the lights still pulsing, but we’d created a small pocket of space just for us.

“First time here?” Evan asked, eyes sharp, like he could see right through me.

Aiming for charming, I hoped I landed somewhere close. “Is it that obvious?”

“Little bit.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You have that ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but I’m going to pretend I know’ look.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “That accurate, huh?”

“Pretty accurate.”

“What about you? You come here a lot?”

A shrug. “Occasionally. I’m more of a quiet-coffee-shop-with-a-book kind of guy. My friend dragged me out tonight and then abandoned me.”

“Terrible friend.”

“The worst,” he agreed, but that careful smile appeared again.

We leaned closer to hear each other over the pulsing music.

“So, what do you do?” I asked.

“Consultant.” A sip of his drink.

Waiting for him to elaborate seemed futile when he clearly wasn’t going to.

“That’s… vague,” I said, grinning.